In, congrats Ben!

Tempting, but I think that all the leagues except #6 are just gonna end up with pretty much the same top players. I think 4 and 5 will be too much alike except the teams will be able to afford more really good players each. I don't like that the only era specific league is from the last 2 NBA seasons. Speaking of that, shouldn't that league be 4 or 5. The #3 league will look to start in like May and the 2025-2026 season just comes on the site around then. I'd move it to #4 to be safe.

Posted by savoybg on 1/1/2026 2:53:00 AM (view original):
Tempting, but I think that all the leagues except #6 are just gonna end up with pretty much the same top players. I think 4 and 5 will be too much alike except the teams will be able to afford more really good players each. I don't like that the only era specific league is from the last 2 NBA seasons. Speaking of that, shouldn't that league be 4 or 5. The #3 league will look to start in like May and the 2025-2026 season just comes on the site around then. I'd move it to #4 to be safe.

This will be the 4th BOWIS. There are some tweaks we will be making based on how the last three seasons have gone and this page will be updated late tomorrow night after we have made those changes.

BOWIS tries to encapsulate which users can be successful under different constraints. Can you win with a high cap? Can you win with a low cap? Can you win with a brand new data set? Can you win if all the good players are banned? So far, it has proven very difficult for users to win at all 6 leagues, and it has been a very challenging and rewarding tournament.

Your criticisms have mostly been incorrect through three seasons. The timing of league 3 works perfectly for the draft to happen right after the season drop and the league to start once all-defensive changes have been made. 4 and 5 are incredibly different. If you treat them the same, you will be lucky to win 20 games. Leagues 1 and 2 will be brand new leagues so you don't really have any idea how those will go.

Posted by benhoidal on 1/1/2026 9:50:00 AM (view original):

Posted by savoybg on 1/1/2026 2:53:00 AM (view original):
Tempting, but I think that all the leagues except #6 are just gonna end up with pretty much the same top players. I think 4 and 5 will be too much alike except the teams will be able to afford more really good players each. I don't like that the only era specific league is from the last 2 NBA seasons. Speaking of that, shouldn't that league be 4 or 5. The #3 league will look to start in like May and the 2025-2026 season just comes on the site around then. I'd move it to #4 to be safe.

This will be the 4th BOWIS. There are some tweaks we will be making based on how the last three seasons have gone and this page will be updated late tomorrow night after we have made those changes.

BOWIS tries to encapsulate which users can be successful under different constraints. Can you win with a high cap? Can you win with a low cap? Can you win with a brand new data set? Can you win if all the good players are banned? So far, it has proven very difficult for users to win at all 6 leagues, and it has been a very challenging and rewarding tournament.

Your criticisms have mostly been incorrect through three seasons. The timing of league 3 works perfectly for the draft to happen right after the season drop and the league to start once all-defensive changes have been made. 4 and 5 are incredibly different. If you treat them the same, you will be lucky to win 20 games. Leagues 1 and 2 will be brand new leagues so you don't really have any idea how those will go.

Can you post a link to the banned league from 2025?

I'd like to see what players ended up being used. It seems to me that ABBABB would be too rough on the guys with the top picks as there are no really great superstars for them to pick with the first 10 picks or so.

When you say that 4 and 5 are incredibly different, I don't see how the first 2 rounds of picks will vary much between the 2 leagues. People are still gonna be picking Jordan, Curry, LeBron, Wilt, and the usual suspects in the first round, no? They will just have to settle for a much weaker bench and somewhat weaker starters after the first 2 or 3 picks.

The baseball game I play has a Masters Tournament every year where they use all different themes like this, but they are much more varied. There are also well over 100 entries each year which are broken down into multiple leagues consisting of 12 teams. The first round last year was only 19th century players. They had a later round where you had to pay your players in a specific order by position, like the 1Bman had to have the highest salary, the LFer the second highest salary, the 3Bman the third highest salary, etc down the line. IMO the themes get too carried away.

I like the general idea of the tournament, but this year's lineup of themes doesn't excite me.

Has the theme for the first league been decided already?

Posted by savoybg on 1/1/2026 10:44:00 AM (view original):
Has the theme for the first league been decided already?

