BuzzerBeater Forums

I completely agree with Beener on this. When I first started, before the introduction of free agents, one of the more daunting things was to see how rapidly the TL price rose for players that had even a small amount of training. To get a decent USA D5 starter would be over 100K, and that's for a guy that wouldn't be much of a backup in D4. That led me to buy some cheap 19 year olds and train them 2 position, which was fine, but I'm sure it delayed my team's progress a bit (not a huge deal, but I may have a longer view of team building than other brand new owners).

So I think the free agents have been great in helping increase the supply of these low to mid level players, and thus reducing prices.

My own opinion is that they should go back to the way it was and let the market dictate. It made it easier for clubs with modest means to be able to get good talent. It has happened with me, but now that is gone, and I am reduced to training to get my players better. Let me have a shot at that $100K a game player. If I get him for $500K, great. But, at least the market will dictate the price. Too many good players are being forced to retire because of that 10xsalary rule instead of finding good homes.
That, my friends, need to change.

I agree, Fa's ruins whole the economy.
Because of Fa's, its impossible to make proffit while training lower potencial guys.


There should be no fa's at all. Some players like roy from blazzers can end their carreer cause of health problems at age 24 or so:D Or like oden. I dont think he will ever play productive basketball seazon at all. Some players just cant play so they must retire.

I think that's not true. Take a decent guy, like a 19 year old PAS potential guy you buy for 5K or less, train him single position for a season, and you'll easily sell him for 100-150K. I did it with 2 guys. That's a very good profit. It's just not the crazy levels that lightly trained players went for previously. And that's frankly something I see as good, because it reduces inflation in other parts of the economy. And if people think big inflation is the sign of a healthy economy, well then I think they're crazy.

As for really high priced players retiring because nobody will pay 1 million for them, I think one possible change might be to have their price drop 100K every time they fail to sell. Maybe once it reaches a certain level with no sale, then the player retires?

Yeah right. For 150k and more you can by a 30-33 year old guy with a salary of around 20k.
Whereas to train a youngster up to 20k salary would take 3-4 seasons.

Easiest recipe for winning: Sell all players and buy cheap old farts, as the choice is plentiful really. And then train game shape all season, oh and can also buy a trainer with career extension.

So you can either train a player for 4 seasons that would hold his skills for another 10 seasons, and benefit from the associated merchandising from having some roster consistency, or spend the 150k every couple of seasons to recycle through another old fart.

Of course, it mostly depends on how picky you are on side skills, too. If you just want X ID/IS/REB and don't care for instance if there's pitiful passing, inept handling and so forth, the veteran cycle is great. There's no need to bother training that type of inside donkey because there are other donkey lovers more than willing to do that and flooding the market constantly.

Well, the question was not whether it was better to buy and recycle old farts versus training youngsters. The question was whether or not training is profitable. It is still profitable to train and sell guys, just not the crazy profits that it used to be.

And if people want to do the old fart recycling dance, that doesn't bother me. It can be successful, but I wouldn't call it any more successful than a well run training program. I've seen it work, but I've also seen that when it goes bad, it goes bad quickly. That leaves those managers in a tough position, cause they get stuck with a bunch of crappy old farts whom they can't sell for enough to get to the next cycle, but then don't have any younger players of value to build from.

But really, if people want to think that training isn't useful, and want to buy crappy old players, trained by managers who have a now antiquated view of what skills are important for what position, then that's fine by me. I'll happily accept the competitive advantage.