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Probably you need the iso guys to be able to dominate their defenders.

I have a nice example from my own league on why people think isos don't work unless you are at super-high level (NT or at least D1) or playing against weaker competition: (79191190)
bbstats: 152 to 128 (+24 to me and nearly a 20% extra on the 128)
Team efficiency: 98 to 80 (another 20% to me)
PP100: mine was better at nearly every position (except for PF where my kid lost out to his opponent 72.5 to 75.9)

Both my guards have high passing and my SG has also pretty good scoring skills, but my opponents' guards have very high OD, especially the guy guarding my SG, who was likely the go-to guy.



Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/25/2015 9:34:02 AM

Thank you so much.

I might mail you.

What do people say about which skills are necessary for isolation offences?

We had a guy that ran a lot of inside isolation in our league a few seasons back, and he was quite successful with it. I would say that the most important skill can be guessed from the game manual pretty easily when you read the following parts:

Isolation offenses: The team will try to find their best offensive player and clear out an area for him to create his own shot.

Driving: Allows the player to create his own shot without a good pass from a teammate. Better driving creates shots more often and creates better shots on average.

yeah and if the ISO guy doesn't have enough DR to get himself an open shot? He will either take a contested shot or he will pass. I think we already established earlier in the thread that the ISO player creates the offense, he doesn't necessarily look for his own shot, but he might create for others (passing). This is consistent with what others have said and is consistent with my big men scoring at a much better clip that they should have done in the game above (they mostly had open shots).

If you can run an analysis in buzzer-control of the above game you'll be also able to see how many open shots my SG took. One of the thing that do not make sense in the GE right now is that in many cases an open shot has a lower FG% than a guarded shot (depending on the specific defender and the type of shot). So let's put it this way: if your ISO player has very high driving he may be able to consistently get an open shot. Is an open shot going to be more efficient than a guarded shot? Not necessarily as Trainerman has argued repeatedly bringing data and evidence to support his claim (this is particularly evident on lay ups for guards and 3 pointers for big men).

You talk about DR and point to the Game Manual as if you're giving any meaningful information. I know for a fact that the defender on my SG in the game had more than 20 OD (and good ID). So the useful information about DR you should provide, if you are able to, is how much DR is needed to overcome 20-10 OD-ID to get an open shot. Even a ballpark figure would do.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/25/2015 10:02:54 AM

I'd like to see more examples like this, and also comparisons to other games with other offenses to better conclude if ISO's work or not. Another conclusion you can make is that the ISO offense you ran generated good offensive BBstats and PP100's. That those better stats didn't result in a win could be caused by other factors than the ISO offense. If you can provide more examples and comparisons, we can check if those offensive BBstats and PP100's generated by the ISO offense are good compared to when your team runs other offenses (of course they are influenced by other factors such as gameshape), and wether you end up with losses consistently when using the ISO offense despite better BBstats/PP100's.

As of now, it can simply be a case of bad luck with the game engine that caused you to lose despite being the better team (and the ISO offense could have contributed to you being the better team).

This is one of my own games running outside ISO: (79200943)
BBstats were only slightly in my favor; his defense was better than my offense but still I won by 13 points. He did play TIE but I believe that is accounted for by the BBstats. Also interestingly he used Outside Box+1 so he was matched up well defensively. I think this game the ISO was effective; if you look at the BBstats, you'd expect a closer outcome. PP100 are in my favor so looking at that the result is consistent with the input. At least here the ISO didn't fail despite a stronger defense.

Last edited by Jeründerbar at 3/25/2015 12:37:02 PM

yeah and if the ISO guy doesn't have enough DR to get himself an open shot? He will either take a contested shot or he will pass. I think we already established earlier in the thread that the ISO player creates the offense, he doesn't necessarily look for his own shot, but he might create for others (passing). This is consistent with what others have said and is consistent with my big men scoring at a much better clip that they should have done in the game above (they mostly had open shots).

