1. ORGANIZATION OF THE LEAGUE
   1. The Strat-O-Matic Internet Basketball Association (SOMIBA) consists of 24 teams from a pool of all current NBA players.
   2. Each league member should have a reliable Internet e-mail account, should check for messages every few days during the season and pre- season and every day or two near deadlines, and must have the time and the desire (and a computer) to create all gameplans for away games and play all home games in the scheduled time frames.
   3. In addition to the teams owned by live coaches, the league will consist of a number of unowned teams (hereafter referred to as dummy teams) which do not actually play games. Dummy teams simply serve as a holding tank for unowned players in the league so that the live teams will not be too all-star laden and so that new league members will have a reasonable pool of talent from which they may draft new teams.
      1. The number of dummy teams is determined by subtracting the number of owners in the league from 24.
      2. The dummy teams are added to by the commissioner during the rookie/free-agent draft and redrafted each year during the expansion draft.
      3. Players un-owned either by live owners or dummy teams will be placed in the free-agent pool.
   4. Divisions.
      1. The league will consist of a number of divisions determined just prior to the season.
      2. Divisions are purely for organizational purposes and do not affect schedules or the playoff bracket.
   5. There are several league officers which as a group form the Executive Committee.
      1. The duties of the Executive Committee include assisting the Commissioner with:
         1. Supervising all league play in general,
         2. Providing final authority on rules interpretation,
         3. Conducting the draft,
         4. Creating and distributing the schedule,
         5. Creating, distributing, and maintaining the rosters,
         6. Keeping and distributing league statistics and standings, and
         7. Judging the validity of trades.
      2. The Commissioner each year will choose the Executive Committee.
   6. Retention of players from year to year:
      1. Live teams that made the playoffs in the previous season may retain up to but not more than 10 of their players; the cut deadline for this is a few days before the rookie/free-agent draft. This number is 11 for all other teams.
      2. All players not retained are put into the free-agent pool for the subsequent rookie/free-agent draft.
      3. Each year a week-or-so before the rookie/free-agent draft an expansion draft will be held for new league members. If there are no new league members for that year then only dummy teams will participate in the expansion draft.
      4. Only players who played in the NBA the previous year are eligible to be drafted in any draft. Players who did not play in the NBA the previous year may, however, be kept on a roster if already there.
      5. There are no free-agent pickups except for the rookie/free-agent draft unless deemed necessary by the Executive Committee for a particular case. Before the season begins each live team must make certain that they have enough players with games and minutes available at each position to cover the entire season - the Commissioner will assist with the calculation of what's needed and will make recommendations as appropriate. In addition, any trades made after the season begins must take into account seasonal games and minutes required. If any coach exceeds or violates minutes and/or games limits then he or she will be subject to penalties including, but not limited to, reduction of minutes and/or games eligible for players the following year.
      6. Each team will have single reserve roster spot, that can only be filled prior to cuts each season. Any player who was not on an NBA roster at any point during the previous regular season is eligible to fill that spot. A player can remain on the list until the first season he is eligible for drafting and can be removed from the list while still ineligible to be replaced. He cannot be traded while on the list.
   7. Each member of the league will choose a city/area and nickname for his team. Coaches are not limited to actual NBA cities or nicknames when naming their teams; however, team names must be approved by the Commissioner and must be appropriate to good taste.
   8. Each coach is expected to send gameplans to the Commissioner, play games, and send game results to opposing coaches and to the Commissioner on or before the schedule times. There are approximately 10 away games and 10 away games in each quarter of the season and each quarter lasts approximately 5 weeks.
   9. If any player violates deadlines repeatedly, the Executive Committee may impose additional penalties including expulsion from the league. In any case, the Executive Committee will try to do this case-by-case in a fair and impartial manner with advice from the league as a whole. Cheating and other unethical activities will not at all be tolerated.
   10. A coach is considered to have failed to fulfill the requirements of being in the league if he or she:
       1. Does not send a legal gameplan by the deadline; or
       2. Does not play and send to the Commissioner a home game result by the deadline (the only exception to this is if the coach sends before the deadline to the Commissioner a home gameplan for the game to be autoplayed);

       Each occurrence of the above counts equally, though if absolutely no- one, including the Commissioner, is (by their own definition) inconvenienced then there is no occurrence. A coach with "too many" occurrences will probably not be invited back into the league the following year. Each case will be handled on an individual basis by the Executive Committee, heavily depending upon the pre-occurrence communication level of the league member regarding the occurrences in question. The goal here is for zero occurrences to minimize inconvenience to the rest of the league. While it's no fun to take a hard line against slightly flaky coaches, it's less fun for the rest of us to put up with the trouble of making extra gameplans and wondering about the league as a whole.

       Of course we all have "real" lives (yuck) which may sometimes supersede our league commitments. Please have the courtesy to communicate with the Commissioner regarding any situations which may interfere with your league commitments. Failure to communicate beforehand will not be looked on favorably regarding league membership in future years. If something comes up please as soon as possible simply e-mail or phone the Commissioner (or better yet the entire league) what league commitments you will not be able to fulfill and when you will be available for further communication. For example, "Hey everyone, I just found out that I'm going out of town for a week and won't be able to play games xxxxxxx [list of unplayed games] by the coming deadline; I'll be back on 12/16 but until then I'll be out of e-mail range." Situations can be handled much more easily if we know about them beforehand with a communication like that.

