Hey-o all, I just wanted to make you guys aware of this cool site that was built off a reddit discussion about how awesome it would be if there was a 'virtual' nba championship belt that fans could keep track of and see where it moves around the league. Let me explain further..
This belt would be like the belts won in boxing/wrestling where the holder of the belt would LOSE the belt whenever they lost, and they would successfully DEFEND and KEEP the belt when they win.
Cruise on over to the nba championship belt site
HERE and check out past season results as well as the current season where the 'belt-holder' are the Philadelphia 76ers. Here are the rules for the NBA Championship Belt (as taken from the site linked above).
RULES
- The Belt starts with the first game of last season's NBA champion.
- If the belt holding team gets beat, the team loses the belt to the other team.
- No playoffs, the race is over after the regular season.
Why I think this is a really neat idea:
1)
The idea of a championship belt makes underdog victories even more compelling. For example, consider that last year and back-to-back champ Miami Heat were holding the Belt leading up to the start of the season. They successfully beat and defended the belt against the Bulls on opening day, but they lost the belt the next day to the Sixers of all people! What a burn to Heat and Lebron fans to tell them that they not only lost their dignity by getting beat by a rookie and Spencer Hawes, they also lost hold of the Belt on their second match in defending it! Which leads to my second point...
2)
We have kind of a reason to cheer on or jeer on teams we wouldn't normally care for. Case-in-point, the Battle of the Belt tonight was between the Sixers (cause they hold it now, since they beat the Heat) and Wizards. I don't know how many of you guys actually gave a rip who came out on top in this game, but it does matter according to the 500 words I have already written. This was a 'Battle of the Belt' and the freaking Sixers defended their belt for the second night! To make it more fun/interesting for us...
3)
We can make an ongoing game out of this "NBA 'ship Belt". Here is my idea...
Couple times a week, I will drop "Battle of the Belt" posts where I will update us all on who currently holds and defends the championship belt and who is challenging to take it from them.
The ongoing game will be to choose correctly who will hold the belt by the end of the night. In tonight's example, you might select whether the Sixers would defend the belt, or the challenger Wizards would take the belt from them.
Also in my "Battle of the Belt" posts, I will update us all on who has the most accurate selections and all that statistical hoopla. Depending on how much interest, I have a lot of silly nba-themed t-shirts and other gag gifts that can be the prizes for selecting the most correct winners for the "Battle of the Belt". Annnd thats about it.
-------EDIT, Some FAQ's based on talking with some of youuuu-------
Is there an actual belt to be won?
Yes and No. Yeah, we could do that, but currently there isn't actually a belt to get your paws on. For the Homan Fantasy League, we can definitely get a belt that the winner can carry around and take photos of themselves making gross poses. (sorry for those who were in the 'greatest fantasy league ever' last year, cause we never ended up doing that idea.)
For the game I'm describing in this post, it would just be a competition between anyone who has access to the internet and wishes to post their opinion/selection of who will win between the two teams playing for the belt for that day.
Enough of my own words, let me know what y'all think!
UTA @ 
DEN
Friday, 2013-12-13
PHI @ 
GSW
