BuzzerBeater Forums

On average I really like your answers and your quality of those, but - without taking it personally - I really do not understand the first part of your message.
Should top division teams refrain from asking questions and/or trying to get a discussion/ sample of opinions collected in a forums thread?
It´s not like have I asked "What do I need to win a game?" (although this is of some concern for me as well at the moment, but that´s a different story), but, believe it or not, I managed to promote to the first division with a passing skill of average (6) and below for my big men. So I am indeed interested in the experience of other managers whether or not a higher passing skill might have a positive effect on the player´s/ team´s performance.
Therefore I really appreciate those managers who have or will share their opinions or experiences.
The easy statement "Passing never hurts" is indeed very wrong to me, as it hurts a lot training big men in passing; on the one hand because you have to put them off their natural position, on the other hand because you "lose" weeks of training you could possibly use wiser.

One interesting and very important thing for me is this: neither seems to have the passing skill any effect on the potential cap nor does it negatively influence the salary of a big player. The conclusion for this could be: the game counts this skill as useless on some positions --> the engine doesn´t use the passing skill to calculate a match.

On the other hand I have the strong assumption that it is used (atrocious passing skill means hardly any assist, anything above means at least some assists), but I still have no clue to which extent the passing skill is useful for big men.
Might be painful for some guys, but even without this you are able to promote to a first league. Even easier though to demote again...

I think it 's also tactics dependant. If you play LI or LP, It seems to me that the Center are at the end of the chain. And will most of the time take the shot instead of looking for a pass.
On the other hand with outside/neutral offense there may be more opportunities for the center to pass, especially with slow tempo offense. It might also be helpfull in both Isolation, sort of pick and roll.

I wonder vs which skill the Center PS is checked. If it is checked vs the other C OD, there could be a better reason to pass tha nchecking your C IS vs the other C ID. If your PS is checked vs the defender ID, it would most of the time be a worst option that taking the shoot IS vs ID..

I record my team stats in a spreadsheet in a way that I can also split them by tactics.
LI gives 33 assists
RG gives 30
Push gives 27
and the other around 20

30 assists vs MM
25 vs Z 2-3
20 vs Z 3-2

I have no stats on what amount of those assits are made by each position. Yet even my big guys with PS 7, only do 1 or 2 more assist/game than the ones with PS 1 or 2.

I should add, that I have a good offensive flow at all other position, and my feeling is more PS at C won't help much here. Not to the point of training PS for C. If I were to train secondary for C, I'll do HA and DR

I think it 's also tactics dependant. If you play LI or LP, It seems to me that the Center are at the end of the chain. And will most of the time take the shot instead of looking for a pass.

I think it's more likely that if it's an inside offense and the center receives the ball with good chances to score, he'll put up the shot. Otherwise, he may then look to pass - and if he has good passing, maybe he can hit the PF or a driving guard, while if he has poor passing he figures he's out of options and jacks up the shot anyhow.

I wonder vs which skill the Center PS is checked. If it is checked vs the other C OD, there could be a better reason to pass tha nchecking your C IS vs the other C ID. If your PS is checked vs the defender ID, it would most of the time be a worst option that taking the shoot IS vs ID..

It's checked vs. the OD. That's why even 7 passing for most centers is quite effective enough already - not too many people are defending these with centers with 7+ OD.

I have two big men with similar skills. The one with 3 passing averages 0.6 assists per game. The one with 7 passing averages 3.5 assists per game. (The better passer tends to play PF, but not exclusively. Also, that should hold him down some since PF's tend to have better OD).

Last edited by Captain P-Dog at 7/19/2012 3:36:08 PM

Same here. My big with 1 PA averages about 1 turnover a game. My other one who also happens to have 7 PA averages 2.6 assists. They both play C, which of course spikes the number of assists that the better passer gets.

Just for curiosity, who are your bigs that you are training? Looking at your team now, your two main bigs are 31 and 29 years old respectively.

No thats not it at all. I just find it funny that some managers have a pretty sweet luxury box seat just buy joining up early. Pretty much just doing the same thing every season without any big risks or anything like that and can safely stay in the top division. Not meant against anyone in particular so do not se it as anything directed towards you. May have wrote it a bit wrong so it could be miss interpreted but thats what happens when you write in a language that is not your native language.
So lets put that aside and focus on the actual topic instead shall we =)
I strongly believe in any secondary skill being useful and im currently training bigs with PA. They are at 8 now but im going for 10 in the long run.
I seen lots of games where the C gets a lot of AST with something like you had on your guys in PA. So i figured more cant hurt!(duh!)
Aint got any big or small research to back it up on or anything like that so i wont even try to go and say i actually know anything about it yet.
Moving the ball well is the key to scoring easy points though and if all players can do it you sure should be rewarded well i guess.
My view on the potential/salary part of PA is that since it is a pain to train they at least cut down on the impact it has on potential so it should be worth training it. I somewhat see that same thing with SB even though to many it is the most expensive skill in BB.
Some skills sure are more useful at some positions but i dont think there is a single skill in this game that a player doesnt benefit from having at least above 5-6 in.
But then there is a part where some skills cost and if you got an expensive guy you may need to cut down on some skills for the gain of other. But thats probably way off topic so.

Not sure what has you so upset, he was just asking a question to generate discussion... and it seems you're missing the point of the original post, what I got out of it was exactly the thing you're dismissing. Personally, I agree that I like to have ~8-10 passing if I'm training, and ~6-8 if I'm looking on the TL (the demand seems pretty high and I think their costs seem disproprotionately higher). Passing is a way to increase offensive production and possession without the added salary of an Inside Shot or Rebounding.