I can’t help myself. Anytime there is a major sporting event, the first thing that comes to my mind is… Fantasy. With the NBA playoffs starting on Saturday, I started to think of ways to get some people involved. I immediately threw out the option of having just a standard Fantasy Draft. Most people I know do not care for it in the NBA… and it would be a extremely deep process trying to pick players, ya know with some guys playing less games….

Say OKC and MIA and in the ship, but MIA swept everyone in the east and OKC went 7 games in every series… Durant would have played 12 more games than Lebron. Not to mention the fact that teams get eliminated, but that comes with any playoff fantasy league.

Anyways…. Next I thought of doing a betting style game like with the NFL playoffs. Way too many games, NEXT.

I started to think of previous leagues I have held that have a similar set up to the NBA.

NHL Playoff Pool went well, but I just don’t have the time to set it all up in a few days and get everyone’s picks for the first round.

Olympic Hockey Pool was also very successful. Where all involved picked each of the games outcome, medal placing, and 3 forwards + 2 Defensemen + 1 Goalie to sum up the total points. Again, too much work for me in the next few days.

Finally, Sweet 16 comes to mind. Last year I ended up with 8 guys for my Sweet 16 Spread Game. All 8 guys got two teams, one on each side of the bracket at random. Your team covers the spread and wins… you take that team to the next round. Your team covers the spread and loses, you take the winning team to the next round. Your team fails to cover the spread, you lose that entry. THIS is something we can do, but with a little adjusting.

NBA Playoffs Spread Games
Basics
8 or 16 guys.gals
If 8, everyone would get a team from the West AND a Team from the East, at random.
If 16, everyone would get a team at random.

How to advance
Consider the following Examples…
Entry 1 draws The Heat.
Entry 2 draws The Bucks.

First Round… Heats vs Bucks.
Entry 1 vs Entry 2 would be a series inside the NBA series… all with spreads.
Say, MIA/MIL go….

4 game cases…
7 games and the Heat cover 4 of the 7 games… Entry 1 would advance.
6 games and the Heat cover 4 of the 6 games… Entry 1 would advance.
5 games and the Heat cover 4 of the 5 games… Entry 1 would advance.
4 games and the Heat cover all 4 of the games… Entry 1 would advance.

Simple enough, if your team covers 4 games. You advance.

Odd case…
5 games and the Heat cover 3 of the 5.. Entry 1 would advance.

In this case, The Heat wrap up the series in only 5 games, but neither team covered 4 total games. If that would happen the team that covered more (3, since 5 games is the only time this would happen) would advance.

Tie cases…
Now, lets say the Heat win in either 6 games or 4 games, but the spreads were even (3-3) or (2-2). The first tiebreaker would be the difference in spreads for the games.

Example…
Game 1: Heat -7.5 and win by 10 (+2.5)
Game 2: Heat -7.5 and win by 2 (-5.5)
Game 3: Heat -7.5 and win by 3 (-4.5)
Game 4: Heat -7.5 and win by 17 (+9.5)

The total difference would be (2.5)-(5.5)-(4.5)+(9.5) = +2.0… so Entry 1 would advance. If this difference was Negative (Positive for Mil/Entry 2) then Entry 2 would advance with the Heat.
If there is no difference, the second tiebreaker would just have to be which team is advancing in real life. This would be the only case where having a good team benefits you. So, say the Heat win in 4, only cover twice, and the difference is 0 in the 4 games… Entry 1 would advance since the Heat would be going to the next round and that is the team they controlled.

Just like the March Madness version of this, if you have Mil and win any of these cases, but the Heat advance in real life… then you would advance and take control of the Heat for the next round.

Just an idea for now, but to get all the info out there I thought it easier to send this link in a text than try and explain it in a text. Let me know asap if interested. As usual, any ideas you have to add to or take from this are welcome.

~Staudt