Pope Paul Denies Trade

[UPDATED1] In a rare move, Pope Paul denied a trade between TenQ and SOQ today based on Article 5 of Rule 18, Section 1 “3 games must pass before teams can trade players back to each other”. Pope Paul invoked this rule in rejecting the trade because it involved a 2011 rookie draft pick that was traded between the teams two games ago. After the initial arguments of “chill out” and “get a life” were rejected by Paul, TenQ and SOQ are said to be weighing their appeal options, on the grounds that the rule clearly states players may not be traded back, as opposed to picks.

From Scott.

I would make the following arguments that the trade back rule does not apply to draft picks:

1. Rule 18 – Section 1 – Article 2 specifically includes draft picks [“Teams cannot trade more than 6 players (including draft picks) in any 1 trade.”], while Article 5 makes no mention of draft picks [“3 games must pass before teams can trade players back to each other.”].

2.  This rule is not enforceable on draft picks as evidenced by Article 4 – Note a) [“For example, a “player to be named later” or a “draft pick to be determined” can be included in a trade provided that at least 1 player or draft pick from each team is included in the trade.”], which essentially implies that you don’t even have to specify what the draft pick is in any given trade.

3. The whole point of the rule is to prevent the loaning of players during the season.  Since draft picks aren’t even playable during the season, then there is really no unfair advantage gained by “loaning” or “borrowing” a draft pick.

I tend to agree with you about argument #3.

I think argument #2 is comparing apples and oranges. Article 2 deals
with including a conditional draft pick in a trade. Here, I think it
is obvious that an unconditional first trade was made prior to a
completely separate trade about 2 weeks later.

I think the language cited in argument #1 is also not dispositive
because former Rule 18 – Section 1 – Article 2 (you cited the old
language, Seth, can you please make sure the Version 3.2 of the
Constitution is readily available on qballers???!!!) because I am
fairly confident that the drafter of the Deucegate rule was not
thinking of the maxim of expressio unius est exclusio alterius when he
was updating the Constitution.

Nonetheless, I am going to tentatively rule that the language of
Article 5 of rule 18 section 1, which states that “3 games must pass before teams can trade PLAYERS back to each other” does not include draft picks, but I want to throw this out to Comp Comm to see if there is any strong resistance first.