Well, it's goodbye to division 3 as I fully commit to training my 5/4 rook, Jimmy Majors.
I've jettisoned all my good bigs, all my best players. Nick Beard my 7'1 PF was doing well in the rankings. All gone, Im down to 7 players. Now I only have my drafted players and 2 transfer signs.
And Jimmy.
I already had an advanced trainer, but around the allstar game I picked up a superior trainer on the cheap. Some would argue the cost effectiveness of a more expensive trainer, but I wanted to try and maximize my ability to get pops with Jimmy, and I've been here since season 6 so my arena is not the worst one out there.
So far I've gotten 10 pops, in everything across trhe board. My weakest attributes were inside scoring and inside defense, with the worst being shot blocking. I knew that my higest attributes will be his defense, passing, but I didnt want his secondaries to be horrible, so I'm taking the time in his first season to raise inside defense and inside scoring alittle bit.
I want Jimmy to be a scorer, but also a lockdown defender. Every once in a while he'll rotate to a guy where he'll need a little inside defense, but not too much, most of his time will be spent on the perimiter and getting guys into positon, maybe draining the occassional three. I also want him to be able to go inside and jam, so a little bit of inside scoring to make sure he can go inside when he needs to.
Now at 6'3, his skill pops will only happen so fast...if he was tallker like 7'5, his big guy skills would train faster. If Jimmy was 5'7, his guard skills would train faster. So at 6'3, I know that it's tougher to train my big guy skills. Thats why Im doing it now, early, when he's 18 and the most open to training. Later on at 20 and 21, he'll still have more of an affinity for the guard skills, so those will still benefit from a superior trainer later into older training. When he's 22-24, Im guessing training my big guy skills wont be as effective. So I squeze it in now, here and there, not too much inside training in order to maximize my training in the guard skills.
I've been training Jimmy with an advanced trainer, and now superior. I've popped in handling, passing, inside def, inside score, outside def and jump shot, with a couple of surprise secondary pops like experience and shot blocking!
So even though it made me sad to admit defeat around the allstar game in division 3, I knew I picked up a 5/4 allstar who will be the cornerstone of my franchise. When I looked around the leauge, it was difficult to find an 18 year old with a begining salary of 5,100 bucks. Most of them were 3800, some I saw got into 4300 and 4500, but mine was the only $5,100 salary without doing that much digging...I know better dudes are out there....okay I didnt really try THAT hard to find better...shhh, dont tell anyone.
So I'd love the idea of an entire home grown drafted team. I've read posts in the forum about wanting to try it...so I'm going for it. It means a demotion, but with the ability to have a superior trainer in place for nothing but one on one weekly training for Jimmy Majors, with a entirely drafted bench and a few transfer list starters, I can take the demotion and get my team ready for when Jimmy starts his climb. Fill in the team with roleplayers and a couple of rebounders, and I'm really excited to see what kind of merchandise numbers I can bring in weekly.
Has anyone seen the potential go up during a season? I could swear that when Jimmy was drafted, he was an allstar potential, and now it's perrenial allstar. Perhaps I am just crazy...