2019: Re-Alignment

Due to moving over to two conferences and no divisions, we're gonna do a slight re-align too, to balance out the conferences. I looked at keeper core scores, and top keepers, and then decided to switch So Buckets and Spade over to Chamberlain while Fat Jubas and Fob Stars slide over to Russell to take their place. We kept an eye toward preserving historical rivalries and making sure each conference still had some ex-champs to boast about.

Strangely our new auto-generated ESPN schedule is a mix of +5 out-of-conference games. So the schedule seems to do this no matter how many times I reset it:

• One game each versus every other team (15/20 games)
• Repeat five out-of-conference opponents for the last five weeks of the regular season (5/20 games)

Which means that if we have unbalanced conferences, one conference will just pound on the other. Thus, the slight-re-alignment. Thanks to Josh, Randall, Eric, and Jimmy for suffering the indignity, enjoy your new homes!

And a look at the would-be All-Star teams by conference (all seventeen gold players plus best player from Buffy, Fat Jubas, Fob Stars):

Rivalry Week: WK11

Okay so Rivalry Week didn’t exactly take off did it? We only had two or three teams call each other out so in lieu of actually doing that, I just set up some logical rivalry matchups!

LA Buffy (2-7-1) vs Fat Jubas (4-6)
Roger and Eric are both multiple title winners in our long running fantasy football league, Catch the Damn Ball, so it makes sense they’ll want to extend their competition to the gridiron.

Swamp Dragons (3-5-2) vs So Buckets (6-3-1)
Eddie and Josh entered the league at the same time, in 2012, and will forever be linked in SlamNation lore, so this one will be for bragging rights!

Chunky Monkeys (10-0) vs Funk Coalition (6-3-1)
Longtime friends, but rarely rivals, except on the fantasy field, Jon wants to take out Evan and have three shots at usurping the current undefeated team in the league...

Squirtle Squad (6-4) vs Another Bad Creation (7-3)
Another longtime football pairing, Brian and Oliver have competed over titles in Maize and Blue and these two division-mates are currently running #1 and #2 in Transformers division so let’s give them another matchup!

Sour Snails (7-3) vs Red Dagger (7-2-1)
Brother versus brother, again. This time, defending champs Trieu are vulnerable while Thien and his Red Dagger team fueled up in the off-season a championship run!

Sager’s Suits and Ties (6-4) vs Team Cameltoe (3-7)
Having just joined us in 2017, Felipe and Matt are newish owners still looking for some sustained success. With Felipe’s team undergoing a thorough rebuild, but Matt’s team emerging from a 4-15 rookie season to six wins already this year, this will be a battle to watch.

Team Spade (1-9) vs Snack Bears (1-9)
I mean, the two one-win teams have to match up right? How has Randall been so bad with such a good keeper core? And how can Brandon right the ship after a disastrous early season?

IL Conceived (4-5-1) vs Fob Stars (3-6-1)
Another Chinese school pairing, new owner Frank and Jimmy have been at it for years! Now they fight to get out of the SlamNation cellar and maybe one of them can secure an edge for the Toilet Bowl!

Schedule 2018: Updated Master Schedule

After yet another schedule snafu, our commissioners went back in and fixed the old schedule, giving it a color refresh and making sure the matrix looks correct. So while 2018's WK4-8 matchups are messed up, everything moving forward should be juuuuust right! We added an exciting WK11 "Rivalry Week" this year, so we're waiting for those matchups to come up. Use it as an opportunity to call out your favorite frenemy or maybe to avenge a close loss!

[ Schedule Matrix ]

Here is our schedule explained in as plain English as possible. Note: In past years we ran 19 regular season weeks, but this year it was expanded to 21 by the NBA schedule makers.

Our league’s 16 teams are split into two conferences — Russell and Chamberlain. The 8 teams in each conference are split into two divisions (C: Transformers / Silverhawks and R: Thundercats / Voltron); every division has four teams.

