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Juranka's Corner

Dec 10, 2007

inside the head
of a commissioner
thinking about parity

ideally
every night
any team
can beat
any other team
depending on
other variables like
someone stepping it
up or down

or the jinx phenomenon
(which is temporary)

balancing teams
is challenging
if everyone shows up
but when players
get injured or
inconsistent
it changes
the original balance

these injured players
often come back
for the playoffs
so we need
to factor that
into the equation

on the other hand
players are injured
just before
playoff time
as my team was
last year
i got my ankle injury
a month before
the end of the season
and even though
i never re-sprained it
it was painful to use
so when chris chambers
got injured
a couple of weeks
before the playoffs
i knew
at that moment
it will be a blessing
NOT to play them out

i won the championship before
and was still basking in that
and now the universe was telling me
even before the first game
that winning was
out of the question
it wasn't a biggie

i would have
reinjured my ankle
if we got past
thefirst game
and that
i wanted to avoid
so we gave
a great last game
lost and that was it

it had been a great season

then i watched every playoff game
and never missed the firkin
and loved every minute

but back to parity

injury is something
you just can't
compensate for

perhaps amir and reznick
will be back in full force
during the playoffs
Reznick is almost full force
with a little extra weight
but perhaps even
more determination

amir is less likely
to be near full strength
and has to watch out
so can't go full on

but as we've seen
gregus is "on" some nights
and they are fine

until then
their teams are handicapped
without them

alternatively
there are sometimes
weaker players
playing all season
who may be unable
or unwilling to play
during the playoffs
throwing off the balance

as a commissioner
you have to assume
100% turnout for
every game

if players have not
dropped out of the league
then they are assumed
present and playing
at 100%

any micro-managing
beyond that becomes
second-guessing injury schedules

reznick and amir
are usually
in the top 6 or 7
so its impossible
to compensate
their team for
their absence

the stats during the year
should reflect their absence
and if it doesn't
then imagine how strong
they will be
when the stars return

a couple of games ago
blue beat green
in a game in which
green had only three players
and two of them
were their rookies

blue got two point for that win
but if gregus amir packer and carter
would have showed up
then blue would have been
happy with a tie

if that game was a tie
then the stats are as follow
black leads with 12
blue white and green 11
red with 10

this is pretty close
almost too close
considering that amir
isn't playing for green

the reason green
can do so well
even without amir is that
there are nights that
gregus will do
much of the scoring
on his own

also carter packer and lepage
have a lot of finish sometimes
making them the
second high scorer

anyway
grey doesn't have a gregus
who can take control
the way he sometime does

but that pressure
gets to gregus
when it isn't happening
& losing gracefully
is important too

this league has a lot of lessons
for everybody


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