Ron Marshall was a beloved member of the Detroit Bad Boys community, and we celebrate him each year with the Ron Marshall Memorial Mock Draft. Ron was known for creating huge three- (or more) team deals, sometimes involving the Detroit Pistons and sometimes not. When DBB wanted to do a community mock, he pushed hard for a period before the draft where we could conduct trades. Originally, no one expected too many deals to happen, but then the trade war rooms took on lives of their own, and this exercise blossomed into much more than just a mock draft.
Awesome Hog put it best in his post memorializing Ron Marshall after his tragic passing in 2015: “He had his opinions, but moreso he was known for his winding schemes and plans. Posting trade scenarios involving 5 teams and 20 players, he was a true mad scientist when it came to putting together his ideal Pistons line up. That mad scientist mentality also made him the king of our mock draft this past summer. Wheeling and dealing throughout the process he and his Indiana Pacers ended up with like a quarter of the first round picks. He had more fun than anybody with that project and I already know that there’s no way next year’s draft will be as much fun without him. I’m thinking about naming the draft after him.”
This will be the ninth year of the Ron Marshall Memorial Mock Draft.
We will start this exercise as soon as we reach 30 participants and schedule the draft for the following Saturday (beginning in the morning), giving around a week for trade activity before the draft.
Each team will be randomly assigned, and salary cap spreadsheets with all the necessary information will be provided. You’ll use these to help make deals and update them as you go to make things easier for everyone involved who might be checking your sheet.
We will have a trade confirmation thread where you will post any agreed-upon trades. Trades will not be official until someone can verify that the trade is legal, which usually won’t take too long. Once approved, you can update your spreadsheet, but make sure not to delete your outgoing players’ information until the person you’re dealing with has had the chance to copy over the information.
If you can’t be around for the draft, which can move very slowly and then suddenly very quickly, which makes it very hard to estimate when a particular pick will be, you can always email me your draft board, and when your time runs out, I will pick from that board instead of using the Tankathon board.
Your sheets should be accurate, but I ask that you verify the information using Spotrac in case I missed anything. I’ll always be around to help if anything gets messed up and will periodically go through them to try to upkeep them.
Once the draft concludes, we will begin free agency and switch to using 2024-25 salaries. There will be an email provided where you can submit offers to free agents, and a list of the available free agents will be provided. They will wait a day or two before responding, and depending on the market it may take a while to make an official decision.
Please only sign up if you think you will be around at least somewhat regularly. Anyone who does not show up before the draft will likely have their team reassigned to someone else to keep things moving and active.
Comment something like “I’m in” to join.