“SPBS” stands for “Simplest Possible Basketball Simulation”.    For several years I have had the idea of designing a simple basketball table game, like APBA or Strat-o-Matic, as a gift for BJOL subscribers.    What always happens when I set down to design it is that it gets complicated before it reaches the point of being playable.   I decided this time to get around that by introducing it to you in its simplest possible form.

            OK, let’s say you have a piece of paper and a deck of cards.     At the top of the sheet of paper you write down the names of two college teams—let’s say “USC” and “Gonzaga”.  

            When you turn over a spade, that’s a “made shot”—two points.  

            When you turn over a club, that’s a “missed shot”, implying there is a defensive rebound on every shot.

            When you turn over a heart, that’s a “turnover”.

            When you turn over a diamond, that’s a foul, and there will be two free throws to follow.   The rule on free throws is, all black cards are made free throws, all red cards are missed free throws. 

            OK, shuffle the deck and start.   First possession, USC draws the Queen of Spades (Q♠).   Made shot.   Looks like this:

            Gonzaga pulls the ace of diamonds (A♦), which means free throws. 

            The next two cards are the 7 of Spades (7♠) and the 8 of Hearts (8♥), so it’s a made free throw followed by missed free throw:

            The next ten cards after that are.. . .I’m assuming you can follow this. . .7♥, 4♦, J♣, 9♣, K♣, 9♠, 6♠, 3♦, 4♠, J♠.     Those become a turnover for USC (T), two made free throws for Gonzaga, a missed shot for USC (the King of Clubs), a made shot for Gonzaga, and two made free throws for USC.   At this point our score sheet looks like this:

            Gonzaga is ahead 7-4 at this point.   USC then misses a shot, Gonzaga misses a shot, USC turns it over, Gonzaga hits their shot, USC hits a shot, Gonzaga misses, USC is fouled and hits the first one, misses the second, Gonzaga turns it over, USC misses a shot, and Gonzaga is fouled but misses both free throws:

            After nine possessions Gonzaga leads 9 to 7.   At this point you will need to stop and shuffle the deck.   

            A game consists of 72 possessions by each team.   Why 72?   I’m figuring that when we get where we are going teams will average about one point per possession, and a college basketball game normally comes in somewhere around 74-68.    That means we need 72 possessions per team, 36 possessions per team in a half.    You can’t run all 72 first-half possessions without shuffling, obviously; nine is about what you can do before the expected upcoming results become seriously non-random, so we’ll shuffle the deck after each nine possessions.  

            Anyway, I played through several games of this simplest possible simulation.  It’s extremely easy to do, and it’s actually kind of fun, only don’t tell your wife what you are doing or she will denounce you as a dork and never have sex with you again.    It is, of course, ridiculously far removed from being a realistic simulation of a basketball game, but it has something of the “feel” of a game, the give and take, the disappointment at missed shots, the little runs that teams go on.   But at this point the elements of the game that are missing from the simulation are “almost all of them.”  What do we add first? 

            One problem with the game is that the scores are too low.  Mathematically, we can easily calculate that the expected points per game in this simulation would be 54 per team, although, playing it through a few times, that seems too high; I was in the high 40s more often than the 50s.   In any case, the scores are too low, and two of the other most obvious failings of the game are that all the shots are 2-point shots, and that everybody is a 50% free throw shooter.  

            We’ll alter the game, then, by making the FACE CARDS in spades be three-point shots, and also by giving the free throw shooter an extra suit in his favor.    The normal free-throw percentage is a little below 75%, so we’ll give the free throw shooter the Spades, Hearts and Diamonds.   Since a diamond always triggers the free throw shot the free throw shooter’s percentage is now 38/51—still a little bit high, but much closer to reality than 50%:

J♠ to K♠     3 points (+3)

A♠ to 10♠   2 points (+2)

A♣ to K♣  Missed Shot (-)

A♥ to K♥   Turnover (T)

A♦ to K♦    2 Free Throw Attempts (X)

      ♠♣♦      Made Free Throw

      ♥           Missed Free Throw

            Let’s assume that Duke is playing Carolina, and let’s assume that the first 22 cards are 3♣, J♥, 8♣, 4♠, 3♦, Q♠, 7♣, 6♠, 10♦, 9♦, 9♥, A♥, 6♥, 9♣, 10♠, 10♥, 2♥, Q♥, 7♠, 8♠, J♣, and 2♣.    That sequence would create the following first five minutes of the game:

            Duke leads Carolina, five minutes into the game, 7-6.    This increases the expected points in a game to 67 per team—fairly near a realistic number in that regard.