       The Commissioner will provide a home phone number (650-968-0352) with voice mail at which he can be reached within less than a day. It is the responsibility of the sending coach to make sure that the Commissioner receives whatever is needed as the Commissioner will respond to all substantive e-mails with "received" or "not received" as appropriate.

   11. At any time any player may ask for and will receive free and open advice from the Commissioner (and most any other league member) on any SOMIBA-related issue including how to read this Constitution(!).
2. DRAFT
   1. Expansion draft.
      1. When new teams are added to the league before each new season (after the new SOM team disk), an expansion draft will be conducted by the Commissioner live in an Internet chatroom.
      2. All of the players in the pool of dummy teams will be released to the expansion pool before the expansion draft.
      3. The number of dummy teams will be set at 24 minus the number of current live coaches (including all new coaches).
      4. The new live coaches will draft their teams from the above- mentioned expansion pool.
      5. They will draft against the dummy teams, who will be drafted for by the Commissioner or another Executive Committee member.
      6. The draft will proceed with live coaches drafting in serpentine format and dummies drafting at the end of every round. For example, if there are 4 new teams and 6 dummy teams, the 4 new teams will each draft one player, the 6 dummy teams will each draft one player, the 4 new teams will each draft another player (in reverse order of the first round), the dummy teams will each draft another player, and so on.
      7. If there is only one new league member then one of the dummy teams will be considered as a live team (and not as a dummy team) for purposes of the expansion draft order. This dummy team will, however, still be drafted by a league official. In this way the one new league member will only have a 50% chance of getting the first pick of the expansion draft (the one dummy team may get the first pick).
      8. There will be 10 rounds; each team will draft 10 players. The remaining un-drafted players will go into the rookie/free-agent pool.
   2. Rookie/free-agent draft.
      1. The yearly rookie/free-agent draft will begin on the Saturday just before the beginning of the NBA season. A few days before the rookie/free-agent each playoff team will cut their roster down to 10 (or fewer) players, and all others 11 (or fewer), with all cut players eligible in the rookie/free-agent draft.
      2. New and returning league members and each dummy team will participate. Each team will draft a number of players necessary to fill their team to somewhere between the roster minimum size of 15 and maximum of 18. After the draft there will be a brief opportunity to pick up still un-drafted players - each coach desiring this option after the draft will send to the Commissioner a list of desired players with a list of cuts ("if I get player Smith then I'll cut player Johnson") and the Commissioner will hold a supplemental draft a day or two after then end of the rookie/free-agent draft.
      3. The draft will be live in an Internet chatroom. Coaches who will be unavailable during significant sections of the draft should e-mail the Commissioner a list of draft choices.
      4. The draft order will follow these rules and procedures:
         1. The order of the top three picks in the first round will be determined by lottery, as in the NBA and for the same reasons. The lottery will be executed as follows:
            1. In the following, the returning coach with the worst record from the previous year is labeled W. The returning coach with the 2nd to worst record is labeled 2W. The returning coach with the 3rd to worst record is labeled 3W. A returning coach who made the playoffs last year may not participate in this lottery. This lottery which may be performed any time after the end of the previous regular season does not become official until the pre-season before the draft when coaches have made a declaration that they will be returning.
            2. The Commissioner will use a random method to determine the draft order. There will be six equally likely possibilities, shown in the grid below:
               (1) W, 2W, 3W
               (2) W, 2W, 3W
               (3) W, 3W, 2W
               (4) 2W, W, 3W
               (5) 2W, 3W, W
               (6) 3W, W, 2W
               
