Endgame: Down to the Buzzer, The Final Chapter

Update @ April 15, 11:45pm:

Jabrones: Lost ground on BLK. They are out of contention, with a likely finish of 72 points.

Thugs: Only scored 1 STL, so they will not take the point from the Bricks. Thugs have shot 8 for 20, while Phatsnapper has shot 18 of 34, for 52.9%. Likely no move in FG% (Phatsnapper recently bumped up to .468). The Thugs have 2 AST to 3 TO, while Westy has 9 AST to 4 TO. Again, likely no move in A/TO. Likely finish is at 74.5.

Sparty: Shot a combined 23 for 64, or 35.9%, while the Bricks have shot well (22 of 43, or 51.2%) . It appears that the Bricks will hold steady in FG%, while Sparty may drop a half point to 74. Once again, my rhetorical question about whether Sparty's best move was to bench his players after he managed to pick up the half point.

We won't know the final outcome, since the rate stats are somewhat unpredictable w/ the info available. This makes me wish that they'd carry out the rate stats to a couple more decimal points, since the difference between 0.01 in, say A/TO, is a relatively large chunk, particularly since you rate 1.6251 as being the same as 1.6349, as both round to 1.63. It appears to be about 50-50 for for a tie at 74.5, and good chance for a miracle Thugs victory, 74.5 to 74.

Last day of the season, and things are still up in the air. But, what's interesting is that in the last week, the rabbit (the Euros, who were above 80 points, about a week ago) has been caught by the greyhounds. And now, it's less of a rabbit hunt, and more of a dog fight... I wonder where Michael Vick is right now...

Rk	Team	Tot	FG%	FT%	3PTM	PTS	ORB	REB	AST	ST	BLK	A/T
1	O.N. Thugs	74.5	5.5	8	4	9	11	8	8	6	8	7
1	Sparty Rules	74.5	1.5	11	11	5	2	11	11	5	6	11
3	European Sellout	74	9	4	9	8	3	3	10	10	9	9
4	IamJabrone	72	10	3	3	11	9	10	5	11	7	3
5	chowtime	70.5	7.5	10	8	10	4	5	7	4	5	10
6	Westy's FadinBallers	69.5	7.5	7	5	7	6	9	9	9	4	6
7	Dribbling Balls	63	3	1	7	6	7	6	6	8	11	8
8	Floor burns	54	4	6	6	3	10	7	3	3	10	2
9	Milwaukee Bricks	43.5	1.5	2	10	4	5	2	4	7	3	5
10	Love Timberwolves	41	11	9	1	2	8	4	1	2	2	1
11	Phatsnapper	23.5	5.5	5	2	1	1	1	2	1	1	4

Yep. A 2-way tie for first.

Rk	Team	GP	FG%	FT%	3PTM	PTS	ORB	REB	AST	ST	BLK	A/T
1	O.N. Thugs	820	0.468	0.799	591	13731	1452	4969	2853	810	577	1.63
1	Sparty Rules	816	0.463	0.827	972	12343	1038	5273	3203	802	542	1.98
3	European Sellout	820	0.473	0.772	858	13488	1114	4681	2995	913	589	1.70
4	IamJabrone	816	0.475	0.760	548	14137	1400	5135	2576	933	571	1.48
5	chowtime	816	0.471	0.817	803	13811	1126	4779	2719	759	538	1.78
6	Westy's FadinBallers	817	0.471	0.790	631	13065	1159	5093	2887	892	511	1.62
7	Dribbling Balls	798	0.464	0.751	787	12415	1176	4886	2707	872	626	1.68
8	Floor burns	820	0.465	0.789	754	11796	1412	4932	2254	757	603	1.44
9	Milwaukee Bricks	809	0.463	0.757	937	11839	1147	4521	2427	812	474	1.61
10	Love Timberwolves	699	0.478	0.801	384	11670	1304	4764	2095	681	432	1.39
11	Phatsnapper	646	0.468	0.785	533	10197	946	3880	2149	623	415	1.54

And looking at the stats, it appears to be a crapshoot.

There are potential 0.5 point swings in FG% for both the Thugs and Sparty. But that seems to be the extent of Sparty's movement. He'll probably finish at 74, 74.5, or 75, although if he manages to get like 12 steals out of his 4 players tonight, the league's over, in his favor, as that would win him one point from the Thugs. I'd guess that the most likely scenario is 74.5, with about a 24.5% chance of going up or going down that half point.

As for the Thugs, well, things are always a little different, and sort of special in that autistic/ semi-to-fully retarded sort of way.

The Thugs still have work to do. In addition to maintaining that 8 STL lead over Sparty, the Jabrones are 6 BLK back. Also, Westy's gunning for 0.5 point in A/T, from the Thugs. On the upside, the Thugs are only 2 STL back of the Bricks (aka Eddy's), and could still pick up a point there. If I had to guess, I think that the Thugs are more likely to take the point from the Bricks than to lose points to either Jabrones or Sparty. Also, I'd guess that picking up the 0.5 in FG% is about the same as losing the 0.5 in A/T, and I'd classify either as being unlikely (though not out of the question).

So, a reasonable, "good outcome" scenario is picking up 0.5 in FG%, and 1 in STL, and protecting the lead in BLK, and finishing with 76, and taking home the trophy. Of course the downside scenario is that multiple teams go nuts in just the wrong categories, and drop me to 73.5. But just like with Sparty, 74.5 is probably the most likely.

Does that mean that we're going to have another UPL tie? Well, I'd say that there's about a 40% chance of a tie (30% chance both teams stay, about 5% chance that both teams move up 0.5, and about a 5% chance that both teams move down 0.5). But if both teams move up, I like my chances, since that means that I took the point in STL from the Bricks.

And could there be a *Jabrone Slam (asterisk = having a 4-way tie as part of your "slam")? Not looking good, as the Jabrones would need to get at least 13 OREB and 7 BLK with 4 players, and also get help from the Bricks in FG% (ironic team name/stat category pairing) and STL. So in addition to having your bigs go nuts, you'd also be relying on the Bricks for quite a bit... probably not going to happen.

In any case, we've had quite the finish to the season. All we have left to do is the crowning of a champion.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)