Our Draft

by Cultimate

Like most owners, we began our draft with an eye toward creating an offense so lethal that it would capture the imaginations of the panel and readership immediately. Some combination of explosiveness, height, throwing prowess, and mental toughness so thorough that one would only need a glance at it to know viscerally that it was THE solution to this crazy experiment. After all, with no real-world simulation, no stats, and little other than our own varied experiences to work with, the only way to "win" the tournament was to assemble a collage of players whose shared highlights mingled in to one explosion of your mind. Our team had to be overpowering, and obviously so.

One round in to the Draft, however, it became apparent that even with the entire world of ultimate players at our disposal, the ones that are dangerous at every position are a rare commodity. After we were able to secure current GOAT lynchpin and 08 WUGC Team Canada standout John Hassell at #6, we watched as the short list of "complete" players were snatched up one by one in reverse snake back to our turn. By the time our second pick came around, we had fallen to a different strategy entirely.

It's a tired adage in sports that chemistry trumps talent, but we watch that maxim play out in every competitive season both in our sport and every other. 2006's brief experiment with the MLU was the closest thing the ultimate community has ever seen to this Draft. Team captain's were tapped in each quadrant of the US, and in turn picked the top players from their area teams to fill out rosters to compete in a two day round robin nestled in the bacchanalia of Potlatch. Here we did finally get to see our fanboy fantasies realized. Nord, Chase, Mike Grant, AND Jeff Cruickshank on the same team. The deadliness of Bravo's top athletes (Beau, Martin, Richter) with the throwing acumen of JAM's Idris Nolan and Kevin Cissna. It was Ultimate's ultimate All-Star game - and yet at the same time weirdly unfulfilling for reasons that Ben Wiggins put his finger on later in an r.s.d. post. He wrote:

"Lack of coordination was the biggest downside. Teams with players from a bunch of different UPA teams had troubles getting flow going....and flow proved more valuable than just having a bunch of great players, since athleticism mostly cancelled out. In other words...DoG would probably have done pretty well inthe MLU tournament as a cohesive team that doesn't turn the disc over."

According to the rules of the Draft, the winner of the "tournament" is said to be determined by a "completeness and superiority of roster", but our take on that evolved to put a premium on chemistry. After all, as Ben wrote, athleticism mostly canceled out in the real world. As the order of the draft would not allow us to snatch entire blocks of players (at 6th overall in the draft, we alternated between 8 and 10 picks between each turn) - however, we tried to pick a few cores of players that had real world experience together and build around them.

With Hassell in hand, we kept our fingers crossed that Mike Grant would fall to 15th. Having been both witness and victim of this duo at Worlds 2008, I would argue that they might be the most dangerous two man combo in ultimate. Though MG has in the last few seasons fallen into a role pioneered by JAM's Damien Scott - which is to say, to trade his height and dominance as an endzone target for his length and prowess as a 2 or 3 in a pull play, there isn't a defender alive who doesn't respect and fear him as a deep threat. And Hassell is his double, weirdly mirroring MG's combination threat, right down to the extended low release flick. Together they are a matchup nightmare.

When MG was nabbed by Ryan Thompson at 10th (and we were surprised he fell that far), we picked up Tim Gehret with the hope that Kurt Gibson, injured for all of 2008, had dropped off most folks' radar and could be had at spot 26. Not quite as dynamic as the MG/Hassell combo, Gehret/Gibson as a core is, even after their post-collegiate separation, a uniquely terrifying thing. For anyone who didn't follow the draft board, the rest is played out as follows. Owner Halverson picked up Gibson at 22 and we immediately arranged a trade that exchanged Hassell and our 5th round pick for Kurt and his 6th round. With that core in hand, we began stocking our team with players that were familiar with a vert stack (Gehret/Gibson's native tongue) and preferably had experience working together. Thus, Goldstein and Clark, Cahill and Cochran, Safdie and Hodges.

Defensively, our goal was to negate as much offense with athleticism and height as we could, and fill around that with defenders versed in the fine art of causing chaos. For the former, we picked up Kubiak (Desjardins), Popes, and flipped Martin's role. In the latter, we were able to pick up Richter (Ackley), Salad (Melancon), and Seth Crockford, who is, in every fashion conceivable to offensive teams, a nuisance. We later switched Hodges and Safdie in to anchor the defensive offense on a turn.

Outliers
For some early and some later picks, we simply nabbed the best player available who fit a profile of outstanding talent and projected integration with the team. I'm sure much of the owner's effort will be spent on singing the praises of their picks, so I won't waste your time with more of that. I will write simply, that Aaron Richards is one of the best three cutters in the country, Sayoshi Senda is worth two instant goals a game, and Ryan Ferrell seems to be completely immune to being marked.

Afterward
This has been a wonderfully fulfilling time-waster this last week, and has sparked some lively debate both among my teammates (on Sockeye) and between Cyle and I. After seeing the final teams, I feel that designating a clear winner is an exercise in arbitrariness: the teams are for the most part stacked evenly, with the first and second round picks generally defining the character of the team. With few exceptions, these assembled teams don't look wildly different from those we see battle at club nationals every year, save that the roster limitations keep the talent level even and uniquely talented players from smaller markets (Stephen Presely, Aaron Richards, anyone outside North America, etc.) would be placed in positions to better showcase themselves. Kudos to Taylor Popes, who saw this early, and created his roster to closely mirror the Ring of Fire all-stars.

As a final word, I would say that the Draft was awesome but left me slightly bitter at the state of Ultimate's ability to cater to an audience. Exercises like this, and every other RSD triple-digit thread on the merits of players of the moments, make me long for some sort of standardized metric. I'm sure that one day statistics will supplant testimonials as the metric by which a player's dominance is measured, and I'd love to the The Huddles contributor's take a crack at plans to usher that day in sooner rather than later.

Cultimate is comprised of Matthew "Skip" Sewell who currently plays for Sockeye, and Cyle Van Auken who is Florida alum.