2007-08 Game Picker Season Delayed

[Irv]

I apologize for the inconvenience, but I estimate that the 2007-08 Game Picker won't be ready until the beginning of 2008 because the Game Picker is dependent on the box score display and both items have to be rewritten. The box score display needs a complete rewrite and the Game Picker needs to be changed accordingly. The current implementation of the box score display is less than ideal and probably should have been replaced a long time ago because of its dependency on another site.

Anyway, the 2007-08 Game Picker season will be abbreviated much like how the 1998-99 NBA season was. Considering the issues of continuing to use a system that was problematic and feature-deficient in many ways for yet another season, I believe the decision to redevelop these elements of the site now will be better in the long run.

As far as the new Game Picker is concerned, its user interface will be more robust and intuitive with the ability to view pick history by game in addition to the already existing display of viewing pick history by user. In addition, the new overall leaderboard will display sortable stats for each user including:

Total points
Points behind leader
Points earned in previous game

Games played
Wins/Top 5/Top 10 finishes
Average points per game
Season-high single game score

I am also considering increasing the amount of picks you can make in advance from five to eight. The scoring system will remain the same, and the playoff bids will still be assigned based on total points. Regular season game results will no longer be posted in this forum either because the results will be stored and viewable in the Game Picker UI.

[22NYKRIP]

Thanks Irv...sounds GREAT! I'll be watching out for it!

[BenNY89]

After being on the forums for around 4 years...I've never done Game-Picker...what exactly is it...do we just pick games and try to guess the score and earn points? Whatever the case...I would like to be in this years game picker if that's possible...

[Irv]

After being on the forums for around 4 years...I've never done Game-Picker...what exactly is it...do we just pick games and try to guess the score and earn points? Whatever the case...I would like to be in this years game picker if that's possible...

Yes, that's basically it. As far as joining, Game Picker is available to all forum members.

[BenNY89]

I don't mean to be a pain in the ass...but what's the hold up?

[Irv]

There are two scenarios right now. If my development team can get it done next week, we'll have a one month sprint to the playoffs. The more likely scenario is canceling the entire season because the regular season format needs testing and the automated playoff format still hasn't been developed. I'm really sorry for the inconvenience. I wish I was in a better position to have this project developed faster, but I'm not the developer, lead or otherwise, in this project. However, I had this entire application completely rewritten except for the score calculation formula. Ultimately, the goal all along for the redeveloped regular season format was that I wanted absolutely zero day-to-day maintenance in updating the results or importing the box scores. That functionality ties into another portion of the site with regard to the schedule, recaps, and box score postings, so it's a bigger project than redeveloping just Game Picker. I think we'll get there, but I'm not totally optimistic about everything being ready in a week and then rushing development for the playoff feature in another month.

[bobhait]

maybe if we had a game picker the season would've played out differently? what do you think, Irv?

[Naan]

Any updates on progression of the back-end interface or is Game Picker going to be done away with altogether? It'd be a chore to do this manually, before anyone suggests it.

[bballrule11]

Any word on if or when it'll be ready?

[mbn007]

I enjoyed playing with Game Picker in 2006/2007. And the playoffs were real fun. I forget who I lost out to, but we had a great series, right down to the wire of the last game.

Hope you can get it going again Irv. Good luck.

[bballrule11]

Game picker on hold for another year??

[Irv]

Yeah, at least. Sorry for the inconvenience.

However, since we need to host some sort of contest to keep the competitive spirit here, I'm setting up a trivia challenge instead. Since I don't get to write the questions though, it'll initially be Knicks-based trivia until the rather small Knicks question pool is exhausted. I'll change it to NBA-based trivia afterwards.