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Teams' season pages

I want to get clarification regarding player transactions on teams' season pages. Teams' season pages have three tables for transactions. The "Re-signed" and "Additions" tables have have a column called "Signed". What should be listed in that column – date of transaction, contract details or the exact reason (free agency)? The "Subtractions" table has a column called "Reason left". What should be listed in this column – date of transaction, contract details or the exact reason (free agency, waived, retired)? – Sabbatino (talk) 11:04, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Still waiting for any input from somebody, because it is not clear at the moment. – Sabbatino (talk) 15:31, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

In "re-signed" and "additions" tables, I'd add contract details with the date of transaction in parentheses inside "signed" columns, i.e. 1-year contract worth $2.3 million (July 20, 2018). As for the "Reason left" column, the exact reason with the date of transaction in parentheses, i.e. Retired (July 31, 2018).--Cheetah (talk) 18:13, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion, that would create unneeded clutter. Adding a "Date" column would make more sense. As for the contract details, the teams do not publish them and information from journalists cannot be held as reliable. – Sabbatino (talk) 19:31, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Random thoughts looking from a historical perspective:

• Dates are trvial for transactions before season. They're either with the team or not.
• Dates for in-season transactions are somewhat ueful to see how long a player was with team, but a stats table showing games played would mostly cover that (and possibly better)
• Contract details are WP:FANCRUFT. The deals of major stars like LeBron signing would presumably be in prose (eventually). Years from now, most will not care for minutiae of everyone else, and the dollar amounts tend not to have much meaning.
• If date is really considered important for a table, it should have it's own column

—Bagumba (talk) 11:26, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

These are good points, but that still does not address the problems that I raised. What should be listed in the "Signed" column ("Re-signed" and "Additions" tables) and "Reason left" ("Subtractions" table) column. A simple listing in the columns such as "Free agency", "Training camp", "Waived" or "Retired" would be logical, but that is what I was asking about. As I already wrote, there are no reliable sources for contract details since teams do not publish them and basing the information on journalists or insiders is not reliable. – Sabbatino (talk) 11:52, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I wouldnt even have a "re-signed" table, because they were holdovers from previous season. Additions and subtractions are more key. As for contract amounts, you could always say "reported" if we wanted to be precise; however, aside from WP:RSBREAKING, I dont have much of a concern if they are uncontested and generally consistent across sources. I think basketball-reference has listings that can be considered reliable (?) I dont really care if the amounts get listed, but it's probably inevitable people will add it (whether discussed or not).—Bagumba (talk) 12:19, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

• • I generally agree, but distinguishing between two and three year deals for instance may have a purpose. I don't see any reason to get rid of the date when the player signed if it was before the season started. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 17:18, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Dates are irrelevant if we do not have a separate column for that. Contract details are also not published by the teams and are only reported by some journalists, which raises a reliability issue, and are also a WP:FANCRUFT (as stated by Bagumba). – Sabbatino (talk) 13:49, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Just want to let everyone that I experimented with the format, which can now be seen at 2018–19 Brooklyn Nets season#Free agency. I simplified the format by removing the contract details and/or the columns regarding reason (free agency, waived, etc), and added a column for the date of the event. Feel free to give suggestions and if there will be no objections then I will convert all the pages of this season (at least for now) to the new format. – Sabbatino (talk) 13:18, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

K. J. McDaniels disputes

Clemson1998 insists that Toronto Raptors be added the infobox of K. J. McDaniels although he never played a regular-season game for them before being waived. This is contrary to the longstanding practice documented at WP:NBACAREERHIST.—Bagumba (talk) 07:04, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

They also keep removing the image File:KJ McDaniels.jpg from the infobox as well, saying it is "not good." It seems good enough here to me. They have also repeatedly removed the image File:Jaron Blossomgame (1).jpg from Jaron Blossomgame.—Bagumba (talk) 07:04, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

I have reverted Clemson1998's revert at McDaniels backing you up – teams only go in the infobox if a player makes their debut for the team. Clemson1998 is clearly being disruptive at this stage; multiple users reverting them yet no block? DaHuzyBru (talk) 08:27, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

