WHAT HAPPENED?
So, unfortunately, Zakken's unbecoming behavior as captain over the past week has put the league in a precarious position. It was clear that Zakken is not going to give any sort of meaningful effort from here on out, instead electing to dog it when the going got tough. With that said, the 5 captains and, perhaps most importantly, most of SDC (AVC was absent) decided that Zakken needed to go. He disrespected the league and, most importantly, the players on his team with his actions.
So Zakken is out of the league. We had to make quick decisions and here is what we came up with:
A) Xenaero is stepping up as captain. Thanks to him for doing that.
B) RustKing is going to be put onto the squad. Thanks to him for volunteering.
HOW WE CAME TO THE DECISION
I know that this is going to cause a lot of uproar but the 5 captains had a very long, heated debate about what to do here. There were three main suggestions and so, we used an
alternative vote between the 5 captains to decide on how to deal with the issue. The three options were presented as follows:
1) Make Xen captain and make them draw an existing player from free agency
2) Allowing an outside player like Rust/KBlair/RottKing onto the team
3) The other 5 teams all elect one player for a lottery (All 5 teams would have to nominate one player who would then be entered into a 20% lottery to be moved to SDC)
The outcome, after the 5 captains ranked their preference of a solution, was 3 in favor of allowing a new player, 1 in favor of the lottery, and 1 in favor of drawing a new player out of free agency. Neither of the alternative ranks could've beaten the 3/5 in favor of allowing the new player and so that's how the story goes.
The prevailing argument in favor of adding a player of Rust's caliber to the team is simple: Zakken was considered an above average player. Zakken also gutted his own team by trading away Torvald, who is a bonafide starter. So, he traded away a strong starter and then quit on the team himself. A net loss of two guys. Rust helps fill a piece of the void left by the wreck that Zakken left.
THE FALLOUT
Nobody, especially me, wanted this to occur. There was no "perfect" outcome here - a lot of disagreement and legit debate over what to do. With that said, it's voted on and over now. This is the direction that we are taking.
The best thing would've been Zakken manning up and fulfilling the commitment he made to the league and his team instead of making lame forum posts and going bonkers on IRC, but that clearly wasn't working and his teammates were the ones suffering the most. This has been very disappointing, but the league will continue on just fine. Feel free to comment, criticize, and/or share any other thoughts here, but let's keep it civil.