Gentlemen, I have returned. Glad to see we are still going here. Looking forward to the playoffs!

I'm leaving again for surgery tomorrow. In a perfect world I will be back and the league will be up and running again. Cheers. I won't likely be back for a couple of weeks or a month at earliest.

I'll go knock on his front door...always wanted to see Austria 


We'll be ok guys. Tom is a great guy. He won't leave us hanging, but he does understand the value of real life over SSBA life. If he needs some time off, he deserves it and I'm sure he has a great reason.

We wouldn't be up in arms if he had sent us a post saying he needed to take some time of indef....so lets just take his post about being sick as just that.

[my little daughter has it now]

Guess it was a little prematurely, what I posted.

No, it probbly isn't swine flu (tho my little daughter has it now, like thousands others, and it's little different from the "regular" flu, if you're healthy otherwise), but recovery is far slower than expected. Extended PC times were simply not possible, and I was very happy to stay in bed for a few days.

This is reason enough for Tom to talk off all the time he could possibly need.

My prognosis has not really changed. I'm good for now, and since I'm living day to day, that's all that matters. 

Well guys I have returned. First surgery is complete and it was a success. While I was "dead" for the second time in my life, I am certainly not dead right now, and that is all that matters.

Thank you to all of you who have sent your warm wishes here in this thread or through PMs or Email. I even got an email from Ivan, whom many of you will remember as the original prodigal son (KingsGM). I had kept in touch with Ivan after he left SSBa but only to a point, so getting an email was very touching from him and I wanted to pass that on.


Cheers guys. For the foreseeable future, I am in the house. Let's get back to what we do best (well, some of us anyway, eh Tom? hahaha), and that is winning SSBA games.



Trev

Same

Who would have thought a post-FA min signee would be the player of the month 

I'm really enjoying the .txt files. It is showing me some weaknesses in the FBB files and making decisions about settings easier. For example, my team is killing it overall at 13-2, but the fast pace can hurt is sometimes too. For example, in the very first game of the season we were up 8 with the ball and 1:25 left on the clock but took a PF-top-of-the-key jumper in just 9 seconds, where the situation obviously called for clock management and a shot with 5 or less seconds left on the clock, unless an obvious lay-up or foul was to be had.

Bods, I feel the same way about the honest friends - which is why I would tell you guys in the first place. Normally I would not share something like this but I want to be able to explain any absence I may have.

There is nothing any of you can do, but I do appreciate you asking. Just know that I am doing very ok with all of this. I haven't had that long of a life, but I have experienced pretty much everything I hoped to experience and if that end comes soon, I'll be ready. We all have to go sometime. As well, while this was pretty sudden and certainly unexpected, I have had health issues for some time now and was always aware of this possibility.

For now, we will just continue to enjoy the action in SSBA. Thanks again for all the kind wishes, guys.

same

Hey guys.

I'll keep this as short as possible, but basically I recently got some very bad news about my health. Without going into a ton of detail, I have some serious gastro-intestinal issues that will likely be responsible for my death. I have my first surgery on Nov. 16 and won't get a better idea of how much time I have left until after that. If my condition is at all treatable, my time available for SSBA will be drastically cut short.

I have some time before my first surgery so I will hold onto the team for now - but despite what happens with me, I likely won't have alot of time to run my team, so I think it may be best if I was replaced.

an honets question...
Why do the folks who are interested have to wait for the folks who are not?

We've all been doing this long enough to know that disinterest is not the only reason for missing a DC. To be fair something may have come up for those guys.

[Blake Diddle, Rick Fox]

C - Stan Gugliotta, Keyon Brunson, Stan Gugliotta
PF - Chris Gatlin, Keyon Brunson, Chris Gatlin
SF - Blake Diddle, Blake Diddle, Rick Fox
SG - Dennis Hopson, Ricardo Allen, Dennis Hopson
PG - Dana Barros, Dana Barros, Phillip Shaw

IL - Ricardo Allen, Dawson Dooling

Keys:

1. Barros
2. Hopson
3. Diddle

Pace: Fast
Trap: Often
Press: Often
Focus: Outside

...And that is the 'real-life' version of the Raptors I be talkin' about.



As for MY [SSBA] Raptors, I really like what I saw from both preseasons. It is clear to me that Ricardo Allen, Dana Barros and Dennis Hopson are all capable of starting in the backcourt while Tom Artest, Phillip Shaw and Isiah Gallatin are all more than capable of playing 20 of the bench.

I am especially happy with what I saw in PS2 with the pace pushed to fast and the threes coming at a clip of 18.5 a game. We made 44.3% of threes which is excellent, and 3 guys scoring 19.9+, with Dana Barros being a HUGELY pleasant surprise with 22.2per on great shooting and a good a:to. I am thinking he may be the steal of my postseason and he came off the waiver wire.

Diddle looks fine. Fox stole a couple minutes from him so I will make a slight adjustment to the DC to get Diddle out there for 32-33 minutes instead of 30. Also like what I saw out of Hopson.

The pace and focus was hard on my big man but they still stepped up for +4 rebound advantage per game and a +3.5 bpg (not to mention the +11 ppg differential).


But hey, its all preseason. We'll see what we can do when the real action starts. Very excitied to have SSBA back!!