         2. Tie-breakers for draft picks will be determined randomly. However, if a tie-breaker was used for playoff positioning then that same tie-breaker result will apply for draft choice positioning - in other words, the team determined by tie-breaker to be a higher seed will get the lower draft pick in the first round. Teams with the same record will alternate drafting position in even-numbered rounds.
         3. New league members will be placed in the draft order after the teams that did not make the playoffs and before the teams that made the playoffs, in reverse order of the way they drafted in the first round of the expansion draft. This order will be reversed each round.
         4. The SOMIBA champion from the previous year will draft last while the SOMIBA runner-up will draft second-to-last of returning teams.
         5. Dummy team picks will be placed in each round between the picks of new teams and the picks of playoff teams, in reverse order of the way they drafted in the first round of the expansion draft. Their order will be reversed each round.
         6. There may be cases where a coach owns the draft pick of a team from last year which is not returning in the current year, in this case the draft pick is placed as if that team were returning (so that the round with that draft pick in it will have one more "team" for the purposes of the chart below); similarly, there may be rounds where there are fewer "teams" than teams in the league.
3. ROSTERS
   1. For any one game, teams must have no more than 13 players set as eligible.
   2. Injuries will not be used, though a player is limited to his actual number of NBA minutes (adjusted by 10% upward for players with 750+ minutes and 5% for others) and games played during the season. See the roster file for eligible player games and minutes. If the Executive Committee has further limited a player's games or minutes this will be indicated on the roster file.
   3. All teams must maintain at least 20,000 minutes on their roster.
   4. Trading:
      1. Trading is allowed with the following restrictions:
         1. All coaches involved in a trade must send an e-mail to the Commissioner stating the exact terms of the trade, with no conditions withheld or secret.
         2. New coaches in their first season of participation with their own team may not trade the player taken in the 1st round of the expansion draft nor may they trade the next season's 1st round rookie/free-agent draft pick.
         3. When considering a trade proposal it is in each coach's best interests to seek advice from other league members regarding the deal. A coach who fails to do this is more-likely-than-not doing his team and possibly the league a disservice.
         4. Trades may only consist of exact and spelled-out combinations of players and draft choices. No money or unspecified exchanges for trade value may take place. Only draft choices of the next occurring rookie/free-agent draft are eligible to be traded.
         5. Trades will be reviewed as detailed later in this Constitution.
         6. Trading may only occur between the official announced beginning of the pre-season and a few days before the beginning of the regular season AND during the two-or-so days of each of the season's first two session breaks. No pre-season trade becomes official until all parties involved in the trade are committed to playing in the league for the current season. Trades may be "agreed to" at any other time; however, if one of the players in a trade suffers a serious injury (for example) before the trade is allowed to be made or if a player's card is not nearly as good as it was expected to be it is unreasonable to believe that the coach receiving that player will still want to make the trade.
4. PLAY
   1. Logistics:
      1. A league timetable of due dates and deadlines will be provided by the Commissioner.
         1. The regular season will consist of 82 games, 41 at home and 41 away and will be split into 4 sessions with approximately 10 home and 10 away games per session.
         2. Each session will last approximately five or six weeks.
         3. For each game the home coach will either receive from the away coach a gameplan for the game or the game will be played face-to- face if desired by both coaches. After a coach has finished creating each away gameplan for a particular quarter of the season that coach should then zip up those gameplans into one file and e- mail that file to the Commissioner before the gameplan deadline. The Commissioner will then post this to the league website. If a coach has not received a particular gameplan for a home game then that coach may e-mail the Commissioner requesting the gameplan; if the Commmissioner has not received that gameplan then he will e-mail the away team requesting that gameplan and if still not received after another day or two the Commissioner will create a gameplan for the away coach and send it to the home coach; the away coach will receive at least a warning for not sending gameplans in time and not responding to the Commissioner's reminder e-mail.
         4. The deadlines for sending away gameplans will be approximately three weeks before the deadline for sending home game results to the Commissioner. If the game is scheduled for face-to-face but the coaches end up not getting together for the game it is the responsibility of the away coach to make sure the home coach and the Commissioner receive a gameplan in time for the game to be played and also the responsibility of the home coach to make sure the game is played. If the home coach does end up sending to the Commissioner the game result file before the deadline and no-one is (by their own definition) inconvenienced then there is no occurrence of a problem.
      2. Approximately three days before each game result deadline the Commissioner will e-mail the entire league with a list of game results he has not yet received. If the game result (including gfl and prt file) is not received by the game result deadline then at the Commissioner's next opportunity if the game result is still not received the Commissioner will use the away gameplan he has already received for that game and he will autoplay the game using a "default gameplan" (created by setting the eligible players, setting all defensive coach profiles to zero, and letting the computer suggest the lineup) for coaches who have not sent to him a gameplan for that game. Please play games on time -- it's enough effort being Commissioner without having to set up extra gameplans and autoplay extra games.
      3. The playoffs:
         1. The playoffs consists of half of the teams in the league, as long as they finished with 42 or more wins and are not unowned.
         2. The teams with the best records will make the playoffs regardless of division.
         3. In the playoff seeding charts below, the team with the best record will be "1," the team with the second best record will be "2," and so on.
         4. A tie for the final playoff spot will be resolved by a one-game playoff with the following tie-breakers determining the home team:
            1. Head-to-head winning percentage.
            2. Coin toss.
         5. No team will be excluded from making the playoffs and no team will be assured of making the playoffs due to a tie-breaker involving no additional game(s). If multiple pre-playoff rounds are needed to resolve three or more teams: if there is one playoff spot available then team 3 will play team 2 with the winner playing team 1 and the winner of that taking the spot; if there are two playoff spots available then team 1 will play team 2 with the loser playing team 3 and the loser of that missing out on the playoffs; if there are four teams then a single-elimination-type tourney will be held. There will be no games played limits in pre-playoff games.
         6. Playoff matchups are determined as follows:
            1. For four teams: 1 plays 4 and 2 plays 3
            2. For five teams: 4 plays 5, in the second round 1 plays the winner of 4 and 5 while 2 plays 3
            3. For six teams: 3 plays 6 and 4 plays 5, in the second round 1 plays the lower-ranked winner while 2 plays the higher- ranked winner
            4. For seven teams: 2 plays 7, 3 plays 6, and 4 plays 5; in the second round 1 plays the lowest-ranked winner
            5. For eight teams: 1 plays 8, 2 plays 7, 3 plays 6, and 4 plays 5; in the second round the highest-ranked team remaining plays the lowest-ranked team remaining
            6. For nine teams: 8 plays 9, in the second round 1 plays the winner of 8 and 9; otherwise, same as for eight teams
            7. For ten teams: 7 plays 10 and 8 plays 9, in the second round 1 plays the lower-ranked winner in round one while 2 plays the higher-ranked winner in round one; otherwise, same as for eight teams
         7. Ties for playoff seeding will be broken as follows:
            1. Head-to-head winning percentage.
            2. Coin toss.
         8. All rounds will consist of best-of-seven-game series.
         9. All playoff rounds are single elimination.
