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Season 5 - YES!

Season 5 - YES!

That was a strong yes - yes? :D Thank you Trailblazer for your commitment/decision, which, may I say, was an excellent one!

Fresh league tables after yesterdays' (Sunday) Round 8 matches have now been published.

Again, a different Round from many others - 6 out of 9 matches were decided by 14 points or less.

However, all of those 6 matches were 10-14 points wins, so no nailbiter-matches this time. However, it's still excellent to see so many quite even matches taking place within one Round. While BB is it's 'own story' (as it's not quite like real basketball), still we all know 10-14 points difference isn't huge in basketball and can melt within a minute or less in a game clock.

Round 9 matches are about to begin in a moment.

We are in for a treat, as RAJ (7W-1L) and LMS (6-2) will meet - especially important game for LMS, as they'd even the RS W-L record with RAJ, and ensure an upper hand position against RAJ if they end up in similar amount of wins at the end of RS (which is perfectly possible, given that both have very strong teams).

VIV-VPO is a match between 2 teams that haven't still lost on Season 4, and now this will change to either of these teams.

HB-WMO; 2 teams fighting for the mid-table positions/place in Playoffs. HB has had possibly slightly disappointing start of the Season 4 RS given their strong Top8-salaries, as they're 3-5 currently. WMO is only 1 win ahead at 4-4, so HB would have a great chance to equalize things here. What do you guys think, will this become an even match?

ED-MAD; again 2 teams within one win apart, ED currently having an edge with 5-3 record. While ED does have a 61K edge on top8-salaries, MAD is ahead in some statistical categories, so is that going to be enough to bring win to an only Spanish team in HGL history?

Also, we have '2 Estonian teams face 2 Finnish teams'-Round - what are the odds for that (as both countries have 'only' 2 teams in HGL?). Estonians would have to be set as a favorites to win this Season's Estonia-Finland match, as a HGL-newcomer BCR has proven his strength/quality, and so has EOS.

+1

I hope the competition really becomes quite even in the future as we all continue to train and improve :D

I believe it will.. And we'll at least seem to have some amount of "similar level teams" each Season, which effectively produces at least some amount of quite/very even matches.

It's great to be able to continuously compare your teams' success against other HG teams, and see where you currently are at, in your team/player development path.

Of course, it doesn't directly reflect only your development (if you compare success against some exact team year after year, as they might be developing with very high speed or then even declining in skills/salaries) if you do that, but it's still interesting to see how you fare against each given team, Season after Season.

But if you compare your total Regular Season success, then it gives you clue into which direction you're heading (vs. other HGL teams). Although it affects a lot (makes direct comparison of Season to Season success harder) that teams change from Season to Season, but still...

Importantly, the HGL continues to grow and improve...

I find the improving part to be way more important than "growing" part - as mentioned earlier, I think quality and manager commitment is way more important than quantity, especially in this kind of "all-manual-league". This becomes most evident to me, as I see what happens partly also 'behind the scenes' (only part of the requests send to managers by BBMail ever see the daylight in Official Threads), and how much it affects to the work load.

Everybody please remember, we've yet to had a single HGL pre-season without quite a lot of hassle with the match organizing and box score post-project - so ensuring quality and manager commitment first, and only after that is ensured, concentrating on possible expansions, is the way to go in my opinion. While this if a free-to-participate kind of league, it is essential that everyone does their own part to keep league running as optimally as possible, and I interpret it all being part of the respect towards the league. Having said that, I do the work in trying to find new teams for the future, especially as it seems to be the case that every Season someone decides to step out. This was the case with BC Rajaleidjad, who is now participating to Season 4 due to my invitation (which I'm glad Trailblazer accepted!).

Same logic doesn't luckily have to apply to HGL, that applies to capitalism (continuous growth is a demand in order to keep the system optimally functional). So if we'd be in a situation in a Season or two, where we'd again have 16 teams participating, I wouldn't see it a failure of any kind (of course to some extent depending on a reason why that would occur, but personally I don't feel like I've ever been very rude to anyone in BB and I don't plan to change that, so I don't think that should become the reason anyone would exit HGL).

And as for improving, while I'm person who likes to improve and optimize practically all the time (little things at the very least), still I also think there's wisdom in "don't fix it if it's not broken". So in other words, I don't see much new value being brought in by changing something for the sake of changing it (and I'm not implying you were referring to such change either, just to be sure you didn't get me wrong), but actually change can sometimes bring 'negative value', so I prefer to consider changes carefully.

But as has been said, it's good to see some managers putting in hours to make league better (I'm looking at you especially LennuK., with your help on some pre-season statistical tasks, and now taking care of these Round-to-Round stats that you publish after each Round).

I agree with everything you have said, Wagner.