Well, if the iso guy doesn't have enough driving, it's not the right offense to run. That's kind of the point of my post - I've seen enough people wondering why inside isolation doesn't get their super stud C with dunkalicious IS a ton of baskets. Now, the other skills are important in any offense, but if your player does not have good driving, running an isolation with him is madness.

One of the thing that do not make sense in the GE right now is that in many cases an open shot has a lower FG% than a guarded shot (depending on the specific defender and the type of shot). So let's put it this way: if your ISO player has very high driving he may be able to consistently get an open shot. Is an open shot going to be more efficient than a guarded shot? Not necessarily as Trainerman has argued repeatedly bringing data and evidence to support his claim (this is particularly evident on lay ups for guards and 3 pointers for big men).

It hasn't made sense for a long time, and specifically three pointers against big men was the examples that came up as an example years ago. It's even more than that, though, as I had a player that was one of my best jump shooters, who never played at a big man spot, who consistently over several seasons shot uncontested jump shots at a lower percentage than other players with far less JS playing the same position, but hit a much higher percentage of contested ones.

You talk about DR and point to the Game Manual as if you're giving any meaningful information. I know for a fact that the defender on my SG in the game had more than 20 OD (and good ID). So the useful information about DR you should provide, if you are able to, is how much DR is needed to overcome 20-10 OD-ID to get an open shot. Even a ballpark figure would do.

Roughly on the order of "more." On everyone. And even then it may not be enough.

If I knew a more specific answer, I'd give that. If I knew why the SG position in Princeton so frequently will put up those 20% shooting days with estimated PP100 over 90 I'd probably answer that too. On that end, I'm just hoping the fixes supposedly coming for outside shooting may at least make things sensible. On isolation, though, it's just more driving - mostly because it's absolutely abysmal if you don't have it.

On isolation, though, it's just more driving - mostly because it's absolutely abysmal if you don't have it.

My guards have equal or more passing than driving. Both of them. I knew they would not be able to beat 19-20 OD, but the quantity of open shots inside suggests that they did feed the bigs (I can tell you both big men have not impressive offensive skills, they are ok, but they would not overpower defenders on their own).

My point here was that ISOs (and specifically Outside ISO) doesn't work well below a certain level against in competitive situations because everybody stacks OD. So going against 20 OD with 16-17 JS, sub 13 JR, 16-17 DR, 15-16 passing and the likes it's not going to yield good results. And a difference of 2 or 3 DR (say 14 to 17) is probably not going to matter in overcoming such high OD.

At the top level (D1, NT) those numbers maybe are more like 18-19 JS, 19-20 DR, 15-17 PA, so a battle against 19-20 OD presumably becomes more balanced. I think Inside ISO is more balanced, but again against good ID, you see the ball often kicked out to the guards who will take a lot of shots (at least this is a common complaint).

And a difference of 2 or 3 DR (say 14 to 17) is probably not going to matter in overcoming such high OD.

Oh, crap, I did forget to mention something that may be of use. The USA offsite had done a lot of statistical analysis some many years back (the guys who did the training project, mind you, not people like me, but real statistician types) and they determined that Driving, as a shot type, was influenced based on DR and IS (to a lesser degree, I think) vs. ID and SB, though sadly I forgot what order those two come into play or if they're equal. The blog and team tools section is pretty much dead, so I can't go back and find the numbers unfortunately.

But yeah, you want the driving against OD because the high OD isn't really involved in defending drives.

Excellent. That's what I was guessing.

Does anyone have any data to back this up?

This is one of my own games running outside ISO: (79200943)
BBstats were only slightly in my favor; his defense was better than my offense but still I won by 13 points. He did play TIE but I believe that is accounted for by the BBstats. Also interestingly he used Outside Box+1 so he was matched up well defensively. I think this game the ISO was effective; if you look at the BBstats, you'd expect a closer outcome. PP100 are in my favor so looking at that the result is consistent with the input. At least here the ISO didn't fail despite a stronger defense.

I think you won because your D was directly effective against his O.