Think you know hoops? Think you have a better eye for hardwood talent than Mark Cuban, Jerry West, or--more to the point--fifteen other people who have never run a professional basketball team? Here's your chance to prove it. Welcome to the Kentucky Fried Basketball Association.

Chicken, fish, potatoes: everything's better when fried, and that includes rotisserie basketball. Our staff has developed the freshest, most exciting fantasy sports game available anywhere. Read on to learn about our original recipe.

Registration

All leagues are comprised of 16 teams. You can register a team in an expansion league or you can purchase an orphan team in an existing league, depending on availability. The yearly operation costs for teams go up for new leagues every year, but the yearly costs of existing franchises are grandfathered in from their year of establishment.

When registering your team, you may choose how many seasons you want to sign up for, and whether to participate in the prize pool (for an additional $5). All funds in the prize pool go to the owner of the team with the highest average weekly score, adjusted for league competitiveness, at season's end. The adjustment works like this: we add or subtract the difference between the average weekly score of a team's league and the average weekly score of all the teams in the entire KFBA. If, for example, your team is in a league where the average weekly score is 195 and the KFBA average is 192, your team gets an additional three points.

Schedule

Conferences/Divisions

The sixteen teams in your league are divided evenly into two conferences, each of which is comprised of two divisions. For those of you who played college hoops for Jerry Tarkanian or Jim Harrick, that makes four teams per division.

Game Format

Each Kentucky Fried Basketball game pits two teams from the same league in head-to-head competition. So to "win" a game, your squad must score more Kentucky Fried points than your opponent, not more points than every team in the league.

Regular Season

There are 16 regular season games, each of which runs one week--from Monday through Sunday.

All-Star Game

Towards the end of the season--generally between the 13th and 14th games--the KFBA holds its all-star break. Not coincidentally, our break comes at the same time as the NBA's. During this two-week period, regular play will stop and each league will hold an all-star game in which an eight-man squad from one conference will play an eight-man squad from the other.

The owner whose team has the best record in his/her conference will select the all-star team for his/her conference, with one stipulation: each team in the conference must be represented by exactly one player.

The Playoffs

Half of you won't need to refer back to this section at season's end--only eight teams per league make the playoffs. Each conference sends its two division winners and two wild card teams into the postseason. In the first round, each conference's division winner with the better record plays its wild card team with the worse record. The remaining division winner plays the remaining wild card team. Each of these games lasts one week (from Sunday to the following Saturday). The winners of the first round games play each other in the two-week long conference final, and the conference champ plays the other conference's victor in the league title game, which also spans two weeks.

Tie Breakers

If, at regular season's end, two teams share the best record in a division, that division's champion is decided by the following series of tie-breakers, listed in the order considered:

1. best divisional record

2. best record within the conference

3. highest team KF Average

If a winner still can't be determined, the title will go to the team that has the most players with Chinese characters tattooed on their arms.

If two or more wild card contenders finish the regular season with the same record, the tie-breakers are:

1. record within the conference

2. highest team KF Average

The wild card breakers are also used to break ties that affect play-off positioning (in other words, if the two divisional champs [or the wild card teams] have the same record).

Kentucky Fried Scoring

Line-ups

As a team owner, it is your responsibility to order the players on your roster. Rank your guards from first to worst, then do the same thing with your forwards and centers. For Kentucky Fried purposes, the distinction between point and shooting guards, or power and small forwards, is irrelevant.

Players' positions are determined by Kentucky Fried officials. You cannot rank a guard among your forwards, a forward among your centers, etc. etc. Got beef with our designations? So does Mehmet Okur. He hates playing inside.

Your team's weekly score is determined by the statistical performances of your top three forwards, top three guards, and top two centers. Two guards, two forwards, and one center make up your starting five. The other three players are reserves.

Sample Roster:

You can re-order your players at any point during the season. Changes made by Monday at noon (Eastern Standard Time) are effective for the game beginning that day. If you do not alter your line-up, we won't either.

Starters play 36 Kentucky Fried minutes per game, reserve guards and forwards play 24, and reserve centers play 12. In order to qualify as a starter, a player must log 36 minutes of NBA game time in a given week. Reserve guards and forwards must play at least 24 NBA minutes; reserve centers must play at least 12.

If a player does not meet the minutes' requirement, he loses eligibility for the week and the player slotted directly below him is automatically inserted into your line-up. This is why it's important to consider your entire roster when ranking players.

What happens if nobody on your roster plays enough minutes to qualify for a given line-up spot? We take the weekly score of the player who logged the most minutes and multiply it by the NBA minutes he played, instead of 36, 24, or 12. So let's say that your starting center qualified for KFBA play, but none of your back-ups managed to play twelve minutes. Your second-ranked center, Marcus Camby, managed six minutes before rupturing his patella tendon. Your third-ranked center, DeSagana Diop, saw no action. We would take Camby's score and multiply it times six.

Scoring

A player's KF Average is calculated by adding the total number of points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks he accrues during the week, and dividing that figure by the total number of NBA minutes he played. The KF Average is then multiplied by 36, 24, or 12 (depending on the player's spot in the line-up) to determine how many Kentucky Fried Points he scored.

The weekly number of points your team scores is simply the aggregate of Kentucky Fried Points that your eight qualifying players score. If your team scores more than your opponent, you win. If not, you lose. Scores will be extrapolated to whatever digit necessary to determine a winner. In the incredibly unlikely event of a tie, the owners of the teams involved will get their names engraved on a plaque to be displayed on the Wall of Fame. And the victory will go to the team with the individual player who produced the game's greatest number of Kentucky Fried Points.