This league has become quite successful. In part because of the work you do behind the scenes and in part by all managers competing who, even sometimes with continual reminders, have to actually get their end done so the league can even go ahead. I think it is important to acknowledge that too.

As for the 16-league system...I don't think it needs to 'grow' (eg more teams) to equal growth. Instead, regardless of how many teams are competing, that the HGL continues and managers continue to be involved in any way they can.

I'm not sure if LennuK or anyone else is keeping stats on every player in every game (eg. Pts, reb, ast, stl, blk etc), but I am currently compiling Season 4's data. I thought it would be nice to create a Leaders page which is updated at the end of each Round (as quickly as possible given there are more games in a week now) so that we get a 'live' table of who is Leading the HGL this season in the above-mentioned stats.

I was able to put many hours into this today only to get the first 5 rounds done; so, it will take time. Then, eventually, I will go back and do all of the previous seasons. I think it would be nice to have a Leader page tracking all the stars in our league.

Thank you for your response, MrJ. And yes, it is important to state the obvious - I appreciate all the work every manager is doing on their part (taking care of necessary tasks) to keep HGL running.

And yes, thank you for specifying that - I understood word growth connected only to growth in numbers, and it's a good point that there's another kind of growth as numeral one (which again I consider to be the most important kind of growth).

Adding player stats would be truly excellent addition, and I'm sure not one HGL manager would be against that.
Can I ask if you're compiling all stats from all games, which (if we use points as an example) would give you a list of all players that have scored points on Season in question?
I'm asking this to understand what I can possibly suggest or can't suggest (while the decision of course remains in your hands, in which form you want to publish them). Question was originally aired because I wanted to know if you have access to as wide data as you could possibly want, and therefore could decide how wide data you'd publish. Point was that in a Buzzer-manager for instance I think there's top20-list instead of typical top10. Personally I find these top20 or top30 lists more interesting, as then it allows almost everyone to get some/many players on the list, and follow their ups and downs during the Season through movement on that particular stats-category.

Also, for instance, we´d reach a positive dilemma (if you have exact shooting stats/amounts available within your data sheet/collection that is tied to that player), that what kind of limits would be used so that player qualifies for shooting stats (minimum shots attempted/game), and I haven't done much research on that one that what are the values that for instance NBA or Euroleague uses in their statistics.

One more suggestion; while it's not especially positive stats that I'm talking about here, I'd personally like to see all stats categories best players, if you have them available in your collected stats, including played minutes, turnovers and fouls. Best in the case of 2 latter statistics of course meaning "worst".
But again, that's just a suggestion...

And yes, as a final note - collecting/organizing/publishing stats can take a lot of time (and that's partly why my team stats-posts publishing is intentionally delayed and doesn't occur after each Round, as large chunk of time actually is taken by organizing/publishing stats, as they do not jump into posts themselves), but I think it's time well invested if it brings many of us an added joy, possibly creates deeper commitment to the HGL, and even possibly helps us in some of our training (order) decisions...

Last edited by Wagner at 2/16/2026 8:08:19 AM

Currently, it is taking along time as I am using an Excel spreadsheet! I know...old format but it still has its uses. So, I am actually going game-by-game and manually entering every stat onto a large spreadsheet. I decided to go with Points, Rebounds, Assists, Steals and Blocks. Eventually I could add those other stats you mentioned. However, it will take considerable time just to catch up this season.

The speed it takes could mean that rather than a 'live' Leaders table this season, I might end up with providing the End Of Season (EOS) Leaders...say, the top 10 players in each of the categories mentioned above.

I keep a lot of stats on my own players and while fouls, turnovers, minutes played, ratings etc is something I do for my own players, I baulked at this knowing how mu8ch more effort and time would be required to produce them for everyone. This is why I settled on the more immediately interesting ones.

It's semi-traditional method, yes, but why change it if it works... :)
And that's correct - it's a significant increase in used time, if you add another statistical categories, when you do it by that method. People who have not created such stats themselves might not have the smallest clue how massive the workload increase actually is..

If someone would like to focus on those 'other' stats, that would be great. My task/goal is to provide everyone with the Leaders (averages) for Pts, Reb, Ast, Stls, Blks as quickly as I can for this season. Then, look at going back and doing past seasons at some stage...maybe..

I agree, it would/could be great if someone wants to take rest of those categories. Personally I've got my hands full with these HGL team stats-categories (45 categories), and I want to break the 2 Season streak of not being able to publish them completely, so I want to concentrate on those (and not creating player stats myself).

As for what players qualify...

...I will look at that once I have all the data up-to-date. I'm thinking that a certain number of games (a percentage of the total) will need to be used.