         10. Before each playoff game each participant must choose 13 players to be eligible.
         11. The higher seeded team gets Home Field Advantage in games 1, 2, and 5 in a five-game series and in games 1, 2, 5, and 7 in a seven-game series, even in the Finals. All games use the "Neutral Court" setting.
         12. The playoffs will take place as stated in the league timetable sent out by the Commissioner at the end of the regular season.
   2. Player usage
      1. Players must be rated by SOM (that is, given minutes in the fatigue grid) in the appropriate NBA league file at a given position in order to play at that position. Eligibility will be listed on the league roster.
      2. If a player is rated at a position, even if given only one minute there, he may play that position as much as a coach wishes him to within the constraints of his playing time limitations (see below). The Commissioner will provide a league roster with all of the eligible positions and total allowed fatigue grid minutes per game for each player as well as the games and minutes allowed for each player during the season.
      3. Point guards may not play shooting guard unless rated to do so on the roster.
      4. Shooting guards may not play point guard unless rated to do so on the roster.
      5. Players will be limited to the number of games that they played in the NBA regular season.
      6. The games which a player must miss will be determined by the coach before the Commissioner distributes the actual SOMIBA schedule.
         1. Coaches will map out which players will miss which games (by game number, 1-82), making sure that all other constraints (fatigue grid rules, for example) can be satisfied in each game. Coaches should try hard to schedule their players to miss consecutive games so that it is much easier to play games during the season.
         2. Coaches will then send this list to the Commissioner who will review for each coach the validity of the list. The Commissioner will have a member of the Executive Committee review his list.
         3. After randomly creating the schedule of games the Commissioner will convert each team's games missed list to day numbers and send the full list to the league and the web page rosters.
         4. The commissioner will minimize the number of days in the season. If there are an even number of teams in the league the season should only consist of 82 days.
         5. If a coach accidentally uses a player in a game for which that player was scheduled to miss then the Commissioner should be notified immediately to determine a course of action (usually simply rescheduling the missed game later in the season against the same opponent).
      7. Players will be limited in SOMIBA season playing time to their total number of NBA regular season minutes plus 10% for players with 750+ minutes and 5% for others. If a coach accidentally overuses a player then that player must miss playoff time on a two-for-one basis in the following way: if a player averaged 24 minutes per NBA game and was overused in our regular season by 18 minutes then he must miss the first playoff game and may only play 12 minutes in an additional playoff game (this is in addition to games missed from rule 8 below) for a total of 36 minutes (which is 18 doubled); if a player is used in more regular season games than allowed, then that player must miss two playoff games per regular season game overused (missing at least the first two playoff games). Purposeful overuse of players will not be tolerated and further penalties will be imposed including being kicked out of the league. If a coach overuses a player and that coach's team does not make the playoffs then penalties will be imposed for the following year's regular season.
      8. Any player who played less than 16 games or less than 100 minutes in the previous NBA season is not eligible to play in the playoffs, with the exception that a player who played more than 300 minutes in the previous NBA season is eligible. Eligible Players are not limited in playing time (but are still limited in the fatigue grid as described below) except in the number of games they may play based upon the following chart: if a player is eligible to play 1-14 regular season games then he may play in 1 game per playoff series, if a player is eligible to play 15-29 regular season games then he may play in 2 games per playoff series, if a player is eligible to play in 30-40 regular season games then he may play in 3 games per playoff series, while a player who is eligible to play in 41 or more regular season games is not limited in this manner.
      9. Setting the fatigue grid: the "fatigue grid" is the grid in the computer manager with boxes for minutes listed at each position for each player. [Contrast with the "lineup grid" which is the grid with the 2 minute periods listed for each position during the game.]
         1. Coaches must have at least 2 players with non-zero minutes assigned in the fatigue grid per position for each game. Players scheduled to miss the game must be set as ineligible and may not count towards this 2-player limit.
         2. A player must be assigned in the fatigue grid a number of minutes equal to or less than the minutes per game listed for him on the league roster. For example, a player rated on the roster at PG and SG for a total of 35 minutes per game may be assigned 4 minutes at PG and 31 minutes at SG in the fatigue grid. Since we use the "static" fatigue system there is really no need to modify the fatigue grid at all (except for the computer coach to determine fatigue and foul-trouble replacements in road games).
      10. Maximum number of minutes a player can play in a game:
          1. Though a player is not limited in the minutes he may play in any particular game, the fatigue grid rules above present various limits for each player.
          2. A player may not be given minutes in any grid nor play at a position where he does not have minutes allocated on the league roster (in other words, Sabonis is never allowed to play guard!).
   3. Additional game rules:
      1. All play will be done on the computer. No board gaming with dice is allowed.
      2. A player may only guard an opposing position (through the use of the "assign" button) if the defender is rated to play that position (Sabonis is never allowed to defend a guard!). Exception: a player currently playing point guard may defend the opposing shooting guard and a player currently playing shooting guard may defend the opposing point guard. For example, a player playing SF rated by SOM at SG/SF/PF may defend against the opposing PF (as long as all other defensive matchups are also legal) but may not defend against the opposing PG.
      3. Face-to-face. Follow this sequence of events for setting strategy. In each of the steps below, the visiting team makes its move first, followed by the home team.
         1. Select lineups.
         2. Position offensive players (either inside or outside).
         3. Set defensive match-ups.
         4. Set defensive double-teaming.
         5. Name players playing safe.
         6. Name defensive inside block defender/intimidator.
         7. Name type of offense (normal or fast break).
         8. Name type of defense (normal or press).
         9. Name style of defense (normal, close, or sag) for each player.
      4. If a league member accidentally violates a rule during a game (for example, accidentally setting his team for "home court advantage" for his home team LOS against team NYO) then he must inform the Commissioner who will have the Executive Committee impose a fair penalty (for example, when NYO is next the home team against LOS "home court advantage" should be used).
   4. Option Settings in the game:
      1. Before you begin to play a game you must click on League Options.
         1. Under Game Options select:
            1. Save Game Files
            2. Box Score Always
         2. Under Rule select:
            1. No Injuries
            2. Static Fatigue
            3. Neutral Court
            4. NBA Current Rules
            5. All Other Rules must be turned off
   5. Setting up computer coach profiles and gameplans:
      1. Select the league file and your team.
      2. Set Defensive Profile. You should select the specific opponent you are to be playing on this road game because this defensive profile will be included in the gameplan sent to him and will be imported into his system. Note that players whose shooting tendencies are rated **** and who are not completely blank on 3-point attempts will have their set defensive profile set to 2 (normal defense) by default when the league file is created, this may be changed by any coach who uses set defensive profile so is just a default.
         1. Select your opponent for the game.
         2. Follow the instructions on the screen and in the manual for these settings. Contact the Commissioner or another league member for assistance if desired.
      3. Select Computer Manager.
         1. Select Eligible Players and choose up to 13 players to make eligible.
         2. Edit your Gameplan -- the Player Profiles screen:
