BuzzerBeater Forums

Just thought id share my tactics for this years upcoming draft. Wanting to know if anyone else is going down this line and what they think/doing differently.

Without going into a sob-story about previous years drafts, and how good/bad ive done lets get into my tactic

So far this year, ive spent $70k on scouting, and ill probably spend another $10k before the draft. So $80k all up, all year.

This has given me 16 points to work with. Why bother i hear you say.

In order to maximise my points, I did the Group Demonstration. this gave me 3 players with 5-ball star rating and and 5 players with a 4-ball star rating. So all up, out of 19 players, 8 are probably decent enough to investigate further.
I decided at that point, to continue with my current scouting spending and just Interview the Top 3 players. This wil give me height-boxscore and of course, grade and potential.
My theory is, as ive read in other forums, is that high rating is highly related to high potential. Not always, but there is more chance of a 5-ball star player having a 5-ball potential. (so ive seen and read. Not always the case, but generally.).

I wont give details just yet of the two guys ive interviewed already. But one flaw ive noticed, is the age. I dont know the age until I interview, which, if my top-3 guys turn out to be 19 years old, my tactic is pretty much down the tube.

I look at it this way though. Say i draft, 3 players, who are 5 or 4 ball star rating. regardless of age, ill probably fetch $50k in total, for all 3, as a minimum, on the transfer market, after the draft. So worst case scenario is that i lose $30k over the year.
Or thereabouts. Thats my 'theory'... The rest of the theory is that i draft someone better, and make a tidy profit. :)

I might get stuffed over by the draft order, and not get my number 1 pikc. Or my number 10 pick. Then im also in trouble. Im hedging my bets, but i thought id try it this year.
Will give an update once draft is done.

Anyone else trying to do a low-cost draft this year?

The best strategy for You is to keep all scouting points for next season.

eeeeh can you do that?

Yes i was contemplating doing this as well.

I took the view that

a) If i carried over my points from this season, into next season, then im resigning myself to poor draft picks this year. Which would essentially mean, zero return on investment. Unless i got EXTREMELY lucky.

b) The money i spend on the scouting points, would go into next years total. ie: 100K this year, 100K next year = 200k on 3draft picks. Yes im increasing my chances of getting the best pick in the draft, but by how much?

I started to try and analyse the odds of my tactic, but it just gets SOOOOOO confusing and hardcore, and too many 'ifs'.

So needless to say, at this point Ive got 3 guys with 5 star rating, which ive interviewd. Two were 19 years old, they had grades of A+, A- and A. Unfortunately their potential was 3, 3, and 2. crapola.

But the point is to try and minimise/maximise spending vs cost. And maybe these guys are in the top 5 players from the draft..... Maybe my first draft pick will sell for 300-400k? who knows? Depends on the market at the time and his final stats. We shall see!


So i havent found the best player in the league this season, using my low-cost method. :(

Point is possition in league, not money spent on draft. You are 5th in league, so You have picks #12, #28, #44.
And therefore You have small chance to get good player anyway, even if You would have complete information about all players in pool.
In my opinion it's better to cumulate points and exploit them when You will have worse season (and earlier picks).

Well, there are actually 3 teams in our league which are bot. (one will be soon, i dont think he has submitted a draft)... so I am banking on the fact that this helps me along a bit.

2 seasons ago i sold a guy whom i drafted at pick 8, for $400k.

and in the same draft, the guy i drafted at pick 41 i sold for $124k.
In the year before that, i drafted a $5.5k salary 19 year old with perennial allstar potential, at pick 13.

SO i really do think that, in this league, with bot teams and, maybe other teams not really spending money in the draft at all, it is a good league to trry and do what im trying to do.

Of course however, in other leagues, all teams may be active, and spend lots in scouting. Average for this league was probably about $10k per week.

So yer, there are heaps of other factors. Maybe next year if im going to be up the top of the ladder again, and most teams are active, ill give the draft a skip. Not this year though :)

I didn't spend any money on scouting points in the past few seasons, so it's a "no cost" draft strategy.