2025 Championship: The North Triumphs

It’s not all about talent, winning a championship. Sometimes it takes a dash of luck as well. Our 2025 Finals matchup featured the two winningest owners in SlamNation history—as SCRM just surpassed SOUR for number one on that list after this past regular season.

However, as we noted, eighth-seeded SOUR was the likely favorite, with their super powered team taking out SQSQ and MELO in succession, the one-two seeds from this season. Up next in SOUR’s sights was third-seeded SCRM, and it was looking like SOUR could pull off a triple upset on their way to another title as the two teams entered Sunday neck and neck, both with full eight man lineups ready to go. In the end, SCRM pulled off the 6-3 victory as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Kawhi Leonard played the night cap in Los Angeles needing just a few rebounds and points for SCRM to secure to win.

For SOUR, it was close but no cigar, as Steph Curry was only available for two games while Damian Lillard was suited up for just one—with Dejounte Murray already long gone on IR. In contrast, SCRM’s two biggest stars, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Giannis Antetokounmpo missed just one game between them. Plus, they had the resurrected Kawhi Leonard, who came to life just in time to bring Canada another coveted title.

This was not an easy victory for SCRM however, as SOUR was getting major numbers from Miles Bridges, Deni Avdija, and whoever the heck Justin Edwards was. Jimmy Butler and Scottie Barnes did their best to pick up the slack, but fell just a bit short. In all, SOUR played fifteen guys during championship week, and had Avdija absolutely cooking to the tune of 24.8 PTS, 10.3 REB, 5.3 AST, 1.8 STL/BLK and 3.5 3PT on 52.5 FG%. Wowza!

It took owner Jordan physically attending the Toronto versus San Antonio game—cheering against the Raptors as a Canadian!—to secure the win for SCRM.

Since joining us in 2021, Jordan has been a model owner and it’s only fitting they won their first championship the year after dispersal mate KSKT won theirs. Even from the start, Jordan has shown a willingness to take big swings and to deal deal deal. Their first move in SlamNation was actually to trade in the dispersal draft, moving De’Aaron Fox and Jaylen Brown for Gilgeous-Alexander and OG Anunoby, two of Jordan’s favorite players.

SCRM emerged from their dispersal with Anthony Davis, SGA, Anunoby, Dejounte Murray, Mitchell Robinson, and Davis Bertans. They took a 7-8 record into the Toilet Bowl and made it all the way into the finals—losing to the slightly lower seeded SQSQ—but that gave them 2022 RD1.3, who turned out to be Evan Mobley. SCRM also added Isaiah Stewart as a keeper after their inaugural season.

In five seasons, SCRM has gone 61-27-4 with four playoff appearances, two Chamberlain Conference wins, and one regular season crown in 2024. They’ve had plenty of postseason success too, as they upset top seeded SQSQ in 2022, and also made the Slam semi-finals three times, including this season—with their one non-semis appearance in 2024, as they were upset in the first round by eighth seeded SQSQ as payback. Note: A real back and forth rivalry between SCRM and SQSQ!!!

While this certainly wasn’t SCRM’s best overall team—as it was just a third seed—it’s the one that’ll go down in history as SCRM’s first title winner.

A deeper look into GM Jordan’s moves. In 2023, he began the all-in era, acquiring James Harden in exchange for Mobley. Then, later that year, SCRM acquired Karl-Anthony Towns and DeMar DeRozan in a nine player mega-trade—which cost them Dejounte Murray and Anunoby.

Not satisfied with those big moves, SCRM traded pre-draft in 2024 and landed Antetokounmpo by moving Anthony Davis, DeRozan, and a future RD1 and RD2. He then added Walker Kessler for a trade pick, reshaping his entire team. Oh, but 2024 wasn’t even into November yet and Jordan was on the move again! He landed Kawhi Leonard and Ben Simmons for Kessler and Bogdan Bogdanovic.

But 2024 was still not over and SCRM moved off Towns in February, shipping KAT, Collin Sexton, and TJ McConnell off for Fred VanVleet, Coby White, and Brook Lopez. Yowza, what a year!

