A couple years ago, I developed a different scoring format for fantasy basketball. I initially called it Fantasy Pick n Roll. Later that year, a reddit user informed me of an app called Sleeper that had a (slightly) similar format called Game Pick. Seeing as though my creation was starting to be considered an enhanced version of how Game Pick played, I decided to change my format name to Game Peak Mode to further support this. Our league had a very successful first season using this new format and were excited for the next season to come around. Currently we are in that second season and it’s still going strong without any major flaws.

I recently discovered that the Sleeper app added a new mode alongside their existing Game Pick format and gave it the name Lock-In Mode.

The only thing is, Lock-In Mode has an uncanny resemblance to my Game Peak Mode. It sure looks as though they took my format and ran with it. Even their new name is based on a term we’ve regularly used to describe how Game Peak Mode works (more on that below).

Here are some examples of the similarities between my own words and Sleeper’s words, describing our now-identical formats:

As you can clearly see, they made the adjustments to add more strategy, as well as allow you to pass up a player score for a potentially larger future score, which is the basic essence of my format that was created over a year before Sleeper introduced it. Also worth noting is the fact that I was considerate enough to acknowledge Sleeper and their Game Pick creation when describing my new format. Even though the two formats were still different enough at that time, I felt it appropriate to recognize that both exist. Meanwhile, Sleeper has decided to just pass their new mode off as their own idea when it clearly wasn’t.

Here’s another example of Sleeper essentially plagiarizing my work:

The phrase “lock in” is certainly not a copyright phrase, but it was being used by everyone in my league way before Sleeper’s Lock-In Mode existed. Our league members communicate via GroupMe and Discord, with a simple message of “Lock Player X” or “No locks” when making their decisions each day. This has been happening since the start of the 2021 NBA season. Fantasy hoops has been around a long time, so the timing of all this cannot be just a coincidence.

Anyone can clearly see that even when it comes to some of the more specific league rules like trades, they felt mine was good enough for them so they copied it exactly.

Frankly, I’m not entirely sure how I’m supposed to feel about this blatant mimicry. On one hand, I was hoping that an established site would be willing to adopt the Game Peak Mode format so I would no longer have to do so much manual work in order for our league to function (I do not have a background in programming nor do I have the know-how to create my own fantasy basketball app). On the other hand, I guess I expected it to happen in a more honest way. Straight-up plagiarism wasn’t the way I envisioned it. Just give credit where credit is due, Sleeper.