I don’t really see a “content dispute” per se. I see a new editor who doesn’t like some consensus decisions (appearance of teams in infobox, handling of transactions) and Wikipedia guidelines (photo copyrights). The consensus on teams in the infobox has been affirmed more than once. If this user wanted to initiate another discussion to change it they could, but this doesn’t seem like the approach they want to take. Rikster2 (talk) 13:40, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

List of NBA champions

A few months ago, I created an entirely new table for List of NBA champions, but implementation was shelved after it was the subject of criticism. Today, I ask if any of you would take up the table, as it exists on my sandbox page. Doing so would be a great favor, as it follows the same formula as the World Series, Stanley Cup, and Super Bowl tables. –Piranha249 20:09, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm not going to comment on every aspect of this, but I always thought it was strange that List of NBA champions did not even list the champions in the same column. On that point, I think your table does a better job. This is an article that will be read by a wide variety of people, many of whom will not have much previous knowledge of the NBA. The table is much easier to read when the champions are all on one side, and the losers are all on another side. Zagalejo^^^ 15:10, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! When I started working on this earlier this year, I was motivated just because of the aforementioned confusion, which makes the table feel backwards. I had wanted to put it in place right before the Finals in June, but everyone complained that it strayed too far away from the previous table; at the time, the new table didn't have color schemes to distinguish conferences, and also removed seed numbers because I thought it made little sense, but one change that was supported was adding records to the Finals. I eventually gave in to the complaints in July, and I've been trying to convince myself how to bring the table back in a way that would benefit the talk page. Hopefully, starting the motion here will do just that. –Piranha249 22:41, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Still asking, because this is going to determine whether or not I make the change before next year's Finals. –Piranha249 23:18, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Reference for roster template

So I only noticed now after all these years that roster templates like Template:Chicago Bulls roster have a "Transactions" link that (usually?) is linked to RealGM.com. Up until now, if I saw a player not on the NBA.com roster link, I reverted and wrote "unsourced" if it seemed like breaking news and the editor did not mention something definitive in their edit summary. But it seems like RealGM lists unofficial transactions, because it has JaKarr Sampson and Kaiser Gates signing on September 17,[1] but it was not announced until Sept 24.[2][3] Should we remove this "Transactions" link from the template?—Bagumba (talk) 05:34, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes. Should not be RealGM. Remove or replace with team page news link. And the Sampson and Gates sign8ngs should reflect when officially announced like everyone else Rikster2 (talk) 09:18, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Some options Unless someone says they use regularly use it to verify (I never have), I'd say to remove it. Otherwise, links like https://www.nba.com/bulls/news are bloated with articles not necessarily transaction based. Another option if this is going to stay is https://stats.nba.com/transactions/#!?TeamID=1610612741 (FWIW, it doesn't seem to list training camp contracts).—Bagumba (talk) 10:16, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Just remove it. RealGM is only semi-reliable anyway, I’d never uodate an article based on it without a second confirmation. Rikster2 (talk) 10:19, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

So that it's crystal, it would just be removed from Template:NBA roster footer itself.—Bagumba (talk) 10:30, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, get rid of it. The “real answer” is that transactions are official when announced by the team or league, which they might do on their site, Twitter, Facebook, etc. that’s not a url. Rikster2 (talk) 10:43, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion, the only good and reliable source for the template is this. I thought about suggesting ESPN or any other similar source (CBS Sports, FOX Sports, etc), but they do not really list anything aside from some transactions. In addition, I would not object to the removal of the "Transactions" link from the template since the only team that I really edit are the Nets or Nets-related topics and rarely edit the roster templates or anything related to other teams. – Sabbatino (talk) 12:29, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree that NBA.com is the best source but should they be the only source? ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 17:08, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

It HAS to be the team or the league. I have yet to see other sources that only report transactions after they are official. To be fair, it’s not only NBA.com, it could also be team social media. Several teams break news in Twitter before adding a press release to their site. Rikster2 (talk) 17:57, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Well there is a problem with the team's social media since some transactions are not announced there. In addition, some transactions are not even announced on the team's official website and only NBA.com list them. However, even the NBA transactions' page do not list some transactions. – Sabbatino (talk) 10:22, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