And in a relatively quiet 2025, SCRM sold off Jalen Duren for a pick pre-draft, and then showed us a pivot away from title chasing by moving James Harden for Scoot Henderson and a future first a mere six weeks ago. This signaled a change from management, perhaps a sign that they were looking to explore a future with Jalen Suggs, Dyson Daniels, and some young mix and match pieces. But then SCRM won the damn title!

We are fascinated with what SCRM will do with his keeper roster now, as a championship has been secured and there’s now a mix of young and old on the team. Note: SCRM also beat out SOUR this week in scooping up 2025 rookie Jared McCain from the waiver wire—a strange short sighted move by TRUO. So that was another small win for SCRM!

As for SOUR, this was certainly an unexpected Finals run. While they fell short in their ninth Finals appearance—for only the second time—this was one of their more impressive seasons as Steph and Dame had a whole bunch of versatile wing types working together to power them to upset victory over upset victory. In the end, they fell just a little short but as always, nobody is going to overlook SOUR, now or in the forever future.

(Full Stats)

Toilet Bowl 2025: Flagg for Funk

What a nail biter for the 2025 Toilet Bowl! Heading into Sunday down a manageable amount of 3PT and REB, FUNK had a full eight man lineup ready to go, but their TOS were pretty close to rising past BUFF’s, and there was some question of Jayson Tatum’s status. After picking up Max Strus and Jaylin Williams for the last day, Strus was subbed in for turnover machine Jordan Clarkson while Williams was never needed as FUNK sweated out a 5-3-1 victory. Owner Jon watched on pins and needles as Tatum and Payton Pritchard used a big second half to push past BUFF for the win. In reality, Devin Vassell was the one that really gave FUNK the Sunday win, as he hit three threes and shot 11/14 FGS, which vaulted FUNK up in FG% to almost catch BUFF.

This was already an uphill battle for BUFF, as they were already down Jalen Brunson, Brandon Ingram, and then Domantas Sabonis out as well. In the end, despite Coby White’s heroics—he averaged 30.3 PTS in his four games this week—and Mikal Bridges’ all around game, BUFF couldn’t pull off the win and will have to settle for the 2026 RD1.2 pick. Overall, it was a great Toilet Bowl for both teams, as FUNK and BUFF defeated higher seeds to get to the TB finals to earn their picks. (Disregard CHMK gifting FUNK a win last week in RD2, it’s just pay back for the decades ago Antoine Walker for Kevin Garnett trade…)

For FUNK, this will be their second RD1.1 selection in a row, following Reed Sheppard last season. It’s likely Cooper Flagg will be the pick next year, which means two White guys in a row... FUNK has actually been in this position before, selecting RD1.1 back to back, as they won the Toilet Bowl back-to-back before, resulting in Ben Simmons and Karl-Anthony Towns. This Toilet Bowl win also ties FUNK with SWMP for the most TB wins in Slam history. Is a FUNK Rule needed?!

Heading into next season, FUNK will have Tatum, Lauri Markkanen, Devin Vassell, Trey Murphy III, Myles Turner, and then a big decision between Collin Sexton and Sheppard to make. But for now, a congrats to Funk Coalition on their third Toilet Bowl victory!

As for BUFF, who was in the Finals just a season ago, adding another young star could insure they don’t see the Toilet Bowl again for a long time. Brunson, Sabonis, Ingram, plus Bridges, White, and a mystery sixth keeper is not a bad bunch at all.

(Full Stats)

Post-Season RD2 Recap and RD3 Matchups: 2025

  👑 Playoffs RD3

3 SCRM vs 8 SOUR

Playoffs RD3 Consolation

2 MELO vs 4 SWMP

5 SPDE vs 7 ILCN

1 SQSQ vs 6 KSKT

🚽 Toilet Bowl RD3

11 FUNK vs 12 BUFF

Toilet Bowl RD3Consolation

9 SBUK vs 10 CHMK

13 FJUB vs 15 TRUO

14 ABCX vs 16 UFOS

Playoff RD2 Recap

Uh oh, SOUR is on a heater! With Miles Bridges leading the way, SOUR wiped the floor with MELO, dashing their postseason hopes. While some of the categories were closer, a 7-2 victory is pretty dominant. Now they’ll make their return to the SlamNation Finals, where the stage is set. This will be SOUR’s ninth Finals appearance, their first since 2023. And despite being the lesser seed, there’s no question they are the favorites. Plus, their track record in Finals is seven wins in eight tries, so their Finals opponent will have their work cut out for them. Triuuuueeee does it again!

As for SCRM, this will be their first Finals, as they dispatched SWMP in a slightly closer game. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 34.5 PTS and took down SWMP behind SGA’s offense and a strong overall defensive effort. This will be SCRM’s first Finals after joining us in 2021. It’s a bit of a surprise too, as SCRM had more all-in rosters in the past, and actually traded away James Harden midseason. 

This will be a gargantuan week as SOUR would’ve won RD1 vs SCRM 6-3, while SCRM would have turned the tables for their own 6-3 victory in RD2 had they faced SOUR. Now we’ll see who will win this epic 2025 SlamNation Finals!

Over in the consolation games, both SQSQ and KSKT got waxed 1-8, leaving them in the final week matchup as ILCN and SPDE face off for a higher pick in next year’s draft.

Toilet Bowl RD2 Recap

What a doozy over in the Toilet Bowl! FUNK had already conceded by Saturday night to CHMK, with the owners trading “congrats, ggs” and Jon already booking his post-Toilet Bowl vacation. Lo and behold, Sunday brought CHMK’s required five rebounds from Oshae Brissett but then Coach Evan didn’t pull his players and ended up losing the matchup by one turnover! Incredible stuff!

We love the CHMK attitude to play it out and let the fates decide, but perhaps they’ll rue letting FUNK slip through. Either way, this now sets up an actually exciting RD3 because FUNK and BUFF can now play for 2025 RD1.1 and RD1.2, while CHMK and SBUK will duke it out for RD1.3 and RD1.4. Thanks Evan for giving us some drama! (Note: CHMK and SBUK were slotted for those picks anyway, with the SWMP Rule in effect--which we'll revisit this offseason.)

BUFF is on a heater as well, despite having both Jalen Brunson and Brandon Ingram out. Similar to the upset filled playoff side of the bracket, Toilet Bowl 2025 has the lower seed, BUFF, tapped as the slight favorites in Capture the Flagg.

Over in TB consolation, ABCX almost upset TRUO, as they were a few STL and PTS away from a victory. Alas, they’ll face off against UFOS—who lost to FJUB handily—perhaps as a “winner goes home” match for SlamNation?!

Revisiting the SWMP Rule

Back in 2019, we instituted Postseason 2.0, which primarily consisted of making all sixteen teams play all three weeks of the postseason, and then installing the somewhat controversial SWMP Rule, which prevented the top two Toilet Bowl seeds from winning the RD1.1 and RD1.2 picks for the next season.

With some recent rumblings about what we should do next, let’s take a look at some numbers.

[ Sheet: SWMP Rule stats ]

The main goals for me, speaking very personally, is to create engagement for all sixteen teams, to prevent tanking, and to encourage competitiveness across all of our games. Teams will certainly rise and fall, as this is a keeper league with a six player core, but over time it would seem that most everyone should be able to be competitive somehow through opportunity, effort, and of course, some luck.

As of now, some commissioners think we are unnecessarily punishing the lower tier teams, as they are the ones in most need of help. In addition, some of the teams affected by the SMWP Rule think it’s been a bit unfair that they can’t win the top overall picks. Or at least weird that the lower seeded teams want the higher seeds to win, in the case of #11-12 cheering on #9-10.

Regardless, we’ll look at all these issues. First, let’s look at some numbers and then we can have discussions, ideas, and look at revamping some stuff for next season and so on. My belief is that over a period of five years, you can at least get your team to somewhat respectability, or at least ping pong up and down the standings due to randomness.

The big question to answer is really a philosophical one: Who should the draft help? The teams that don't / can't win, or the teams that are trying but maybe too good to get the overall top picks?

SWMP Rule Results

Since the advent of the SWMP Rule era, we’ve had five seasons affected by it, not counting this 2025 season and the abbreviated 2020 season.

Here were the Toilet Bowl matchups from each of those years

Year: # Winner vs#  Loser

• 2019: #9 SBUK vs #14 SNAC
• 2021: #11 SQSQ vs #10 CHMK
• 2022: #11 CHMK vs #9 ILCN
• 2023: #10 CHMK vs #13 SPDE
• 2024: #9 SWMP vs #12 FUNK 

As you can see, either #9 or #10 have made the TB Finals every year, but we actually haven’t ever had both of the top seeds make the last game—which is good actually!