The current BOWIS is still open and we don’t have a champion yet. I’m the front runner somehow, and if I end up winning, I’ll likely go with an auction draft (like a fantasy basketball auction)

Posted by savoybg on 1/1/2026 10:43:00 AM (view original):

Posted by benhoidal on 1/1/2026 9:50:00 AM (view original):

Posted by savoybg on 1/1/2026 2:53:00 AM (view original):
Tempting, but I think that all the leagues except #6 are just gonna end up with pretty much the same top players. I think 4 and 5 will be too much alike except the teams will be able to afford more really good players each. I don't like that the only era specific league is from the last 2 NBA seasons. Speaking of that, shouldn't that league be 4 or 5. The #3 league will look to start in like May and the 2025-2026 season just comes on the site around then. I'd move it to #4 to be safe.

This will be the 4th BOWIS. There are some tweaks we will be making based on how the last three seasons have gone and this page will be updated late tomorrow night after we have made those changes.

BOWIS tries to encapsulate which users can be successful under different constraints. Can you win with a high cap? Can you win with a low cap? Can you win with a brand new data set? Can you win if all the good players are banned? So far, it has proven very difficult for users to win at all 6 leagues, and it has been a very challenging and rewarding tournament.

Your criticisms have mostly been incorrect through three seasons. The timing of league 3 works perfectly for the draft to happen right after the season drop and the league to start once all-defensive changes have been made. 4 and 5 are incredibly different. If you treat them the same, you will be lucky to win 20 games. Leagues 1 and 2 will be brand new leagues so you don't really have any idea how those will go.

Can you post a link to the banned league from 2025?

I'd like to see what players ended up being used. It seems to me that ABBABB would be too rough on the guys with the top picks as there are no really great superstars for them to pick with the first 10 picks or so.

When you say that 4 and 5 are incredibly different, I don't see how the first 2 rounds of picks will vary much between the 2 leagues. People are still gonna be picking Jordan, Curry, LeBron, Wilt, and the usual suspects in the first round, no? They will just have to settle for a much weaker bench and somewhat weaker starters after the first 2 or 3 picks.

The baseball game I play has a Masters Tournament every year where they use all different themes like this, but they are much more varied. There are also well over 100 entries each year which are broken down into multiple leagues consisting of 12 teams. The first round last year was only 19th century players. They had a later round where you had to pay your players in a specific order by position, like the 1Bman had to have the highest salary, the LFer the second highest salary, the 3Bman the third highest salary, etc down the line. IMO the themes get too carried away.

I like the general idea of the tournament, but this year's lineup of themes doesn't excite me.

The banned league is just a few threads down in the theme leagues forum. The playoffs are going right now. The first few picks are actually a pretty decent advantage. Usually just a few really good players fall through the cracks of the 55 and 45.

The 55 is pretty chalk, but the 45 gets crazy. Wilt is pretty much a death sentence. Players who have never been drafted in other drafts pretty routinely go in the 5th and 6th rounds.

There is a league wide discussion happening tomorrow night to decide the lineup for next year. The 55,45, and 50 banned are probably going to stay. We will probably do something with the new season drops. But the other two leagues are pretty open.

It’s looking like an auction league is likely for the wild card which should be new and fun. The 6th league will probably come down to a league vote from a pool of 4-6 leagues.

Posted by dBKC on 1/1/2026 11:22:00 AM (view original):

Posted by savoybg on 1/1/2026 10:44:00 AM (view original):
Has the theme for the first league been decided already?

The current BOWIS is still open and we don’t have a champion yet. I’m the front runner somehow, and if I end up winning, I’ll likely go with an auction draft (like a fantasy basketball auction)

I don't like the auction idea at all. If it was me I'd go with something like you can't draft any player that has any season with a salary of $7M or higher. So only players whose highest salaried season is less than $7M are eligible. That way the stars of the league will be a bunch of new names who normally never see the leader boards. With the auction you'll end up with the same star players that will be in most of the other leagues. And most of the players will come from more modern times. They will just be divied up a different way, which by the way, takes a lot of time to do.

Don't you guys get tired of LeBron, Curry, Jordan, Stockton, Malone, David, Hakeem, Shaq, Pippen, Rodman, Wilt, Kareem, Bird, Dr. J, CP3, Garnett, Durant, Duncan and Jokic always being picked in the first round or so?

