.

.

LEAGUE HISTORY

     The league was really started to fill personal Fantasy Sports voids, with it's origin's tracing back to the end of 2000. It was then that the would be Asst Commissioner and I started discussing more and more frequently what we thought would be the optimum Fantasy Basketball league.

     A league was envisioned where you could keep all your players year after year, trading (always a tough system to develop) would be open with almost no restrictions, we would use a Salary system with a Salary Cap for more strategy, have a larger number of teams to increase competition, and we would want people from different parts of the country (or world for that matter) to add different perspectives to the league.

     After scouring the internet for such a league, we were surprised by the lack of non "Sim" Fantasy Basketball leagues out there. In fact, other than the Yahoo, ESPN, and the like "Pay Leagues", you could count the active basketball leagues on one hand !

     Finally in the early summer 2001, the Fantasy Basketball Federation started to take shape. After lookiing in numerous forums and at leagues that had disbanded, we decided on a 16 team format, penned our Constitution, and sent out mass e-mails and forum ads stating our objective.

     We had two local friends who were interested, but in reality we weren't sure what kind of reception or interest would be generated, in fact there were discussions on what course of action we would take if we couldn't find 16 people.

     Those concerns quickly subsided however, a mere 10 minutes after the first e-mail went out, when the LA RuffRyders joined the fold. Slowly but surely the e-mails kept coming in, and by the end of the day our concerns were fully put to rest. Not only was the league filled within 24 hours, but we were overwhelmed with responses, with a Waiting List long enough to start another league by the end of the week !

     To date the interest continues to grow, as the League's name and reputation makes it way throughout the Fantasy Basketball community. It's backbone however remains the same...the people and their love of the game.

.

David Smith, FBF Commissioner

.