In fifteen Toilet Bowls—minus 2020 because of COVID, here are which seeds have won the whole thing:

• #9 seed (7, many)
• #10 (1, CHMK)
• #11 (3, BOMB, SQSQ, CHMK)
• #12 (1, FUNK)
• #13 (1, ABCX)
• #16 (1, FUNK)

So eight out of fifteen Toilet Bowls have been won by the top two seeds #9 and #10, five won by the middle four  #11-14 seeds, and only once by one of the worst two teams in the league.

The main purpose of the SWMP Rule was to not just gift teams that are likely too good for the Toilet Bowl a high pick. For example, SBUK in 2019 could’ve received Zion Williamson (instead of RJ Barrett) to add to a core of CJ McCollum, DeMar DeRozan, Joel Embiid, Kyrie Irving, and Rudy Gobert. Or say, adding Victor Wembanyama to the 2025 CHMK team.

Of course, the randomness of the draft has helped to even out who got the true franchise altering stars, as in hindsight, some of the RD1.1 and RD1.2 picks were not the "right" ones. See: Sheppard, Reed. Even SWMP’s double Toilet Bowl win in 2017-2018 only netted Markelle Fultz and DeAndre Ayton. So that randomness itself may be a reason to just eliminate the SWMP Rule.

The SWMP Rule has unequivocally helped give top tier picks to the middle class Toilet Bowl teams--there's always been a #11 seed or lower in the TB Finals--even if not directly to the worst few, defined as #12 seed or lower.

Bubble Teams Tanking

The second question now however, is how to prevent the playoff bubble teams from tanking. Of course, some owners will want to fight for every win, as SOUR does—and has just proven that a #8 can take out a #1 in this very playoffs. But, the temptation to tank to the Toilet Bowl when a seemingly franchise altering player is pretty great--I myself have been tempted by this. So I’d like a solution that addresses that problem.

Should we return to some sort of lottery system? Maybe have every Toilet Bowl team play for more ping pong balls or something? But still have a bit of randomness involved? Should say, seeds #7-8 get some freebie ping pong balls in the following draft, so they are not unduly punished for not being in the Toilet Bowl? Seeds that low rarely, if at all, ever win the Finals. Stat: The lowest seeded team to ever win a championship was #6, with 100 Acre Wood Pooh Bears taking a title back in 2013. Oh also 2011's Human Amoebas, who made the playoffs with a 9-10 record, and would've been the #10 seed overall but made the playoffs due to conference splits. So those were the two outliers in fifteen or so years.

Some other draft related ideas:

1) Return to a Toilet Bowl where we are playing for positions, be it straight RD1.1 - RD1.8 based on TB results, or something similar. This punishes the bad teams but is also the easiest. A bad team could upset their way to the top but usually the top picks would go toward the better Toilet Bowl teams. We could add a tiering element to this, such as #9-12 play for a certain level of pick and #13-16 play for a different (higher) tier.

2) A pure lottery system, with worse teams getting better odds, and not tying the Toilet Bowl to draft picks at all. Alternately, flip it and the teams that advance in the Toilet Bowl get higher odds to win higher picks. But generally, some sort of randomized system.

3) A farther out idea is to give every team the same chance at the first picks, say 12.5% for each of the eight Toilet Bowl teams. And from there, we could add on tournament style where each win afterwards steals some % of chance from your opponent, thus making the Toilet Bowl wins and losses still count for something.

4) One of my main goals is to solve for the issue where seeds #7-8 and #9-10 are not incentivized to hit the Toilet Bowl versus facing off an uphill playoffs battle. So perhaps we could even give #7-8 teams the same lottery chances as the #9-10 teams, thus eliminating any motivation to tank.

5) A brief in-season tournament between seeds #7-8-9-10 for lottery odds, which would again, try to eliminate the bubble team tanking. Whoever wins this in-season tourney gets the lottery balls in the next draft? So they can safely push for a playoff showing? Maybe far fetched.

