A New Beginning.
Two hundred and thirty-seven games ago this league did not have a record book, a Belt, a Dog House or a single argument worth having. It has all of them now, and as of Game 237 it has an ending: 37,049 points scored by 75 men, closed out by the highest-scoring game anybody has played here, decided by one point. Season X is locked. Nothing in it can change again. Season One starts at Game 001with every man back at nothing — no points, no average, no grade, no excuse — and the only thing crossing over is the Belt around jspalt4’s waist and a record book that just became a target. It opens with THE TRIALS.
First, what Season X actually was. It was 237 games and 63 different team names — which is the truest sentence in this newspaper. Sides formed on the night and dissolved before morning. Slow Motionn put a name on eighty-nine of them and no roster twice. There were no standings, no seeds, nothing at stake beyond the next forty minutes and whatever a man could carry into the group chat afterwards. And it was still, somehow, ferociously competitive: 57 of those games finished inside five points and EIGHT of them by exactly one, the last of those on the final night of the era.
It produced a record book that will take some beating. BackPackxBUBBA’s 87 PRF in Game 237, set in the last game of the season. jspalt4’s 74 points and fifteen threes in Game 147. GoodKarmaa’s 30 assists in Game 229 on six points. xX713JaccXx’s 18 rebounds in Game 054, which has stood since almost the beginning. RickJames323496’s nine steals in Game 111. Those six numbers are the mountain now, and on the first night of Season One somebody will be chasing them from zero.
And it produced people. RickJames323496 finished it as the all-time leader in points, steals, threes, dunks and Players of the Game, and also in Hot Seats, which is the most complete description of a career anybody has ever earned here. GoodKarmaa finished with more assists and more double-doubles than anyone. TJ09 held the middle for the entire era and finished with the most rebounds and the most blocks. xMrCluTcHx801 played 201 games, more than any man alive. All four of those men walk into Season One with a record of 0–0.
Now the part this paper has been waiting to write. A reset is only worth having if the thing that comes after it is better than the thing before. Season X was a beautiful accident — a pile of pickup games that grew a mythology. Season One can be built on purpose. What follows is the desk’s wish list, and none of it is decided.
The Trials
Season One does not ease in. It opens with a handful of games that count from the first whistle.
- A few games, and every one of them is real. The Trials are the opening run of Season One — Games 001 onward, no exhibition, no warm-up, nothing set aside. Every point, rebound, assist and turnover lands in the Season One record from the first possession. A man who shows up cold in the Trials wears it in the standings all year.
- The Belt is live from the opening tip. jspalt4 carries the lineal championship across the break and it is the one thing the reset does not touch. He defends it in the Trials, and whoever takes it inherits every reign back to Game 001 of Season X — fifty-nine of them.
- The record book starts empty and the mountain does not. Every Season One average starts at zero, but the marks to beat are the ones Season X closed with: an 87 PRF, 74 points, 30 assists, 18 rebounds, nine steals, fifteen threes. The Trials are the first swing at all of it.
What Season One Adds
Two things this paper is building for the new era. Both go live with the Trials.
- The awards race, run in public. Season X’s trophies locked at Game 197 and nobody saw a number until it was over. Season One does the opposite: the MVP, Defensive Player, Most Improved and Key Contributor races go on the board from Game 001 and move after every box score, all season, in the open. No votes, no committee — the box scores are the ballot and everybody can read the ballot as it fills.
- The archive stays one click away. Season X is closed but it is not buried. The complete era — every leader, the closing record book and the final line of all seventy-five men who played it — lives permanently under SEASON X in the masthead, and every man’s share card now carries his Season X final totals at the bottom for good. What he did before is history. What he does from Game 001 is the argument.
He leaves Season X as the all-time leader in points (3,879), steals, threes, dunks and Players of the Game (52) — and in Hot Seats (21), which he would tell you is the price of being handed the ball for 186 games. He was on the floor for the very first tip in Game 001 and for the last shot of Game 237. Nobody has given this league more, and on the first morning of Season One he wakes up with the same 0–0 as everybody else. The paper suspects he is fine with that.
The first Player of the Game in Association history, in Game 001, with a 22-point, fourteen-assist double-double — and the last man to hold the single-game production record before it fell in the final game of the era. In between: 1,472 assists, 61 double-doubles, thirty in one night on six points, and an assist crown that changed hands four times in the last fortnight and finished in his hands. He passed first and asked questions later for two hundred and thirty-seven games. Season One gets the same man at zero.