            1. GP = Actual games played. You may not change this number.
            2. GS and INPCT. These numbers are mostly irrelevant to our league. However, you may not modify the INPCT from 0 or 100 - a player with INPCT=0 may not play inside and a player with INPCT=100 may not play outside on offense.
            3. STLSHT = The Steal Shoot percentage which tells the computer coach how often this player is to take a fastbreak shot off a steal rating.
            4. BLK = YOU MUST ENTER ZERO BLK MINUTES FOR A PLAYER WHO HAS ZERO MINUTES ASSIGNED IN THE FATIGUE GRID or else the game will not run at all (this is a bug in the sombk program).
            5. PG, SG, SF, PF, C = These fields list the fatigue minutes to be played at each position. A player may not be gridded at a position for which he is not rated on the league roster. In each game at least 2 PLAYERS MUST BE ASSIGNED FATIGUE GRID MINUTES AT EACH POSITION. There is little reason to modify these numbers now that we use the "static" fatigue system.
            6. For the remaining fields on this screen, refer to the SOM manual or ask the Commissioner for assistance.
         3. Edit your Gameplan -- the Computer Coach Instructions screen: you may set the lineup grid however you like with the restriction that a player may not be gridded at a position for which he is not rated on the league roster. For example, a player listed on the league roster at SG/SF/PF may never play or be gridded to play PG or C though he may be lineup gridded to play any amount of time at any of his eligible positions. Keep in mind that any player gridded for more than 12 consecutive minutes in any half will probably fatigue and be replaced by the computer coach during that time.
      4. Exporting a gameplan file to another coach:
         1. First, determine what day on the schedule the game is to be played:
            1. Select the appropriate league.
            2. From the Main Menu select Game, New Scheduled.
            3. Page ahead using N for next day until you come to the game in question. If you look at the top of the listing of games for that day it gives the schedule-related day number.
            4. Write this number down.
         2. Select your team.
         3. See above for instructions on creating the defensive profile and your gameplan. Make certain that you set as "ineligible" those players who are scheduled to miss the game - this is the easiest thing to make a mistake on and it's a pain in the butt for everyone (including the Commissioner) to correct this mistake - so DOUBLE- CHECK your gameplan versus the days missed list on the roster.
         4. Once you have set the defensive profile and the gameplan as you want (within league rules), from the screen with the lineup grid choose Export Gameplan.
         5. When prompted for a filename, name the file according to these conventions:
            1. filename = AAAHHHnn
            2. AAA represents the 3 character symbol for the away team
            3. HHH represents the 3 character symbol for the home team
            4. nn represents the two digit number for the day on the schedule (see a above). For example, if you are team LOS, the team you are sending the gameplan to is NYO, and the game is scheduled for day 34 then type LOSNYO34.
         6. Save the gameplan.
         7. After you have created all your gameplans for the current quarter of the season, zip them up into one single file, and send that file to the Commissioner.
      5. Importing gameplan files from other coaches:
         1. Download gameplans from the league website.
         2. Go into the SOM Basketball game.
            1. Select the appropriate league.
            2. From the Main Menu select Game, New Scheduled.
            3. Find the game in question, using page ahead or jump.
            4. Change the game from Hold to Manual.
            5. Start the game.
            6. From the Lineup screen of the opposing team, choose Import gameplan.
            7. The appropriate gameplan file will be named with the convention AAAHHHnn.GPL (with AAA, HHH, and nn defined previously).
            8. Select the appropriate gameplan file. It will be imported into your system.
            9. Click on Continue to begin the game. If once you get to the first strategy screen just before the game begins you notice that the opposing coach has set a player who was scheduled to miss the game as "eligible" then quit the game (right-click the mouse at this point to abort the beginning of the game) and ask the coach to send to you a legal gameplan - also notify the Commissioner of the error in the gameplan
      6. Special Rules
         1. You may only play the press defense when you are not ahead by 10 or more points in the game (if you are ahead by 10 and still pressing then you must press F1 and call timeout to stop the press defense) and you may not play press defense for more than 12 minutes in any one game.
         2. Whenever one team is being controlled by the computer (typically the visiting team) the other team must have at least one PF or C positioned inside on offense at all times; this does not apply to games played live via Netplay; this rule will likely be removed if in a future version Strat fixes the computer gameplan to allow the defense to keep its inside block defender back to provide block support against an outside player.
         3. If there is an unplayed home game on a coach’s schedule then that coach may not play a part of or a full practice game against that team using that team’s gameplan for that game; for example, if team WAL has an unplayed home game on the schedule against SUN then WAL may not import SUN’s gameplan designed for that game and play a part of or a full practice game against SUN’s gameplan.
      7. Exporting game results to the opposing coach and to the Commissioner:
         1. Obtain the game file will be stored in C:\SOMBKW\EXPORT\20XXXXI, where 20XXXXI is the league name.
         2. Obtain the boxscore from C:\SOMBKW\PRINT\20XXXXI.
         3. Create a zip file of the appropriate name (for example, LOSNYO34.ZIP) which contains both of these files (and optionally the summary and pbp files), and send this zip file to the Commissioner and to your opponent.
      8. Importing game results from opposing coach after an away game (while is step is not really necessary since the Commissioner keeps official records of game results, it may help you stay within minutes limits of your players):
         1. When you receive the e-mail message that has the opposing team's game result files attached to it, save the attached file (it should have a name with the format AAAHHHnn.ZIP).
         2. Unzip the file and move the gamefile to the C:\SOMBKW\IMPORT directory.
         3. Go into the SOM Basketball game:
            1. Select the appropriate league.
            2. From the Main Menu select Statistics and Import Game Results.
            3. Select the appropriate game file (with the extension .GFL)
            4. The game result will be imported into your system.
         4. At the end of each session of the season the Commissioner will send to each coach a league update containing game results for all games to date. In addition, the Commissioner will keep the web page up-to-date with current stats and game results.
         5. The Commissioner will will always wait at least 24 hours before importing a result and will not accept results which do not include the prt and gfl file and which are sent both to the Commissioner and to the visiting coach within the same e-mail. If you would like to protest any result then that should be done via e-mail less than 24 hours after the initial result is received or else the game result will be imported and the protest will likely not be upheld (or if it is then it will not result in a game replay).
   6. Known bugs in the SOM computer basketball game:
      1. If any player's gameplan fatigue grid minutes are set to zero and you click on Set Eligible Players from within the pre-league-game Lineup screen, you receive a "floating point, divide by zero" error message and are kicked out to DOS. The solution is just don't do this. You may instead look at your team's eligible players in the Program Computer Coach section (editing your gameplan) and determine the visiting team's eligible players once the game has started by looking at the players listed on bench. If once you get to the first strategy screen just before the game begins you notice that the opposing coach has set a player scheduled to miss the game as eligible then quit the game (right-click the mouse at this point to abort the beginning of the game) and ask the coach to send to you a legal gameplan - also notify the Commissioner of the error in the gameplan.
      2. If a player is assigned more than zero BLK minutes within the fatigue grid but is assigned zero playing minutes at all positions in the fatigue grid then when you try to begin the game/jumpball you will receive a "floating point, divide by zero" error message and be kicked out to DOS. The solution is to assign a player with zero fatigue grid minutes zero BLK minutes.

