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I truly appreciate your honest and informative reply TS. From the lack of in-depth information and discussion on the (US) forums about the 1-3-1, I quickly came to the realization that this zone is not a defense that many managers see worthy of establishing a system around, that can be successful if built around properly, but more as a situational defense that is used as an extreme for certain situations; so your skepticism is understandable (I'm still a little skeptical myself ;) ).

I've definitely made myself aware of the fact that I will more than likely have a very difficult time getting this defensive system to work on higher levels for obvious reasons (smarter managers, better players, salary difficulties, etc.). Those aforementioned reasons and a few other miscellaneous matters haven't made going forward with this decision any easier; curiosity and the challenge that this goal provides is what's fueling my decision to go forward with this plan at this current time.

I totally agree with you when it comes to inside defense and rebounding being a problem when running this zone defense, and SB being an absolute must. I must say though, I didn't realize 'til now how important having a well-rounded Center is when it comes this style of play.

I initially thought my PF would be the position that would be the toughest to build or find since I feel as though the 4-man on defense is gonna need just as much OD (or possibly even more) as he'd need ID since the player's primary assignment would be running corner to corner trying to contest shot attempts from those regions.

To help mitigate the rebounding problem, I was thinking of developing or bringing in guards/wings with decent to good rebounding and inside defense skills; prioritizing REB over ID for guards (I know...it's gonna be expensive :'( ).

That "specialist center" build you provided gives me a good starting point as to what I want my Center to look like, and the "aggressive" trait that some players have had slipped my mind; I'll definitely take that into consideration.

Thanks again TS !

I ran it very infrequently and mostly against outside teams (though I did run with it in my PL a few seasons back too when I wanted to go with a lineup with four outside shooters for giggles). The things I will say:

Definitely, you want to find out if you have anyone that's aggressive and if so strongly consider something other than a zone. My bookmarked game with 1-3-1 is a prime example ((65823062)) - my starting center, Busch, was a quite solid defender for the most part but he liked to foul on occasion. He actually cost me promotion to the NBBA by picking up two flagrants in a minute late in the third in a game I was winning by 14 with a tendency-breaking LI, but it really only worked with him in the position he was playing - once he went out, my offense went to crap and the lead kept bleeding away. So, look at the opponent's PG's stats from the line - Busch kept coming out from the center to try to block shots from the PG or to try to steal the ball, got called and sent the guy to the line.

Also, if you're going to play 1-3-1, you want to make sure your starters at all four non-C positions have very good OD. I had another game where one of my four guys got injured and my backup center had to come in and defend at I think the SF position. Fortunately he got a few shot blocks, but I seem to remember him also being abused by the opposing player from outside. Since all four of those guys could be called on to contest 3s and jump shots, you don't want a guy with low OD that would give your opponent great chances to hit outside shots. They still sometimes miss a lot because of the randomness of outside oscoring in the game, but you have to have the OD at all four spots.

I agree that the rebounding is a significant challenge. The lack of ID by itself isn't necessarily the major problem against an LI, since you should be able to prevent a lot of the easy dunks thanks to your strong OD in the zone, but the problem I ran into in general even with the 3-2 would often be cases where you play good defense for 24 seconds, force a bad shot, then the big man grabs the offensive board and puts it back up. It's really frustrating when you block the putback, they get it again you block that, fumble the rebound out of bounds, and so on and so forth, but they score on fourth or fifth attempts.

The guards with decent RB will help, arguably more on the offensive end. But I don't think they'd address the opposing guy just playing volleyball, and I never had nearly enough RB to test the uber-defensive/rebounding center in the middle.

I think an additional problem with the 1-3-1 paired with an outside oriented offense is the problem that in my mind gives so much power to the LI regime, and that is cost.

Guards are so much more expensive offensively, and bigs are so much more expensive defensively. Think about it, to guard outside offenses, which require your team to have high Driving, Handling, Jump Shot, and Jump Range, all the other team needs to do is pump one skill - OD. To properly guard against an inside offense, we have seen that high ID usually isn't enough and that you also need shot blocking, and actually also still OD while the other team just pumps Isnide Shot to get through.

It may not be quite as simple as that, but Wolph's mantra that all you need to win is OD and IS is not that far away from the truth. Of course there are other ways, the problem is just that they are much more expensive and difficult to train.

(Hat's off to you for making it through that difficiult to train part with your three boys)

Busch's case is very interesting not so much because of his "aggressive" trait, but because, I really didn't spend to much time pondering on the possibility of seeing my center go out and try to contest outside shots, but then again, defensive breakdowns happen all the time in basketball, leading to unfavorable matchups that may result in something similar to what you experienced with Busch, especially when playing a zone. Even though the "aggressive" trait played such a huge role on defense when Busch would attempt to contest the opposing PG, how much of a role do you personal feel your OD rating on Busch played into Busch's untimely mishap during the game? Would you say his OD was a liability, in general, relative to his position?

In regards to the rebounding challenge, if you're running into such frustrating issues on the defensive glass, I can only imagine how irritating it'll be having to experience that dilemma at a slightly larger scale. Even if the extra RB from the guards doesn't have the impact I'd hope it has, grabbing a few extra offensive rebounds every game should help minimize my weakness on the defensive glass which should help me at least "stay in the game"...right?

This is gonna be a lot more difficult than I initially anticipated :/ . All the little intricacies that comes with making this play style a reality is definitely gonna be expensive, like Chek noted. I feel as though the market's supply of versatile and unconventional players that are needed to make this system, at the most, semi-successful are scarce and will take some time to get my hands on. Training doesn't seem like it's gonna be a piece of cake either.

Nevertheless, I'd like to thank hrudey and Chek for providing their insight on this topic.

Busch's case is very interesting not so much because of his "aggressive" trait, but because, I really didn't spend to much time pondering on the possibility of seeing my center go out and try to contest outside shots, but then again, defensive breakdowns happen all the time in basketball, leading to unfavorable matchups that may result in something similar to what you experienced with Busch, especially when playing a zone. Even though the "aggressive" trait played such a huge role on defense when Busch would attempt to contest the opposing PG, how much of a role do you personal feel your OD rating on Busch played into Busch's untimely mishap during the game? Would you say his OD was a liability, in general, relative to his position?

I think partial blame could be placed on his SB more; I went back and checked the training log and this was game was right about the time I had just finished all the other training on the three stretch big men and was going back and adding shotblocking. He had 10 OD, which of course is not exceptional but he only had about a 5 in SB at the time, so he was good enough defensively to get out and make it a contested shot (the OD) but between the aggressiveness and the low SB, he'd probably block a lot of foreheads, not so many basketballs.

I think partial blame could be placed on his SB more; I went back and checked the training log and this was game was right about the time I had just finished all the other training on the three stretch big men and was going back and adding shotblocking. He had 10 OD, which of course is not exceptional but he only had about a 5 in SB at the time, so he was good enough defensively to get out and make it a contested shot (the OD) but between the aggressiveness and the low SB, he'd probably block a lot of foreheads, not so many basketballs.

Ahh that a sensible explanation. Thank you.

Thanks for the additional info Falke!