6) Reset every five years completely, making it less relevant who gets the highest picks in every draft since we are only building for five years at a time. I am leaning toward suggesting this as an idea. Reset every five years, with that "Grand Re-Draft" pick order determined by win-loss records from the previous five seasons?

7) There was a suggestion of tying “good” management to allowing teams to pick high. Say if you don’t hit a certain Games Played threshold, or you are seen to be mismanaging or mismanaging for a long stretch. Interesting proposition...

Overall I would still like the idea of playing three postseason games for everyone, as that keeps the trade deadline steady and free agent available for all.

SWMP Rule Sheets Explanation

TB Winners: Look at winning percentage for the sixteen franchises one the past five years.

TB Winners Keepers: A list of all the keepers that the Toilet Bowl winner had going into the following season. Plus who was picked in the following draft—usually not by them due to the SWMP Rule. (Added SWMP’s 2017-2018 season in here for comparison.)

TB Regular Season Records: This one is a little messy but it’s just the regular season win-loss records for all of the TB winners and losers.  More useful for me, but you can take a look.

Five Years Win Percentage: Self-explanatory. Most of the teams are hovering around 0.400 - 0.600, but ABCX, TRUO, and UFOS are pretty awful.

Five Years Regular Season: Again, more for me. But we can see each team’s individual regular season records over the past five years. I was looking to see if people are bouncing up and down or consistently good/bad, etc.

Five Years Moves and Games Played: The top half is Moves per year—which include post draft moves I think, or something similarly. In many cases, the low teams made just like one or two waiver grabs, if even.

The Games Played chart displays GP and also the blue number in each column is the average for that season. Overall, eleven of our teams are average or better in GP, while we have four or so lagging teams: ABCX, FUNK, MELO, UFOS.

Note: I calculated all the averages taking out the top and worst ranked teams, because for example, TRUO is such an outlier in Moves that it’s easier to calculate with that team out. So the average is really the #2-15 teams.

Owner Ratings 2025

Our first executive of the year award is awarded! The formula for owner rating is: Games Played + Moves + Wins. [ 2018 Explainer | 2022 Owner Rating ]

Our five best owners were KSKT, SCRM, SOUR, FJUB, and SQSQ. Their combination of Games Played, Moves, and Wins came out on top. So this year’s Executive of the Year Award goes to KSKT’s Matt! He had the third most GP, the fourth most Moves, and had the fourth best regular season record.

FJUB must be commended here as well, as they were first in both Games Played and Moves, but came up short in Wins. Still, that meant Eric was really doing the most to maximize his roster all season.

As for the bottom five owners, the list was SWMP, ILCN, ABCX, FUNK, and UFOS.

SWMP, ILCN, and especially FUNK all had lower Games Played numbers, as they were eleventh, thirteenth, and fifteenth in that category, respectively. They were also thirteen, fourteen, and fifteenth in moves, which threw them into the “bad” owner category.

Speaking of “moves,” again, I have no idea how they calculate them because for example, FUNK is credited with just one Moves but I clearly added Al Horford and Kevin Huerter post-draft and then Ziaire Williams on Jan 7th. Perhaps it’s just the result of how I calculate the ODE. Regardless, Moves is just a small measure of owner activity.

ABCX was much more active this season, with plenty of pickups throughout the season: Grant Williams, Isaiah Stewart, Andre Drummond, Buddy Hield, Amir Coffey, Jose Alvarado, Mike Conley, Gradey Dick ($9), Ben Simmons ($5). We’re wondering why their lineup didn’t change much near the end of the year though, especially Bobby Portis, who was suspended. We’ll have to send out an investigative team for that.

UFOS has been pretty bad for two years—the first when they were getting used to our Slam system, and the second from just plain inattention—and only made one move all season: adding Julian Champagnie all the way back in November. They'll be exiting SlamNation next season. Thanks for your time Victor! If anyone has leads on new owners, do tell!

Overall, good job everyone and the thing we need to do is look at some metric for overall owner participation. Of course, Games Played is the most important stat here—maximizing your lineup is important—and Moves and Wins are more arbitrary. But is the owner active in trades to make up for it? Is the owner active at all? Is there a GP minimum threshold we should install? We’d like a full sixteen team league of active owners, as that provides the best competitive balance. Any thoughts or ideas on how to advance that, do tell!