BuzzerBeater Forums

What value can you bring if you refuse to simply log onto another site

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear on this. I see it as simple but vital: I will train my players.

If they have u21 value and are trained properly - in a manner that is conducive to the u21 team - then that should be seen as extremely valuable to the u21 community.

I also have to disagree with you completely that a player's stats at the time he's drafted aren't important. My guess is that a player's skills at the time of draft are at least 50% of his ability to get to the u21 team. If he's starting from the right point AND he's trained the right way THEN he can be an u21 player. But I seriously doubt we can have one without the other.

Correct me if I'm wrong on that last part.

The reason why you have not "found" Diehl is because he has played as a SF.

What value can you bring if you refuse to simply log onto another site

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear on this. I see it as simple but vital: I will train my players.

If they have u21 value and are trained properly - in a manner that is conducive to the u21 team - then that should be seen as extremely valuable to the u21 community.

I also have to disagree with you completely that a player's stats at the time he's drafted aren't important. My guess is that a player's skills at the time of draft are at least 50% of his ability to get to the u21 team. If he's starting from the right point AND he's trained the right way THEN he can be an u21 player. But I seriously doubt we can have one without the other.

Correct me if I'm wrong on that last part.

You're correct that both are required, but I think what people are trying to say is that beyond a fairly basic cut-off (i.e. "u21 prospects should at the least be 18yr old and have a 5k salary or better after the draft" or something along those lines) there really aren't a lot of broadly applicable guidelines anyone can give you about specific skill requirements because it's very hard to say anything definitive that early in the process.

Does a guard need to be drafted at respectable OD to compete on the u21 team, 3-4 seasons from now? Could he start with mediocre OD? Could you get away with inept OD if you focused on making him more of an offensive focused player who could be used by the u21 for some extra scoring off the bench? What if you just trained OD really hard for four seasons? There's so many possibilities for how you might train a player, what his prospective role on the team may be, and even what sorts of skills/players the u21 may need four seasons from now that it's really difficult to ask the managers to come up with guidelines for specific skills, especially at such an early time point.

And even if the managers did cave in and decide to throw out some specific skill cutoffs for 18 year olds fresh out of the draft, they would probably either be so low/broad as to be fairly meaningless, or high enough that a half dozen people would be on the forums here disputing an absolute requirement for 6 OD at draft time because if you train them so and so, then they could still do such and such, etc.

Paraphrasing what's already been said by several other posters, I think it's totally fair and probably the only practical solution for the managers to say something like:

"We're always here to help you, we'll gladly answer any emails/questions and go over your prospects in depth with you, we have a lot of good discussion on the off-site forums where we talk about this stuff too, but it's difficult for us to make specific guidelines for general 'prospects' and if you're flat out refusing to even consider visiting the off-site forums or emailing us, there's not much else we can really do here."

The reality is that it probably takes a lot more effort to train a guy well for four seasons than it does to reach out on an off-site forum occasionally, so personally I don't understand your reluctance to use the off-site forum if you are interested in seeing one of your prospects on the u21 team. If you just feel like it'd be a nice bonus to make u21 but really just want to focus more on what's best for your team, then just train however works best for yourself, don't worry too much about the u21/NT community, and if by their 21st year your players are good enough then 'hey, sweet deal' and somebody will already be contacting you about calling them up probably.

If u21 is a goal for you, the managers seem to be saying that this is a two-way street and they're willing to help but it's gonna take at least enough effort on your part to visit the off-site forums or send an email.

Xarn,

in my experience the best way to gauge if you have a player who might fit is to take a look at the roster. Unless you have a special player, he likely won't make until he is 21. Take a look at the salaries and if he is approaching those levels start to ask questions.

Now that the salaries have been readjusted I'm not sure that this is as good of a guide as it was in the past. Its still somewhat helpful, but its not the exact science it once was.

