First off, appreciate the feedback and cause for concern.
In the beginning of MB's history, there were no rules. Teams were allowed to bring whoever they wanted, and the league transitioned from being organically competitive among friends who were generally in the same talent pool to bringing in unfamiliar superstar players that nobody else in the league knew. I'm talking about very talented players from local gyms, plus his friends. That's not inherently a problem, and we've never told any player "you're not welcome here" because we strive to be inclusive.
We operated in that model for a few seasons till we realized we need to segment the talent. We did this by splitting the league into D1, D2, and D3.
D1 was no holds barred, and teams stacked their rosters as much as they wanted. However, it just didn't have enough of a following. We had to exert much more effort to get teams to register, pay, and in the end, it just wasn't worth it to have a division of 6 teams every time.
On the other hand, D2 (which still exists today), took off. We had a subjective captain/commissioner approval method, but by and large, this division represented the most common talent pool you generally find. Additionally, there was opportunity for D1 and D3 players here, provided the rest of the roster is balanced.
Over time, it became very difficult to objectively approve rosters across 20+ teams. We had statistics on every player, so we created the MBR. The formula is listed on the MBR page, and we can apply factors to normalize one's statistics. This answers Weiss's questions why one player has more stats than another, but a lower MBR. The reason is because the lower stats/higher MBR player played in a more competitive division. How do we create these factors? Thanks to players like Weiss (and many, many others) who played in multiple divisions - we can gauge their performance and see what the statistical uptick is if they moved to a lower division.
Now, is the MBR perfect? No. But it is more than enough to provide a meaningful guardrail to commissioners to assess a team's talent. What's more is that the data is over the last 30 games of a player's career, thereby normalizing (for the most part) for any single game, abnormal season pace, etc. What about players that haven't played in years? Really not sure what one can expect. Are we to assume they hibernated in a hole for 5 years? Of course not, they just played basketball elsewhere. Keep in mind we have those season factors - they normalize even a player's inactivity over time.
Again, the MBR is used as a guide and not end-all/be-all metric to decide which teams are approved or rejected. With that said, think of it as a salary cap. The higher-rated players demand a higher pay, and if the league institutes a cap on the salary, this helps ensure a balance to the league. Of course, one can always find exceptions, but look at the parity the league has seen in recent years since instituting this process.
Season: teams (ranking)
Summer 2019: Kazan (12), Mombasa (1), Tripoli (14), Sarajevo (3)
Champion - Kazan (12)
Winter 2019: Tripoli (10), Islamabad (6), Medina (9), Dhaka (5)
Champion - Tripoli (10)
Summer 2018: Kabul (5), Mombasa (3), Timbuktu (13), Suba (1)
Champion - Suba (1) - they beat Timbuktu (13) by 1 pt and Mombasa (3) by 2 points in Final Four
Winter 2018: Dhaka (4), Kazan (1), Granada (15), Lahore (6)
Champion - Granada (15)
Every season, it is "any given Sunday" with MB games. And combined with brotherhood, isn't that one of the best things that makes this league fun?
TL;DR = #trusttheprocess
Edited by user Thursday, January 30, 2020 3:48:27 PM(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified