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Everyone that is building for LI is saying how cheap it is to build a team for it and that SB only is expensive. But perhaps they need to look another time on what actually is expensive.

There is one simple truth that many don't understand: You can't play Look inside on the highest level and defend Look inside on the same level.

You can have a big with either:

- 20 IS, 20 ID, 20 RB and 5 SB (Brilliant LI offense, poor LI defense)

- 5 IS, 20 ID, 20 RB and 20 SB (Poor LI offense, brilliant LI defense)

- 14 IS, 14 ID, 14 RB and 14 SB (Decent LI offense, decent LI defense)

First one can play LI, but can't stop it.
Second one can defend LI, but can't play it.
Third can defend and play LI, but not on the highest level.

People complained because they couldn't put 15 SB on first player because of salary concerns.

Of course you can't do it! You want to have Shaq (offense), Howard (defense), Rodman/Love (Rebounding) and Ibaka/Mutombo (SB) all in one player. You just can't!

Is there any consideration being given to revealing how the "and one" defender is being selected

Marin already revealed it. It was a little bit tricky to find out because he wrote alot around the acctual topic, but search and you will find it

Do you have a link? It would be a pain in the ass to search through all of Marin posts...he posts a lot

Apparently the majority of the managers doesn't feel a skill like SB is cost effective enough to train. So where does this assumption come from? Is SB itself a problem, are there not enough altered shots? Is it the way SB effects are displayed? Is it because many consider SB a secondary skill and then they feel it has become too far behind to have value to train it? Is it because the salary effects are too high?

I think, the assumption that SB is not cost effective comes from both match viewer and boxscore. During a match you rarely see a comment like "Blocked". Most teams rather regularly have 0 blocks in a game, having more than 10 usually only happens if your opponent gives away the game.

If you don't see that blocking actually happens, you don't train it. But if you don't train it - you won't have a lot of blocks. It's some kind of vicious circle.

There is one tag in match events that looks like this: player comes over and alters his shot. Does this mean, he is using his blocking skill? It's not always counted as a block. If he's using his blocking skill, I'd try to make it clear in the translation.

We're planning to reveal some more information about the other tactics indeed, as many in this topics have called for a somewhat better explanation of the tactics (especially the newer ones).

LA-Karangula, yes whenever the matchviewer reports an altered shot this indicates the shot blocking skill is used to decrease the percentage of the shot.

Just throwing something out here, but maybe ID is to prevent the opponent from shooting, and SB is to stop him once he gets his shot. Most LI guards have very high DR, and a little less IS; maybe it's more effective to stop them once they shoot (SB of C vs IS of guard) then trying to prevent the shots (ID of guard vs DR of guard).
Even when playing M2M defense, bigs will rotate over to block/alter shots. I think with high SB this happens more often, and even if they don't actually block the shot, they can alter it so they miss. You won't see that in the boxscore though.

Maybe it's worthwhile to have 1 purely defensive C, like you usually have in the NBA, that only scorse from putbacks/tips. You can have high ID/RB/SB on him with some passing, while your PF does have high IS. That way you'll have a big that can defend the paint against everyone, and also have a big you can run your offense through in your PF.

BB-Patrick
Thanks for coming in this thread with all this new info. Having regular users speculate on the changes is one thing...Having a BB explain new stuff is priceless. Thanks a lot

Let's just say that for assisted shots, they added a change that said "Defender X attempted to rotate over but was too late" or something to indicate that a shotblocking opportunity had been missed, maybe one that he would have been able to stop with a few more levels of SB skill.

The way it was announced didn't come across as a play-by-play improvement. That's a good point though. People have been asking for additional stats or proof that SB is effective for many seasons cause its hard to see its value from the play-by-play and box score.

I'd be thrilled to see any improvement in play-by-play or box scores that give a better picture to the value of all skills. Updating the GE when it seems unclear if a change has been fully vetted is cause for concern.

Last edited by brian at 2/28/2013 9:09:03 PM