Posted by savoybg on 1/1/2026 5:48:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dBKC on 1/1/2026 11:22:00 AM (view original):

Posted by savoybg on 1/1/2026 10:44:00 AM (view original):
Has the theme for the first league been decided already?

The current BOWIS is still open and we don’t have a champion yet. I’m the front runner somehow, and if I end up winning, I’ll likely go with an auction draft (like a fantasy basketball auction)

I don't like the auction idea at all. If it was me I'd go with something like you can't draft any player that has any season with a salary of $7M or higher. So only players whose highest salaried season is less than $7M are eligible. That way the stars of the league will be a bunch of new names who normally never see the leader boards. With the auction you'll end up with the same star players that will be in most of the other leagues. And most of the players will come from more modern times. They will just be divied up a different way, which by the way, takes a lot of time to do.

Don't you guys get tired of LeBron, Curry, Jordan, Stockton, Malone, David, Hakeem, Shaq, Pippen, Rodman, Wilt, Kareem, Bird, Dr. J, CP3, Garnett, Durant, Duncan and Jokic always being picked in the first round or so?

Kinda sounds like the $45M is exactly what you’re looking for. Some of those guys get drafted very late or not at all, and almost all salaries are below $7M.

The whole point though is to have 6 very different leagues. We’ve mostly achieved that. It’s a tournament to see who’s the best. If that’s your thing, feel free to join. If not, good luck with other things. If you’d like to see the finalized league list, it should be updated late tomorrow night or early Saturday.

Posted by savoybg on 1/1/2026 5:48:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dBKC on 1/1/2026 11:22:00 AM (view original):

Posted by savoybg on 1/1/2026 10:44:00 AM (view original):
Has the theme for the first league been decided already?

The current BOWIS is still open and we don’t have a champion yet. I’m the front runner somehow, and if I end up winning, I’ll likely go with an auction draft (like a fantasy basketball auction)

I don't like the auction idea at all. If it was me I'd go with something like you can't draft any player that has any season with a salary of $7M or higher. So only players whose highest salaried season is less than $7M are eligible. That way the stars of the league will be a bunch of new names who normally never see the leader boards. With the auction you'll end up with the same star players that will be in most of the other leagues. And most of the players will come from more modern times. They will just be divied up a different way, which by the way, takes a lot of time to do.

Don't you guys get tired of LeBron, Curry, Jordan, Stockton, Malone, David, Hakeem, Shaq, Pippen, Rodman, Wilt, Kareem, Bird, Dr. J, CP3, Garnett, Durant, Duncan and Jokic always being picked in the first round or so?

If you win, you can make us all play whatever you’d like next year.

Posted by dBKC on 1/1/2026 6:08:00 PM (view original):

Posted by savoybg on 1/1/2026 5:48:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dBKC on 1/1/2026 11:22:00 AM (view original):

Posted by savoybg on 1/1/2026 10:44:00 AM (view original):
Has the theme for the first league been decided already?

The current BOWIS is still open and we don’t have a champion yet. I’m the front runner somehow, and if I end up winning, I’ll likely go with an auction draft (like a fantasy basketball auction)

I don't like the auction idea at all. If it was me I'd go with something like you can't draft any player that has any season with a salary of $7M or higher. So only players whose highest salaried season is less than $7M are eligible. That way the stars of the league will be a bunch of new names who normally never see the leader boards. With the auction you'll end up with the same star players that will be in most of the other leagues. And most of the players will come from more modern times. They will just be divied up a different way, which by the way, takes a lot of time to do.

Don't you guys get tired of LeBron, Curry, Jordan, Stockton, Malone, David, Hakeem, Shaq, Pippen, Rodman, Wilt, Kareem, Bird, Dr. J, CP3, Garnett, Durant, Duncan and Jokic always being picked in the first round or so?

If you win, you can make us all play whatever you’d like next year.

I've never even gotten to the finals in any league yet, just 2 trips to the conference finals so far, losing both times. So the chances of me winning this tournament are very close to 0. With 24 teams even if all of the 24 owners had the exact same skill at the game I would only have a 4.17% chance of winning the tournament.

I'll play

x

x

x