            What is our largest unrealistic element at this point?   It’s still very hard to say—rather like picking out the ugliest hair on a wolverine—but let’s say that our three largest problems at this point are that 1) there are too many free throws, 2) that there are an unrealistic number of turnovers, and 3)  that all rebounds are defensive    Let’s fix these things by making two adjustments to the rules:

            1)   Rather than all hearts being turnovers, we change the game so that hearts 1-6 are offensive rebounds, and

            2)  Rather than all free throws being 2 shots, we assume that the first five are not shot at all, the next five are one-and-one, and the ones after that are two shots.  

            These rules, however, will require we do something more sophisticated with the clock than count the number of possessions.   Let’s do this:  let’s assume that a half of a game is 100 “bits” of 12 seconds each.    For a regular possession we’ll count that as 2 bits, for a foul, one bit, and for a possession with an offensive rebound, 3 bits.     We’ll track the number of bits.  

J♠ to K♠     3 points (+3)

A♠ to 10♠   2 points (+2)

A♣ to K♣  Missed Shot (-)

7♥ to K♥    Turnover (T)

A♥ to 6♥    Missed shot with Offensive Rebound (- >R)

A♦ to K♦    Foul (X)

      ♠♣♦      Made Free Throw

      ♥           Missed Free Throw

            Let’s assume that Pittsburgh is playing St. John’s, and the first three cards are the 3 of Diamonds, the 4 of Diamonds, and the 6 of Clubs.   Pittsburgh draws two fouls but doesn’t shoot them, misses a shot, and we’ve run 48 seconds off the clock:

            St. John’s draws the 10 of Spades, which is 2 points; Pittsburgh draws the Jack of Hearts, which is a turnover, and St. John’s gets the Ace of Hearts, which is another 2 points:

            We’re two minutes into the game at this point—that is, 10 “bits” of 12 seconds each.    Pittsburgh gets the Ace of Clubs (a missed shot), and St. John’s takes a 7-0 lead on the Queen of Spades:

            Pittsburgh draws the 3 of clubs, missing again, and St. John’s gets the 5 of spades, giving them a 9-0 lead.   Pittsburgh gets the 7 of hearts—a turnover—and St. Johns gets the Ace of Hearts, which is now a missed shot but an offensive rebound.    Next is the 8 of Diamonds, which is a foul, which we don’t shoot, and then the 9 of Clubs, which is a missed shot, defensive rebound:

            But Pittsburgh turns over the deuce of clubs, another missed shot.    It’s time for the first TV timeout, at the 15:00 mark of the first half, St. John’s leading 9-0:

            And we shuffle the cards. 

OK, it is time for us to take a major step toward a competitive game.   To this point, all teams (and all players) have been the same.   Obviously, that limits the realism of the game.    Let’s introduce a die into the game (a six-sided dice.)   There are ten players on the floor at any moment.   We’ll identify those ten players as:

            O1—(Offense 1—the Point Guard of the team that has the ball)

            D1—(Defense 1—the Point Guard of the team that does not have the ball)

            O2—(The Shooting Guard of the team that has the ball)

            D2—(The Shooting Guard (or off guard) of the team without the ball)

            O3—(The Small Forward of the team with the ball)

            D3—(The Small Forward of the team without the ball)

            O4—(The Power Forward of the team with the ball)

            D4—(The Power Forward of the team on defense)

            O5—(The Center of the team with the ball)

            D5—(The Team with the ball)

            Before you turn the card, you roll the dice.   If you roll a “1”, the focus player is the “1”—O1, for now.   Later on we’ll incorporate defense, but for now, when you roll a 1, that directs you to the card O1.  

            What’s the card O1?  Well, for now, all cards are the same.  This is the card for O1:

J♠ to K♠     3 points (+3)

A♠ to 10♠   2 points (+2)

A♣ to K♣  Missed Shot (-)

7♥ to K♥    Turnover (T)

A♥ to 6♥    Missed shot with Offensive Rebound (- >R)

A♦ to K♦    Foul (X)

      ♠♣♦      Made Free Throw

      ♥           Missed Free Throw

            That’s also the card for O2, D3, O4 and the guys on the bench; that’s the card, for now, for every player.   Later on, off course, we’ll make individual cards for each player, and later on we’ll figure out how to factor in defensive skill and rebounding, etc., but for now, there’s just one card for everybody. 

            OK, but what if we roll a “6”?

            Each coach names a “focus player” for his offense.   If you roll a 6, the ball goes to the focus player.   Ordinarily, of course, your star player will be the focus player—but not always.    If you’re behind and need points, you might make a three-point shooter your focus player.   If player D4 has four fouls, you might make O4 your focus player in an effort to pick up the fifth foul on D4.   If D2 is a weak defensive player or is undersized, you might make O2 your focus player.   Ordinarily, of course, LeBron and Koby are your focus guys.  

            Enough for now?   Play through a few games, and let me know what you think. . .where we should go from here, what we should build in next?    I’ll get to work on the math, and I’ll post a more sophisticated version of the game in a little while.