BuzzerBeater Forums

Here's something to think about.

With modest scouting (2/week), you will know the star rating of about 1/2 the players. Or alternatively, 1/2 the teams will know the star rating of any given player.

Now imagine that the top 1/6 of the players (8 of 48) were given a 5 * rating. The average team would know the rating of 4 of them, and move them to the top of their rating. They would use the rest of the information (grade, box score, and potential) to order them, but they are still going to put a player who is a 5 * with no other information among their very top picks. You simply don't pass over a player who you know is in the top 16%. You might put him 4th or 5th.

So with roughly 8 teams having every 5* player in their top 4 or 5 picks, the teams drafting last have almost no change of getting a 5* player.

So it is better havimg a large share of players rated 5*. If 1/3 of players are given a 5* rating, then it is pretty reasonable that every team is going to get a 5* player. Those drafting early, will have the advantage of some additional information, so they're not going to get stuck with the 5* bench warmer, and can probably also draft for position. Those at the end are going to get a player in the top 1/3 and that is about the best that they can hope for.

Likewise, if you gave the $7500 superstars a rating of 9* and had the national anthem play whenever you ran the cursor across his number, he would always go to one of the top few teams. It would be a very lucky team that got such a player with a 6th pick overall. You simply can't have such players visible.

So you either have to have a lot of players with high ratings, or think of some other way to distribute talent.

if you gave the $7500 superstars a rating of 9* and had the national anthem play whenever you ran the cursor across his number, he would always go to one of the top few teams. It would be a very lucky team that got such a player with a 6th pick overall. You simply can't have such players visible.

But a $7500 superstar MUST be the #1 pick!!! not a #5, #10 or #20 pick! (why should LBJ drafted #16?????)

The draft help to strengthen the weak teams not the lucky teams!!!!

So you must have such player visible!!! (and last 2 season i had a #16 pick!!!)

The draft help to strengthen the weak teams not the lucky teams

I think that it should be somewhere between..

But a $7500 superstar MUST be the #1 pick!!! not a #5, #10 or #20 pick! (why should LBJ drafted #16?????)

The draft help to strengthen the weak teams not the lucky teams!!!!

No, it doesn't have to be the first pick. There are always players drafted a bit lower who turn out to be great players and nr1 picks that can't deal with the pressure for example.

The weak teams will have a large chance to pick a really good player, but it doesn't have to be 100% sure they'll get the Jackpot.

I totally disagree. By the time he was 22, his inside skills would be well-trained and you would have a 22 y.o center who could pass, drive, shoot, and bang inside for your team for the next 10 years. Does that sound like a waste of time?

Yes :)
I still would not train primary skills starting below inept. I 22yo with all respectable does not have a great value, imo.

More important. To train that player in inside skills you need to position him either as C or PF. How can you do it without losing competitiveness, if the starting skills are very low? As long as i am in the tournament I find it difficult with average skills already :)

I'd like to emphatically second the suggestions of Solana Steve (and others) with regard to height.

Virtually the entirety of the league in which I play attempted to draft players based on positional training schemes, and used the game suggestion as to preferred position. Virtually every single owner ended up with a first round draft pick whose height made him untrainable. This is a recipe for needless user frustration and serves no competitive purpose that I can think of.

I recognize that there are good reasons to conceal a lot of player characteristics for draft purposes. Height, however, should not be one of those hidden characteristics. It's absolutely fundamental to many players' draft strategy; moreover, it's impossible to imagine a scenario in which scouting WOULDN'T produce this kind of information. Even if the exact height can't be revealed, a S/M/L system would surely be workable.

Exactly. If I train a guy for 5 seasons and his best skill in a level 8 or 9, then I've wasted a whole lotta time.
I don't know how competitive the league he plays in is, but if I try something like that, I will waste a ton of tome, money, and lose alot of games.

well...
what can I say...

I had 12 !! 5 star players to rank, 3 of them had A-, which I put in the back of the 5-star row.
I also had 12 !!! 4 star rated players to rank. I was in for some realy good players in my draft.

Even though I had 15th pick in my league, I drafted my 1st choice and 4th choice, so both 5 stars. Both prety much suck. Agreed they have a few respectable skills, but if you look at the skillsets, they are not going to play in my team at all.
Last year I had a 4 star player picked, and he played a lot, and will still play in my team, while none of these 5 stars is going to make it!

How is this possible? Easy, it's scouting. Since the scout only scouted 1 game, and maybe the player was invited for a private session, it might be that the player was in topshape for that game and session, while he is usually not THAT good.
It is scouting, and it is estimations, it's not pure numbers that will be given here, and even though I am truely VERY dissapointed with this seasons drafts for my team, especially after seeing I had 24 players with 4 stars or more, it's just the way it is, and I feel it should stay this way...

well, maybe im biased, because my draft went great (hall of famer, was my first choice, picked 8th, 5 star A+ 5 potential). There's no doubt, that scouting is very important, maybe too important,maybe my pick should not fall to no. 8 because no other team had scouted him twice. And i agree with the fact, that the skillsets are very random. but i do NOT think that this is a reason to critcize the system, well, at least not this much.
there is no lottery! so, maybe you could say, that instead of a lottery you have an unsure scouting system, it's coming down to luck. The other thing is, that an no.1 to no. 3 pick does not always guarantee you an elite player and the ranking is not as clear as you want it. just look at sam bowie over mj. you gotta be lucky sometimes.
so, i do not think, that the system should be criticized to much, but you could always try to improve.

Ok just to those who say that in RL the superstars are always drafted as 1st pick:

Michael Jordan was a 3rd Pick
Scottie Pippen was a 5th Pick
Larry Bird was a 6th Pick
Karl Malone was a 13th Pick
Clyde Drexler was a 14th Pick
Julius Erving was a 12th(!) Pick
Dwayne Wade was a 5th Pick
Tracy McGrady was a 9th Pick
Dirk Nowitzki was a 9th Pick
Manu Ginobili was a 57th(>>!<<) Pick
Kobe Bryant was a 13th Pick

so this is just a small list, i'm sure there are some more, but please don't say now that the players above are just average players, and none of them has been drafted as a 1st Pick. so you see that also in RL it's some kind of lottery in it:)

As in RL the thing even goes one step further:

Ben Wallace for example was an undrafted player who signed in as a free agent !

Last edited by Undertaker at 5/7/2008 5:23:20 PM

But this has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
The problem is that scouts are giving the same grades to players with similar total skills, only some of them are set up in a manner that makes the players very very promising, others are set up in a manner that make them completely useless.
It's like a real-life scout recommending a player who has great interior scoring and defense and bad perimeter skills (say dwight howard for example), and failing to mention that the player is 6'2 (and consequently useless). I would be pretty pissed if I were a GM that is paying that scout.