I'm more curious as to the level of trainer that most managers have who own U21 or even the "big boy" NT players? For example. . . do we have a good idea on what is more impacting between the potential and the level of trainer? I know that we ideally pursue the highest potential players and highest level of trainer that we can but we only have so much money to invest. . .so is it worth my time to go after a world class trainer over an exceptional trainer? This might be the difference of 500k or more from what I've seen. Were I to invest that money on a single player I might find that I can get a higher potential player with better skills, but that wouldn't necessarily benefit the US team as I'm limiting the pace of his training?

Have we consider this as a reason as to why some players are training slower? Ultimately its up to the coach and their ability to differentiate between the value of single position and multi-position training, but there must also some speculation as to how valuable an exceptional trainer is over a superior trainer. If two players of equal skill, potential, and training schedule are monitored over the course of a season, can we accurately deduce the impact of the training level?

Also any volunteers to test this theory out?

I'm cash strapped right now as I fight for staving relegation to D4, if I do get relegated I might just want to test this out.

If you don't want to log into an external website (which I think is a rather absurd constraint, but I'll give it to you), you have the option of BB-mailing me or Wozz, or the future U21 coach: if you don't BB-mail with a total non-starter (and sometimes even in those cases) or a foreign player (that happens too), I will reply with a fairly detailed account of possible training strategies.

I really, honestly, do not see the problem.

There's no problem and logging into the offsite forum isn't a big deal or huge bother. However, I don't want the crux of my argument to get lost in any of the banter about whether or not I, Xarn will use that site. And maybe I need to soften my message by reaffirming that you have been extremely helpful and willing to discuss specific players any time I have asked. albeit, I haven't asked often. You're doing a fantastic job in that regard.

However, I do hope that somehow we can find a way to engage the average user, here, in this forum. I really believe there is value in making the u21 team just a little more transparent by engaging the community here in the game that we're all addicted to playing. Discussing things that are not trade secrets can only improve the visibility and interest level in the u21 team. In turn, you might start seeing better quality players at your disposal or, at least, an increase in the depth of your positions. Is there a place for an offsite forum, a safe place where you can discuss the current roster, matches and strategies? You bet.


Is there a way to engage those who are willing to listen and willing to train without requiring that level of activity? I do not know, but I hope so.

I've noticed some countries put up min. requirements on the NT/U21 overview page

Yeah, and we could do that. I've consciously avoided this in the past for two main reasons:

(1) I think the NT requirements, quite frankly, would be discouraging to a lot of users when they look at their new 18 year olds. Stating that a guy needs 15 OD to make the team when you've just drafted a mediocre OD guard can be disheartening. Even though we certainly do have guys on the team that started like that. The u21 team wouldn't be quite so bad in this regard.

(2) We need to make sure that people who look at the forum only casually understand that the requirements are guidelines. No matter what I put as minimum requirements, I can imagine exceptions that might be useful on the NT. For example, we do have relatively poor OD guards that are on the team because they can score like mad, or give us flexibility at SF, or can exploit a specific matchup. The concern is that by putting any actual number requirements in, people will see those, won't read the rest of the post about how exceptions can still be valuable, and then give up. For this reason, the "minimum requirements" threads I've seen in other forums tend to be so broad as to be apparently meaningless.

The other point here is that there's a limit to how proactive we can be as NT coaches. We can't post news items. We can't send mass emails (which, frankly, I wouldn't want to do anyway). We can't contact every owner individually because there's too many. If users don't come to the forum, there's not much we can do. There is an NT ad set so that all players reaching some minimal salary criteria get a link to the database on the player page so that they can keep their players updated and see how they stack up. This has actually worked reasonably well, although for fringe players, or guys that haven't trained yet, they won't see the ad, of course.

If people think that having posted requirements would be beneficial enough to outweigh my concerns above, then I'm happy to do so (at least for the NT--the u21 is harder since requirements change drastically during the course of the season).

Exactly. As the NT coach of New Zealand, I've had the same experience of someone asking me what it takes, and then they're like "oh I'll never be able to get far with him" and not focus on the player any more. It's very discouraging for some, that's why I advise my Kiwis to just keep plugging away, rotate training skills with some emphasis on particular attributes, but that's as far as I'll go.