1999-2000 Constitution Addendum - League Rulings and Executive Committee

The Executive Committee this year consists of veteran league members. There will always be at least 3 league officers involved in every non-obvious ruling; the Commissioner will make a decision on what is "obvious" such as those cases explicitly and exactly covered in the Constitution. The Commissioner will attempt to err on the side of calling for league officer votes rather than make a league ruling on the spot. In some rare cases (mostly huge issues and/or issues where time is not a major factor) the Commissioner may call for a league-wide vote which will follow the same rules as league officer votes.

During league rulings any league business directly depending upon the result of a ruling will be halted until the ruling is rendered. All rulings in process and those already decided will be posted on the web page as time permits. No secret ballots are allowed and each vote will be listed with a name beside it. The Commissioner will perform and count all votes even for votes in which he is not participating.

League officers will listen to any and all discussions by any league member on the subject of an upcoming ruling and of course discussion may and often should occur but at no point will a league officer say to someone anything to the effect of "my vote is completely dependent upon your opinion" as this puts too much pressure on the person giving the opinion, especially if that person is not a league officer and/or is directly involved in the situation the league is ruling upon. It is not at all up to the "injured" party to ask for a league ruling (though of course anyone may discuss what they want); rather, it is up to the league officers to maintain the integrity of the league by ruling on all league situations whether or not someone feels "injured." For example, if coach A overuses player Smith against coach B a league ruling will be made regardless of whether or not coach B cares (though coach B's input is desired as is the input of everyone involved).

