Got some time to kill this evening and have been taking a little more interest in Buzzerbeater lately so thought I'd restart the discussion with my $.02 if anyone else is interested.
Gonna be an interesting season. The Big 8 is definitely the weaker of the two conferences; any of the top 5 teams in the Great 8 would be pushing for the top spot based on ratings. In the Big 8 Lincoln Hornets BC is currently #1 on point differential, but they've played against the bot-managed weak teams so the numbers might be inflated. Based on in-game ratings Oakland Nuggets, Javamen, and myself would seem to be the three best. Oakland and I both have wins over Javamen but I expect they'll rebound. Oakland is a new team but has a pretty solid roster; however, all of his key players are 33+ (some well older than that) which means they could experience significant drops over the course of the season. Meanwhile Mouthbreathers (my team) has several key players still in training, so the team will only be getting better. A lot of my players are very well-rounded and salary-efficient so I like my chances to come out of the conference. However, the winner of the Big 8 in all likelihood will be just a stepping stone for the winner of the Great 8 rather than a legitimate threat to promote this season.
The Great 8 looks like a bloodbath. Austin Eagles has the most productive (if not the best in terms of salary/TSP) player in the league as Vernon Byers leads the league in both PPG and RPG. Their manager looks like he knows what he's doing too as he has a D.III Utopia team (indicating both his commitment and his understanding of the game). S. Dakota Coyotes looks like a D.III caliber team based on ratings with a deep, balanced roster. Atlanta 6s has a no less talented roster, but lost head to head on the road against S. Dakota due to some unfortunate game-day predictions (two wrong guesses vs two right ones). Overall tough for me to see anyone knocking off CA Foreigners assuming he has the bankroll saved up to finance his roster, because none of us can match up with a $95K player especially with a $50k player and a $35K player alongside him. The most expensive roster in the league combined with a very experienced roster.
With all four of the playoff teams in the Great 8 ahead of me, now I'm feeling like I have my work cut out for me if I hope to ever advance. Maybe in a couple of seasons when I get my arena built, train some more defenders, and make some money to buy some competitive big men... :P