I think you have to take an announcement on a team’s official social media as an announcement. Teams take very different paths on updating their rosters, announcing signings, releasing training camp signings, etc. Some teams ONLY do this via social media (some teams even have specific PR Twitter accounts that pushes out press releases, some of which never get published on the team website. It makes sense why we wait to update signings until after they are official - but we have to take team/league announcements as official, in whatever form they come. I’d point out that occasionally teams publish articles on their sites that they specifically say are NOT representing the franchise (example), but official announcements via Twitter need to be recognized. This isn’t to say that this needs to be written into the roster template. Rikster2 (talk) 13:11, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

You misunderstood. I did not say that team's social media accounts are bad as sources. I meant that not everything is announced there. In addition, I also mentioned the team's official website or the NBA itself when the transaction is not announced by any party. – Sabbatino (talk) 14:17, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Removed The transaction link has been removed from Template:NBA roster footer. If needed, it seems that multiple links to say https://stats.nba.com/transactions, team Facebook, and team Twitter would be relevant, and they could be added to a "Reference" section in the template that does not get transcluded.—Bagumba (talk) 09:22, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

NBA scores

The Template:NBA game is broken and some scores are unreachable. Yosemiter has already asked this question at WP:NBA in August 2018, but nobody said a thing. Then he asked about it here and I responded, but I think the discussion about the matter should take place here. I proposed in the latter discussion that we should put this link (with appropriate game) in the results' tables when linking the score (for example, 113–122). Unless someone can fix the template it should not be used. – Sabbatino (talk) 08:08, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

The watch.nba.com links seems to work OK for me, it's just that if you are not logged onto League Pass, you sometimes land on a splash screen to try to get you to subscribe. Probably a start of the season phenomena. I don't mean to take work away from happy gnomes, but WP:LINKFARM would seem to discourage a link per game, when a single external link to like https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/LAL/2019.html would provide access to similar info.—Bagumba (talk) 08:39, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

It does seem to be working now. But the fact that it redirected to the splash page in the offseason, even for past games, is problematic. It makes the links semi-nonfunctional (it would not redirect back to the actual game report page no matter what I tried) and difficult to use otherwise. Basketball-reference.com would probably be better in the long term. As to LINKFARM, this is one of the reasons they advise against using so many. It may be better just to a single link to a generalized external season schedule of each team that lists each score with their own links to game reports (such as 2018–19 Atlanta Hawks via stats.nba.com or 2017–18 LA Lakers via basketball-reference.com). Then only one such link would ever need to be fixed if a site changes formats again. Yosemiter (talk) 19:11, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

If we were to get rid of the template I would use the NBA.com's link since that comes from the league itself. Basketball-Reference.com sometimes puts incorrect information and they do not fix it for a long time (cannot give any examples now since I lost all data due to a HDD failure last year). – Sabbatino (talk) 08:30, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

The biggest risk with NBA.com is that they historically reorganize their website often, and then dont redirect old urls to their new locations. One example was profiles of former players. Unless someone (or a bot) goes and archives them to prevent WP:LINKROT, is it worth the effort of putting NBA.com links that will inevitably break? Then there's the LINKFARM concerns too.—Bagumba (talk) 10:48, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Which is why I suggested a single link to an entire season list of scores on one of the above. Both NBA.com and Basketball-Reference.com have their own internal links to game summaries on those pages. So we source the entire season's worth of scores in one link (which is much easier to replace/fix if it breaks) instead of 82 per team season page. Yosemiter (talk) 12:36, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

G League stats in bios

If a player has played in the NBA, are their G League stats notable enough for a dedicated table e.g. Travis Wear#Career statistics (recently added by Billgatenguyenlobcity)? Seems to be borderline WP:NOTSTATS and WP:FANCRUFT. NBA bios typically have an EL link to basketball-reference.com, which would have a link to their G League stats e.g. Wear's BBR NBA page has a link to his BBR G League page.—Bagumba (talk) 10:08, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

I've removed it given no current consensus to add it here.—Bagumba (talk) 04:56, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree that G League statistics are not notable. Only top league statistics should be listed. – Sabbatino (talk) 08:26, 31 October 2018 (UTC)