All league rulings will take no longer than three days (hopefully less) from the time it is brought to the Commissioner's attention except under extraordinary circumstances or during few-day-pre-announced periods of time when the Commissioner is not available. In any case where a league ruling is needed each league officer will be given a choice of rulings and will also be free to submit their own ruling. The Commissioner will lay down general guidelines of each ruling as situations come up (for example, "this ruling it seems may take longer than three days as additional discussion seems to be necessary") though the Commissioner may modify the guidelines of a specific ruling if the situation warrants. If the Commissioner has been disqualified from a league ruling then another league officer involved in the ruling process may if the issue is big enough in his opinion call for a league- wide vote on the issue with a four-day time limit.

If a league officer's team is directly involved in the outcome of a ruling then that league officer will not rule on that ruling. An example of this is when one or more of the reasonable choices for the ruling will potentially directly benefit or disadvantage that league officer's team. The Commissioner will determine which league officers are ineligible for each league ruling. If the Commissioner does not disqualify himself from a league ruling then any league officer may call for a vote of league officers (not including the Commissioner or any league officer already disqualified by the Commissioner) on whether or not the Commissioner may vote on that specific league ruling; this vote will as with most other votes take no longer than two days, if by that time not enough votes are cast (see below for criteria, basically 3 votes are needed) then the Commissioner may vote on that specific issue.

If a league officer feels that the Commissioner ruled a decision as "obvious" (and therefore the Commissioner made the decision without a league officer vote) then any league officer may call for a vote of all other league officers (not including the Commissioner) to decide whether the ruling made by the Commissioner should stand. The normal three-day timeframe for this vote is in effect but if the vote takes longer than that then that is acceptable. However, unlike all other votes league business will not be halted during this vote. If the vote in this case is to rule the issue as "non-obvious" and therefore the issue should have been put up to a league officer vote then league business which directly depends upon the ruling will halt at that time and the process of ruling on the issue will start over. If business already depending upon the ruling has already taken place then the league officers will be voting on what to do taking that into consideration.

Trade Approval:

All trades involving new league members – that is, league members who have not played through at least one full season -- go through a league approval process based upon the "questionable trades" section below before they become official. Trades will go through the same voting process as league rulings with the following choices: A) The trade is approved or B) The trade is denied as stated though the trade may be reworked.

All trades not involving new league members become official when they are acknowledged by the Commissioner as received from all involved coaches. The Commissioner will notify the Executive Committee of all trades and any member of the Executive Committee may call for a vote of the Executive Committee as outlined above for trades involving new league members at which time the trade is no longer official and is put on hold pending the outcome of the vote.

League Ruling Guidelines:

The following are only guidelines but they should be used where they apply. In extraordinary cases the Commissioner may override any league ruling –- and bear the responsibility of such a decision –- if a vote on a huge issue takes the league in an inappropriate direction. Examples of this are if league guidelines are clearly not being followed or if other non-desired elements are added into the league (including but not limited to the inclusion of salary caps or real money into the league). Ultimately the Commissioner who is responsible for the large bulk of administrative work in the league must be comfortable with the league for which he is the Commissioner.

Other than the specific written guidelines here fairness should be the goal in any league ruling (and hopefully fairness guides are included below), fairness to those involved in the decision and fairness to the league as a whole. If a league member violates a rule is the penalty to that league member fair considering the offense and the advantage given to the "injured" party fair? If the league member pointed out their own unintentional mistake then that should reflect favorably in cases not explicitly covered below especially if the mistake would not likely have been noticed otherwise.

If a league member intentionally commits an offense due to not taking a particular rule seriously then in general a ruling should double the severity of the penalty or triple it if the coach does not regret the error. If a league member intentionally commits an offense for the probable purpose of making the team's or a player's record or stats better or worse then this cheating is clear grounds for expulsion of the league member (for stats doctoring perhaps removal of some player eligibility for the playoffs or next season while for cheating to win or lose a game perhaps league expulsion is appropriate). In any case the "injured" coach should not gain extra advantage other than to make up for the original offense; any further penalty (for example, a punitive penalty) should benefit the league overall or else random teams (as decided by the specific league ruling).

If a league member is not able to play games or send gameplans for a period of time then it is acceptable for that league member to pre-send to the Commissioner gameplans both for away games and for home games; these home games will be autoplayed. This applies also to the playoffs. However, this sort of thing and especially repeat occurrences is not what the league is about -– autoplays are not a fun part of the league though they may be necessary sometimes in emergencies.