• Division Games (6): Every team plays six games against the other three teams in its division, facing off twice per season
• Intra-Conference Games (4): Every team plays one game against each of the four teams from the other division within its conference
• Out-Of-Conference Games (8): Every team plays one game against each of the eight teams from the other conference
• Strength of Schedule Games (2): Every team plays its remaining two games, aka “extra,” against two intra-conference teams as determined by the previous season’s standings. The #1 finisher from a division will play #1 and #3 from the intra-conference division, while the #4 finisher from the previous season faces the #2 and #4 finishers from the opposing intra-conference division
• Rivalry Games (1): Every team plays one rivalry game, usually WK11, if the schedule allows

Is there strength of schedule involved?
Yes. But very slight. And it’s mostly in the intra-conference games, where the #1 finishers from each division face the opposing inter-conference division #1 and #3 seeds twice — the two extra conference games referenced above — making their overall schedule slightly tougher.

On the flip side, if you’re a lowly #4 seed in your division, you would play the #2 and #4 seeds from the other conference for your extra games, resulting in a slightly different schedule. Make sense?

Every season should unfold like this:
• The regular season opens with two intra-conference games versus the two teams you’ll face again -- in WK17/18 -- these are the two Strength of Schedule games
• There are four out-of-conference games in each of the season’s two halves -- divided between WK 1-10 and WK11-20. There are slightly more intra-conference games in the season’s first half and more division games in the season’s second half.
• Division Games are usually, assuming twenty-one week season: WK3, 8, 14, 19, 20, 21
• Most importantly, the season closes with three straight matchups against your division mates, giving us an exciting end of season race for division champs

Note: We're not using "intra" vs "inter" because it's too confusing. Technically out-of-conference games are "inter-conference games" but we're just gonna say "out-of-conference."

2014 Schedule

The new schedule has been adjusted -- and released -- and as always, it's semi-weighted for division finishes. That's what Alvin tells me anyway. I'm not sure exactly how that works, but it's to help parity or something. All I know is that I keep losing, and I don't know why! [Click for archived "schedule" posts]

What we haven't ever looked at is how that weighted schedule plays out. Each 19 week regular season consists of the following:

• 6 Division games
• 6 Conference games
• 7 Out of conference games

For example: Eron, Joven, and Chandler finished 6-13 last year, good for last place in Transformers division. This upcoming season they'll play everyone in their own division twice, and then their fellow Chamberlain Conference foes, the Silverhawks division, for six games. They face off against the Jedi Knights and Fat Jubas twice, while only matching up against Sour Snails and Fob Stars once each. Ideally they'd play everyone in the opposing Russell Conference once, but with only seven out of conference games, EJC skip out on facing 100 Acre Wood Heffalumps this year.

What that means is that if you're in a tough division -- and to a lesser extent, a tough conference -- you're constantly battling against each other year after year, just as it should be. In fact, the last three games of your team's season will always be against fellow division mates, which can make for great head-to-head games for post-season contention. Also, six of the last seven games are against division or conference rivals, which makes the back half of the season very important for determining the two conference wild cards and jostling for division titles. Take a look at how the season schedule plays out each year:

• WK1-10: Two division games, three in-conference games, five out-of-conference games
• WK11-19: Four division games, three in-conference games, two out-of-conference games

2013 Schedule

As you know, Alvin makes the schedule each year and it features a custom strength of schedule, tailored to how bad -- or good -- your team did last year. We're all about parity here at SlamNation, even if somehow I never seem to win. Take a look at the scheduling matrix and if it's off, please tell one of the commishes.

Some scheduling and rules notes for this upcoming 2013 season.

• We adjusted the max games per week back to 22, as we had raised it last season due to the compressed lockout schedule.
• The schedule matrix displays Home/Away teams, but the ESPN site is not accurate in that way because we just arbitrarily entered in the home team.
• WK1 is a max of 19 games, as it starts on Tuesday and is only a six day matchup.
• WK16 is a max of 44 games, as it spans All Star weekend and runs from Feb 11-24 for a fourteen day matchup.
• There are 19 regular season games this season, with the last week being March 11-17.

Schedule Template 2011 (Original)

Did you know that your fine commissioner Alvin does a schedule template each and every year that accounts for strength of schedule, conference and divisional games, and needs to be updated manually? Wowza! Yes, this league is so pro that the commissioners are offering their best work to make sure everything is fair and equitable. So please, if you have a spare point guard or big man needing a cheap way to exit your roster, consider your fine commishes as trade targets first.

And if you have League Manager powers, do not adjust the schedule settings or reset them, otherwise Alvin will be very upset.