The Draft

Overview

Before your team can do battle with the other squads in your league, you'll need to draft some players. The Kentucky Fried draft lasts 16 rounds, the first 14 of which are conducted your league's initial draft. The last two rounds are completed during the season--the 15th round after the third regular season game and the 16th after the sixth.

Logistics

The starting date for the initial fourteen rounds of the draft will be set after a league's registration closes. They take place over seven days. Picks are staggered, one every twenty minutes from 9:00 AM to 7:20 PM, Eastern Standard Time.

Large digital computing machines conduct the draft according to your player list, on which you will be able to re-rank your players before and during the draft. If you're too busy (or lazy) to establish your own player rankings, you can use the default list we provide.

Draft Order

For new leagues, the draft order in the first round is randomized. For continuing leagues, the draft order is determined by performance in the previous season, according to the chart below. Note that if you miss the playoffs, you will still be playing for next season's first round draft pick--and it behooves you to win. The "champion" of the non-playoff bracket will get the overall number one selection. This policy was designed to make owners of weak teams think twice before trading their stars for lesser players with keeper potential. Seeding tie-breakers for the non-playoff bracket are the same as the wild card breakers.

The rest of the rules concerning draft order apply to teams in both new and continuing leagues:

In the second round, teams pick in the reverse order of the first round. So if you have the first pick of the first round, you have the last pick of the second round.

The draft order in every subsequent odd-numbered round is also randomized. In each even round, teams pick in the reverse order of the round that precedes it.

Player Eligibility

Any player on our list is draftable. On it, we've tried to include any professional player you could conceivably want to draft. If you notice an omission, let us know.

Keepers

Policy Overview

We have developed a "keeper" system that allows teams to protect their young prospects, emerging stars, and late-round finds. A team can reserve a player from its own roster for the next season by forfeiting a draft pick that comes two rounds before the round in which that player was picked the previous year. So if, for example, you take Juan Dixon in the 13th round one season, and you want to retain his services for the following year, you may do so by spending your 11th round pick on him. If you want to keep him on your roster the season after that, you have to use your 9th round pick. By the terms of this policy, it is impossible to keep a first or second round pick on your roster for the next season.

Transactions

Trades

Since there is no annoying salary cap to deal with, owners are allowed to trade players in any manner they see fit. The only rule to keep in mind is that rosters cannot exceed 16 players. We don't charge a transaction fee; all trades are free.

Deadline

All trades must be executed by the end of the Kentucky Fried All-Star break.

Waiting Period and Veto Policy

Each trade is subject to a short waiting period*, during which league owners can review the deal and, if they find it unfair, ask the Colonel to veto it. The Colonel is not looking to interfere in your league, but he is monitoring things to make sure the play stays fair. Think about that before trading Kobe Bryant for Eric Piatkowski and a bottle of Cuervo gold.

If the trade is not vetoed within the waiting period, it will be validated, and the players involved will report to their new teams. After this time expires, the Colonel will not consider overturning any deal.

*The following chart illustrates the waiting periods for all trades. Please note that you must complete a trade by Wednesday at noon if you want it to affect your team's lineup for its next game.

Waiver Wire

In order to claim a player off waivers, you must first cut one of your players to open a roster spot. You may not spend an upcoming draft choice for this purpose.

Once you lay claim to a player, other teams have two days to lay a claim to him as well. If multiple teams claim a player by the time the two day period is over, the team with the best "waiver ranking" will get him.

Waiver rankings are determined by date of last successful claim and, for teams that have made no claims, overall record. For example:

Rank 1 - West Virginia Spittoons (No Claim): 4-4, 188 ppg
Rank 2 - Baltimore Brocheese (No Claim): 8-0, 210 ppg
Rank 3 - Brooklyn Brewers, Last Claim: November 29, 2004
Rank 4 - New York Schottsies, Last Claim: December 7, 2004

Between the start of the regular season and the end of the draft's 16th round, all undrafted players with more than four years of NBA experience (called "free agents") can be picked up via the waiver wire. After the draft ends, free agents are joined on the waiver wire by all "restricted free agents"--undrafted players with four or fewer years of NBA experience.

Keeper Status of Waiver Wire Pickups

An undrafted player acquired off the waiver wire can be kept with a 10th round pick. If a drafted player is released and then acquired off the wire, he retains his original keeper resign round, as long as he was picked between the 3rd and 12th rounds. If he was picked later than the 12th round, he may be kept with a 10th round pick.

Communications

You will be able to communicate with the other owners in your league through email or message boards posted on your league's individual home page.

You can communicate with members of the KFBA staff via email. Throughout the season, we will be sending plenty of recaps, news, and other basketball-related material to your email address. If you're going to ignore our messages as if they were penis enlargement drug solicitations, please let us know. We don't want to clutter your inbox.

Kentucky Fried Ethics

Ownership Policy

So you want to own more than one team? Fantastic. But you're going to have to spread the love around. Our policy prohibits one person from owning multiple teams in the same league.

Don't Say "Fuck"

Just kidding. The Colonel and his staff are not interested in restricting your vocabulary. We are, however, dedicated to providing a fun, friendly, secure online environment for all of our users. It is for this reason that we reserve the right to suspend or terminate the user privileges of anyone using language that is offensive to, or threatening towards, another Kentucky Fried community member. If somebody cusses on your message board, don't bother the Colonel about it.

Time

Since Kentucky--well, half of it--is in the Eastern Time Zone, all times concerning the game are Eastern Standard.

One More Disclaimer

The Colonel runs a totalitarian association. When he decides to change his game, he doesn't seek approval from team owners, or in many cases his council of advisors and henchmen. That said, he's a benevolent dictator. If you have suggestions concerning how he can enhance the Kentucky Fried Basketball Association, please don't hesitate to email him. Just make sure you call him Mr. Colonel.