If a coach has doubts that he will be able to fulfill his league obligations for the current season but will sincerely probably be able to in the following season (and this is to be voted on by the Executive Committee whether it appears to be true) then that coach may keep his team although not play in the current season. In this case no trades are allowed with that team for the year(s) in which the team is not playing games, the team must field at least 164 games and 4000 minutes per position and 20,000 minutes overall as all other teams must (and if necessary a league-officers-constructed swap may be made between the team and the remaining expansion pool to fulfill these requirements), and in the rookie/free-agent draft of the season following a season in which games are not played the draft position of the team will fall third-to-last of all returning teams. If a coach has traded during the pre-season but later decides that he does not have enough time to play games that season then those trades will be further reviewed and while they may not be overturned league officers may impose penalties of removing or decreasing draft choices if they determine that the trade was made knowing the potential for not being able to play in the league. For example, if during the pre-season coach A trades away good very old player Johnson for a young player or a draft choice and then later coach A decides not to play games that season and if the league officers decide that coach A made the trade in part because he may not be playing games that season then the league officers may decide to lower coach A's first-round rookie/free-agent draft choice (in the next rookie/free- agent draft) 8 spots of returning coaches.

In general it is acceptable for someone who is not in the league to take over a team if requested to do so by a coach unable to play games or by the Commissioner for filling the place of a coach who left the league in mid-season. In this case the replacement coach will not be able to keep the team the following season but may join the league via the expansion draft as any other new league member.

If a team was run by a human for at least 2/4 of the season and was run by a human for the final 1/4 of the season and that human would be running the team in the playoffs then if that team qualifies for the playoffs that most recent human would run the team in the playoffs; If a team qualifies for the playoffs but does not fit the above then that team would be disqualified from playoff participation and there would be one fewer team in the playoffs.

If a league member leaves the league then his team is thrown into the Expansion Pool. However, if there are X such teams being thrown into the pool and there are exactly X league members wanting to join the league for that year and those new league members specifically request to take over the teams being thrown in (and if X > 1 then all of the new league members must agree to which team they request) then this may be acceptable –- this issue would be put up to an Executive Committee vote if it happens. It is unfair for 2 people to be joining the league and for 1 of them to take over an existing team while the other draft from the Expansion Pool even if this is desired by all parties.

It is generally not acceptable for a coach to throw in his team for a new team to be drafted from the Expansion Pool as if a new coach. However, if it is clear that the coach did not inordinately weaken his current team's future by inordinately strengthening its past then the Executive Committee will consider the request if unusual circumstances have occurred. For example, if a coach's team has had bad luck with regard to player choices with good players being seriously injured and/or promising young players turning out to be bad then the Executive Committee may allow a coach requesting it to throw in his team for a new expansion-drafted team.

In the regular season there will be no game replays as this puts too much of an operational burden on the Commissioner once the game has been imported and is in general contrary to the philosophy of the league. The Commissioner may make a very rare exception to this if he feels that it is warranted (and the Commissioner almost never feels that it is) and in that case may include a game replay as an option on the ballot for the Executive Committee vote. The only example which comes to mind in which a replay in the regular season might be appropriate is if a coach A intentionally cheats in a game he wins (coach A would probably be expelled from the league at this point), this game knocks coach B out of playoff contention, and the Commissioner has not yet imported the game result.

Playoff Rulings:

During the playoffs replays may be done under certain circumstances. No replays will be done without a vote of the league officers.

If any player is used in any game for any number of minutes over allowed and that team wins the game then the game will be replayed and any games which have been played after that still count; the Commissioner is responsible for noticing any overuses. The only exception to this is if somehow the road team's player was overused due to an error by the home team's coach in which case the result will stand; the Commissioner will review the away team's gameplan and if he or any of the league officers feel that the home coach has made an error then the league officers will vote on whether or not the game needs to be replayed.

Simply put, if the winning coach made any error causing any material benefit or overuse of any player then the game will be replayed. For example, setting "home court advantage" when not supposed to will cause that game to be replayed if the home team won the game. The league officers will determine what is "material" but it should use the broadest criteria in determining this –- only errors causing no change in game winning possibilities whatsoever for either team should eliminate the need for a replay.

If a league officer makes an error which benefits (as decided by the league officers) a team which ended up winning the game then that game should be replayed. If the league officer's error did not benefit the winning team in any way whatsoever then the game result should stand. It is realized thus that if a league officer makes an error which benefits team A then that puts team A at a disadvantage since a win in that game only means a replay but a loss means a loss but as long as the error was inadvertent then "those are the breaks". League officers (and everyone) should try very hard not to make errors.

If a player is overused for any minutes in a game in which that player's coach lost (and the player's coach caused the error) then beginning with the next game it will be treated as if the player were overused in the regular season –- see those guidelines (i.e., has to miss double the games or minutes of the overuse in the next games). If an error other than player overuse is made by a losing coach then no penalties will be assessed as long as that error does not affect any other game(s).

If an error is not noticed once the next round of the playoffs has begun (which is announced by the Commissioner at least two days after the end of the previous round) then no replays will be done for that error, though games/minutes penalties will be assessed (whether or not the game was won or lost) from the time the error was noticed. If the next round of the playoffs has not begun then replays will occur as outlined above, though any errors should be brought to the Commissioner's attention immediately.

If any error is made which is determined by league officers to probably be on purpose then additional penalties will be imposed by the Executive Committee. If the intentional error is made for the probable purpose of making the team's or a player's record or stats better or worse then that is considered cheating and will be dealt with very harshly up to and including immediate expulsion from the league. If the intentional error is made for some other less malign reason then in general no additional penalties should be issued further than the ones listed above for unintentional errors which include replays and are thus fairly harsh. However, any intentional error reflects on the coach's integrity and therefore on the league's desire to continue the membership of that coach.