Yes, I agree that would be the best option... and when shooting percentages aren't involved, it's not necessary to consider minimum shooting amounts (as to who would qualify for the list on the first place, regardless of their PPG average), as point leaders always have lots of shots (as long as they qualify to the list based on enough % of games played)...

Yes, I could really go into significant detail, Wagner; however, not every manager will 'need' all of that. My aim is to provide a relatively a Top 10 Leaders of those main areas where players will have to have played a certain number of games to qualify. Simple. Managers will either like it or not...

Managers will surely like it, there's no question about that. My proposition of top20 or top30 on each of these categories was based on an assumption, that you would automatically have all players listed that have scored (and are able to organize them into from best to worst-order with press of couple of buttons in Excel), and that expanding that list to 20 or 30 per category wouldn't actually cause you much more effort at all. (But I could be mistaken with my belief, and even if I wouldn't it's of course your call - I was just thinking it would be interesting to see "an expanded top10").


Last edited by Wagner at 2/16/2026 8:48:14 AM

[...] However, it will take considerable time just to catch up this season.

The speed it takes could mean that rather than a 'live' Leaders table this season, I might end up with providing the End Of Season (EOS) Leaders...say, the top 10 players in each of the categories mentioned above.

At the end of the day, it's you who would be doing the work on these pts, reb, ast, stl, blk player top10(/whatever the number will be) stats-categories, and all of this is a positive contribution to HGL.

Therefore, it's your call whether you want to make it live or end of season (EOS - I believe there's a small problem with this abbreviation though, yes?;) stats. As I said, I understand the demands of "live" stats publishing, so I more than well understand if you want to publish end of season-stats "only" (or stats in chunks during RS, like is the intended publishing schedule of HGL team stats).

Nevertheless, whichever publishing schedule youi'll choose, all the work towards HGL statistics is highly appreciated by me, and I feel confident in saying, that also by many other HGL managers.

I have not been keeping track of the player stats, so it's great that you are doing so. I do however have a spreadsheet of my own wit hall the stats of my own players for all seasons I have participated. I think an end of season leaders idea is a good one, as I imagine updating such spreadsheet after every game could take lots of time.

League tables updated after Round 9.

As expected, some interesting action took place. But before that, please check out updated league table, and note how even it is currently among some "levels", such as fight for positions 2-4 (same amount of wins) and positions 7-14 (all these teams are only two wins apart). Could we just say game is still completely open, what becomes to good Playoff positions.. :)

As far as my Round 9 game previews go, RAJ was able to snatch even surprisingly comfortable win over LMS, making the gap between them a length of 3 games (considering RAJ will be positioned above in a case of their draw in wins). 10 more rebounds and about 9% worse FG% was too much for LMS to overcome.

VIV-VPO: win streak of VPO was being continued, however, the difference was only 7 points before the 4th. Now all teams ranked currently #2 to #4 in RS have had their attempt in winning VPO, with KKS coming closest to actually achieving that by losing only 2. VPO has already met ED and LMS (next in the league table on positions 5 and 6 currently), so will it be an easy ride for the rest of the RS for VPO?

HB-WMO: HB wasn't able to find an answer to WMO's inside defense orientation (level 11 in this match), losing last quarter by 10 and whole match by 14. Not absolutely dramatic differences, but WMO was better in many categories.

ED-MAD: While it might seem like a beating of some sort if you only look at the scoreboard (result) only, I suggest you take a glance of 4th quarter points: 37-15! So as MAD lost by 18 at the end, and lost 4th by 22, we can conclude that MAD actually led by 4 before the 4th! What really stands out for me in the stats are MAD's 18 turnovers (of which only 4 were ED's steals) and lots of points that were left on the free throw line by both teams.

As for Finland-Estonia match, on Season 4 it's 1-1 as BCR was able to erase my 14 point lead during 4th quarter and forced the game to the overtime, yet still suffering a narrow loss after 53 minutes of even battle. Ending 141-135, I wonder if this is one of the highest scoring matches in HGL RS history, in total points scored in a match? I haven't yet kept a record of such stats, so I could well be way off with my thought... But has anyone got better idea (or actual information) of HGL all-time record in this category?

As an added match I'd like to add VDT-HGK, that posed some interesting stats: HGK lost the match by 28, but were able to make a new HGL RS record with total of 32 offensive rebounds! They also won total rebounds 68-37 (31 rebound difference!), but on the other hand mishandled the ball big time (turned over the ball 26 times, of which half of them were VDT's steals) which harmed their chances of winning big time. Of course limited success rate (2 of 14) behind the three point arc while allowing VDT 11 of 23 shooting beyond the arc limited their chances as well, but that was to be expected as drive to the basket-strategy has a strong tendency to cause that (so it was a conscious decision from an experienced manager).


Last edited by Wagner at 2/16/2026 10:54:00 AM