Thats the tricky part - not many people would "love" a league filled with make believe players.
i agree that many people are attracted to a league more based on seeing real names there. In other words they come for the names, they stay for the gms and activity level.
what if we added real names by doing the following:
after a players rookie contract is up (or perhaps at a certain age) he is eligable to have his name changed to a current NBA player's name
the GM who owns the player would apply to the commish (or a small committee) to have the players name changed, but the catch is that the player must have ratings and/or numbers that are similar to the player that they want to change names to.
so for example:
Hornets could apply to change Alexis Kamens to Kobe Bryant
Sure the age, height and weight wouldnt match, and it would mess up historic stats, but if its necessary to recruit new GMs perhaps it would be worth it...
