Virtual NBA... Fantastic?

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to take over a team in an NBA 2K7 online league. I had requested to be in the league when it started, but all the teams were taken. Once the season started, some owners left, thus creating the opening. I said sure, picked the Atlanta Hawks and was told to make up the games the previous owner missed as soon as possible.

(Just some quick background info. There was a fantasy-style draft before the season, so the rosters don't reflect their real-world counterparts. The games are played online with the Xbox 360, with results and statistics recorded on the league's fabulous website, located here. Each team plays three games per week, with each game representing "one week" in the season. My team had played three game and the rest of the league was pushing 20.)

I played two games right away and was destroyed both times. It was at that moment I began to wonder if I had made a sound decision. I was home sick last Wednesday and played four more games, all losses. I told the guy who invited me that this really wasn't fun and I know I'm not helpful to the league, being a pushover and all. He asked me to wait until I played him, since he's not that good either, and then see how I feel.

Before I had a chance to play him, I managed to win a game. It was a great game, one where I was losing early, fought back, took the lead, lost the lead in the fourth quarter, but held on and survived a last-second, potential game-tying 3-pointer to win 107-104. I felt a little better. Then I played last night and was destroyed again.

It's not the losing that bothers me the most. Sure, it really stinks to waste 45 minutes being embarrased, but it's everything else that comes with this league.

All the league members are now on my Xbox Live friends list. Before joining the league, I had maybe 20 friends, mostly all people I know personally. Now I have close to or over 50 and I don't know any of them.

Whenever I turn the machine on, I'm innundated with messages from these guys either looking to get our game in or to pester me about a trade. It's non-stop. Being in this league is more stressful than my job. The league feels like a job. (There is an option to "hide" and appear as if I'm offline, but I enjoy being connected to Xbox Live and seeing if other friends are on, etc.)

I hate to quit something I've committed to, but this is much more involved than I expected. Work is only going to become busier and busier the closer we get to summer and that means less time to play these games. I also want to play other games, not just NBA 2K7. I have lots of games that I want to play but I can't since I'm always being asked to get the league games in.

Any thoughts from my readers before I send off a message to the commish? Even though I'm 99% sure what I'm going to do, I'd like to hear some other thoughts.