Ashcroft: I know that we all have a given rival on our team page. However, who’s the biggest rival you’ve ever had while playing this game?
Jay L: The time I spent in III.8 was awesome, my trainee's were just hitting their primes. all the managers were intensely competitive and every season the playoffs were heartbreaking. Silver Palominos was the squad that provided the biggest hurdle to get to the finals and they stopped me a couple times, however our champ kept coming out of the other side of the bracket so SP and I had to go into next year and get ready for another dogfight over and over again. Aside from them there was the Rouge et Or, who's manager Morwood I know is still active today, MasSoul, Sierra Madre, the D-League All-Stars and Jhak Telecom, everyone was in to it and it was a lot of fun.
Ashcroft: You mentioned having trouble getting out of Div 3, and you did stick around Div 2 and 3 for a while before making Naismith, but now you've been there for a few seasons. What do you think it is that took your team to the top level?
Jay L: Yeah that was Luis’s fault, I was trying to get him onto the National team but the Nat. team doesn’t really want players that are not exceptional at specific things. Garvi got built to be very good at everything, but to do that meant he was wasn’t dominant any one category. He was a SF that I built to be able to exploit his defender regardless of whether I was using an inside or outside offense, but ultimately because his Outside D. topped out at only 11, team Canada felt they had to go another direction.
That was going on the whole time I was first in Div.II and hanging out in Div.III for the second time. Once I decided to give up on the National team for my trainees, being able to be competitive became a lot easier. It was quite the change being able to play guys in the positions I trained them to play instead of playing them either at PG or C just to maximize their training.
Ashcroft: You also seem to be pretty dedicated to this game. People are constantly joining the game and moving on, but do you know if or when you'll move on?
Jay L: I imagine if and when I relegate out of Naismith maybe I’ll hang it up, but it depends on if I catch another phenom trainee to build. I have a young kid right now Angel Velchev who is kind of an interesting experiment, he’s a 7’0” but he was drafted as a point guard, so he already has much better secondary stats then 90% of the finished product centres in the BB world, now I just have to focus on his actual skills that will benefit from his being so tall. It’ll be interesting to see what I can make out of him, the sticking point though will be that he is only a perennial all-star and my trainer right now is only superior level, so my window might run out on me before he’s as strong as I would like. However I’ve had top ranked potential before in a kid with a world class trainer and I just could not get him to develop to save my life.
Ashcroft: Are there any changes to BuzzerBeater you'd like to see?
Jay L: I would love to see more emphasis on building a team from within the organization and less about shopping for deals and making money. The changes a couple of seasons ago to allow guys to train different skills while playing their more natural positions, (but at a reduced effectiveness) was a great idea but pushing further in that direction would be great. Maybe something where you actually get to assign 3-5 guys to your trainer to work with in a given week then they receive training regardless of time on the floor, you could add a multiplier to the effect they receive if they go over 48 mins in a given week if you want, but other interesting prospects other than your single most talented kid wouldn’t simply be wasted the way a lot of guys are.
Ashcroft: Alright, this is a good place to end. Thanks for putting in the time to write all that out.
Last edited by ______ (NZ National Team) at 12/10/2016 3:00:01 AM