[quote=&quot;Fastidious&quot;]OK, I understand you much more after you said that.&nbsp; I do think trading hurts parity however more than helps it.&nbsp; Let&#039;s use the Goatface Hatred trade as an example - your team was really weak (bad parity) and you went to a so-so team if I remember correctly, they then turned into a power house team (bad parity).&nbsp; So basically you hurt a bad team (not that it matters for them really) then boosted a so-so team into MasterBowl contention.&nbsp; I would concede the parity of those teams before wasn&#039;t great but the result ended up lopsiding both teams further towards each extreme.&nbsp; That is why trading seems bad to me.[/quote]<br /><br />This is completely true and I won&#039;t argue it. It changed the landscape of the IDC that season but as Rust pointed out, it was Goatface who made the trade and Ralphis who approved it. So while trades like this tend to occur, there are two people it has to go through before it&#039;s set in stone. <br /><br />That being said, that season was not very balanced at all. Prior to the EBL/DMR trade, you only had 4 good teams: FLS (Rus, LB, Ladna), BBC (Nostar, mike, mid), SUC (Ralphis, Gyross, RottKing) and the eventual Masterbowl champions, BSK (Jenova, Stall, Saber). And in hindsight, the winner of the Masterbowl was going to come out of the WDC, so it&#039;s reasonable to conclude that the level of parity that particular season was a joke. <br /><br />What am I getting at? This is what I&#039;m saying: the one thing the trade did was turn another team into a contender. Whether this was fair or unfair is not the point. The point is, saying trading doesn&#039;t give parity is disproved by this example. While this case in particular is a bit extreme, it&#039;s a perfect illustration of how trading helps. <br /><br />The downside was, Goat gave me away for virtually nothing. In a season of more balanced teams with deeper talent, perhaps Xen would have had a nice package such as one of his original members, Tony and another worthwhile player without 150ms ping. Now all of a sudden, the trade becomes a bit more balanced and strengthens both teams. And the truth is, had Goat drafted better, perhaps this trade never happens. So it does give your point validity but it also even further proves Rust&#039;s point.<br /><br />It ultimately comes down to captains. If a captain drafts well, he&#039;ll probably do okay as long as he is capable of pointing and shooting. If he doesn&#039;t, maybe a trade can save him. One trade that didn&#039;t get much press this past season was my trade with DMC, Mantis for Saber. I don&#039;t think it was unbalanced, neither did Naut. We both just needed to try something different in an attempt to save our seasons. So trading does help, but it does hurt. <br /><br />As I noted above, the trade of me to EBL did, by definition, help parity. But under the circumstances in which it happened, you have to wonder if that was good for the IDL. Most would say no and as time has gone on, I tend to agree. But, as I said: there were two people who could have stopped it from happening, Goat and Ralph.&nbsp; &nbsp; <br /><br />But as Rust said, with better captains, this probably gets avoided and trading isn&#039;t so frowned upon. <br /><br />[quote=&quot;Fastidious&quot;]The draft does have some basic parity and fairness built into it.&nbsp; Trading really does not.&nbsp; Maybe players should have to agree to any trade, not just captains dictating for them.&nbsp; In the real world teams have to worry about keeping their players somewhat happy and paying for them.&nbsp; In the IDL captains can decide a players fate without a care given to them.[/quote]<br /><br />This is a good point to raise. The downside, however, is that a player can use this as leverage as well. He can simply veto a trade if he doesn&#039;t want to play for a certain team, even if it actually makes both teams better. This way, he can basically pull the &quot;trade me to this team and I&#039;ll accept it&quot; crap. So I&#039;m not sure if it&#039;s worth the risk.<br /><br />This ultimately falls on the Commish&#039;. If he sees it as a bad deal, he should not approve it. Simple as that. If the player doesn&#039;t like it, well, he has to wonder why somebody wants to trade him in the first place and perhaps do some soul-searching. You generally don&#039;t trade a player if he&#039;s performing well and helping your team win. So there is probably some other non-sense going on. Either way, the commissioner can see to it that both sides win if the correct proposal is there. If not, then there&#039;s really no answer. Better captains so this never happens maybe? :)<br /><br />[quote=&quot;Fastidious&quot;]I think the response to that is to just draft better, or get someone worse but someone who plays positions you need.&nbsp; Drafting skill over positions to conduct a trade is quite risky but can have big pay offs.[/quote]<br /><br />I don&#039;t think it&#039;s that simple. I like examples, you seem to like examples, so let me better illustrate my point with one:<br /><br />Mass drafts Nostar - everyone goes wtf???<br />LB drafts mike: - everyone goes WTF???<br /><br />While the players drafted are great players, they don&#039;t fit well in these particular situations. You could say, hey, if Mass drafts mike, then this never happens! That&#039;s true, but LB&#039;s stand-point is, at #6 overall, I probably won&#039;t get Nostar. So if I offer Mass mikehail in return, plus a better 2nd pick, maybe he&#039;ll budge. So as a result, you have to wonder if this was predetermined before the draft by LB/Mass. Even if it wasn&#039;t, it made perfect sense - it gave them what they needed and it gave them two of the best in the world at their respective positions. <br /><br />You see what I mean? This helped both teams a great deal. And while both teams would still be awesome with the guys they originally drafted, neither team maximizes their potentials and probably don&#039;t get as far in the post-season as they do. <br /> <br />But my proposal was to simply erase the captain pick for other captain then swap concept. It&#039;s open to abuse quite frankly. So, instead, simply trade draft positions. It&#039;s easier, less work to do and gives captains the ability to seamlessly move up and down the draft board as long as somebody is willing to deal. Unless I&#039;m missing something major, I don&#039;t see how this possibly can hurt [b]anything[/b] before it [b]helps[/b].&nbsp;  <br /><br />[quote=&quot;Ralphis&quot;]Also, I think that personal attacks are getting us nowhere! Fastidious has been instrumental in helping the league throughout the years by helping compile important statistical information that has, at times, helped shaped the league. He has also offered a myriad of ideas (a good deal of which were not implemented, just like everyone else&#039;s ideas of course) which is certainly valuable. You should not discount his contributions to the league![/quote]<br /><br />I really couldn&#039;t agree more. I can&#039;t speak for anyone else but I can say that I like Fast. While he&#039;s a bit weird and has some strange addictions, I&#039;ll say that we all have something fucked up we do and aren&#039;t anyone to judge. So we should probably stop making personal attacks out of it. Joking is one thing, making it personal is another. <br /><br />And discounting the contributions of a long-time IDLer probably isn&#039;t the best of ideas either. Fast has always been willing to help people anyway he can, provide constant discussion and propose ideas, that quite frankly, most people are afraid to bring up. And while this may not directly lead to any change of the rules, it doesn&#039;t mean it doesn&#039;t have an impact somehow. So, for the sake of all us being adults here, let&#039;s try to act like it. Being a little harsh or straight to the point like Rust or Ralph isn&#039;t bad. But making personal attacks is and it kills discussion and veers us off course when, now more than ever, we should be trying to avoid as much derailment as we possibly can. <br /> 