if you don't mind, and i hope hrudey contributes his thoughts and experience, what do you think it would take to produce a good outside team? theoretically speaking.
i am guessing such a team would exploit JR much more than we are used to. but JR in combination with what? DR? and aim for a run-and-gun? DR and HA? run-and-gun or motion? team PA? and run a low post or Princeton? and does the ratio of JR to JS matter, or, rather, how much does it matter? i would love to create a team that is looking for 3s, but i don't know how to build that into the DNA of the squad (JR 17, JS 12?)
to me, the advantages are in the math. if you could create a team that shot threes at 33%, that team would produce points at the same rate as one that shot 2-pointers at 50% -- and very few NBBA teams shoot 50%, but many of us are in the 20 - 25% range without really trying. this suggests to me 33% is an achievable goal.
I've tried both a 15 JS/15 JR guy and a 19/11 guy and neither seemed to be really effective at SG against II level defenders. The disappointing thing is even uncontested shots are missed at an alarming rate. I kind of think you need to have something like 18/16 or higher to be really effective at the NBBA level, though SM if he's lurking here would be a far better judge of that. Of course, the thing that really strikes me is that a guy that I had trouble with a lot is on the TL now that his owner demoted to III, and he's only 19/12, but he had 16 driving while Winkler and Yi were both only at 14. But if driving were more of a factor,I'd expect better from Shultz, who is 18/10 with 17 DR.
Of course, where outside shooting shines is when you can get your PF or C matched up against old-style three-skill donkeys on outside shots. Alas, the 3-2 makes that far less likely, and those players are far less common these days anyhow.
In terms of complementary offensive skills, I think driving is probably very important - especially once you start seeing 3-2s. It seems like all the offenses will still try driving layups if you have driving on your players - I know when the advanced stats were working still and I was playing pretty much exclusive Princeton, I had a lot of drives and really very few pure inside shots (and almost those from an old legacy center I had and the one of my three bigs who actually had double digits in IS).
Of course, even more important for me at least is the handling and passing everywhere. Not that it helps the offense score well, or shoot well, or even be remotely efficient. But what does seem to matter tremendously is avoiding turning the ball over - it lets me survive a significantly lower shooting percentage than if I lost extra possessions with turnovers. That's probably why SM had such a big focus on rebounding as well - more ORBs means more chances and less ORBs conceded means you have to stop them less frequently.
So back to the theoretical question, I'd love to see what a team with guards like 18/17/17/16/18/12-14 (plus decent ID and maybe RB on at least one for the SF position) plus bigs with like 12 in all the guard skills would do in an outside offense. And if those guards are ever on the TL, affordable with my bank account balance (currently about -80k) and salarywise...
