BuzzerBeater Forums

It's been disappointing for me in recent seasons to see the MVP award in the ABBL inevitably go to a big man. The big man in question always averages at least 15 points and 10 rebounds and usually well over that on a contending team, but this bias does a disservice to any non-big in the game.

There have been several seasons recently where I've felt that a guard or wing has been more valuable to their team overall, but the position and role they play generally doesn't allow them to pad their stats in the same way that the big man can. I think the issue here is that rebounds hold far too much weight in the calculations.

Grabbing a lot of rebounds just isn't as big an achievement as the game treats it as when it's their job as big men to grab them. Especially in a game engine where shooting percentages tend to be on the low side making rebounds a plentiful resource for stat padding.

In return I would put more weight on defence. Guards and wings tend to be better defenders due to the quirks of the salary formula, but that doesn't show on the stats sheet, doesn't get the credit it deserves in MVP voting, and makes it harder for non-bigs to put up the big numbers on a contending team. You could argue that defence getting overlooked is realistic though as the real life MVP race last season featured James Haren as a serious candidate.

Anyway, more of a cosmetic issue for me than anything else but I would like to see players who aren't a big man given a chance to win the MVP award again as it's been a long time since I can remember a guard or wing taking it in the top division of my country...

Last edited by Jay (OTT) at 9/26/2017 1:09:21 PM

It's been disappointing for me in recent seasons to see the MVP award in the ABBL inevitably go to a big man. The big man in question always averages at least 15 points and 10 rebounds and usually well over that on a contending team, but this bias does a disservice to any non-big in the game.

There have been several seasons recently where I've felt that a guard or wing has been more valuable to their team overall, but the position and role they play generally doesn't allow them to pad their stats in the same way that the big man can. I think the issue here is that rebounds hold far too much weight in the calculations.

Grabbing a lot of rebounds just isn't as big an achievement as the game treats it as when it's their job as big men to grab them. Especially in a game engine where shooting percentages tend to be on the low side making rebounds a plentiful resource for stat padding.

In return I would put more weight on defence. Guards and wings tend to be better defenders due to the quirks of the salary formula, but that doesn't show on the stats sheet, doesn't get the credit it deserves in MVP voting, and makes it harder for non-bigs to put up the big numbers on a contending team. You could argue that defence getting overlooked is realistic though as the real life MVP race last season featured James Haren as a serious candidate.

Anyway, more of a cosmetic issue for me than anything else but I would like to see players who aren't a big man given a chance to win the MVP award again as it's been a long time since I can remember a guard or wing taking it in the top division of my country...

Maybe it has to do more with how they defend interior scoring in a LI dominant game? (just spit-balling a thought from my head)

Sorry for not answering earlier. The issue in my opinion has always been that there's only one skill needed to guard the perimeter, yet that skill affects both outside shooting and offensive flow. By contrast, two skills are need to guard inside and both combined only affect inside scoring.

So managers naturally gravitate towards defensive minded guards and wings, but take a more offensive approach to bigs, due to the GE and salary formula making those player building strategies work. This usually leads to the scoring leaders being mostly big men, with the exception of teams that run the Patient aka Kobe offence.