BuzzerBeater Forums

Apparently the candidate cut down AND registration deadlines are the same...

Perhaps it would serve all users to make that point clear. Or I would suggest to separate the two so candidates have the chance to develop AND state their positions, and users to know all candidates.

If you knew you wanted to run, why the hell would you not register the moment you first could?

Yes it was a little over the top but by posting on the forum instead of trying to handle the matter behind closed doors you opened yourself up to public comments and speculation.

Jelme: I would like to hear your opinion on the passing skill and how important it is for both guards and big men.

Also the U21 has been called an arms race meaning the big skills JS OD for guards, IS, ID for big men have the most value put on them, whats your view on this and how much value do you put on the secondaries in a game thats become better rounded instead of a monoskilled battle.

Lastly, for guards which secondary to you feel is more beneficial Handling or Driving for both the PG/SG. Some managers have rated Driving as a useless added salary while others value its benefit. On the flip side we have heard from Josef Ka that handling is also used on the defensive side in part of the calculation of steals. What is your take?

I'd like to hear your thoughts on shot blocking and range, and whether you would encourage their training on the U21 team? My own opinion is that both of these skills are probably way undervalued, in general and on the NT/U21 level. Reasons why I think we are missing the boat on these skills:

Shot Blocking:
1- BB's have stated repeatedly that beyond just the blocks seen in the box score, SB will also alter shots and lower FG%, and plays a role in help defense. (I can probably dig up links to the posts if people want to read it themselves)
2- The BB have put a ton of thought, tweaking, etc into this game. SB has consistently been a very salary-intense skill. Why would we not assume that it's value is correctly weighted? The way I interpret SB is that the BB have made it expensive because they believe it is such a valuable skill that there should be some opportunity cost associated with training it. The entire game as a whole has made the decision that it's better to pour our big man training into IS/ID/RB but maybe the conventional wisdom is wrong, or at least training SB is equally good to training slightly higher levels of the other inside skills?

Jump Range:
1- Same point as #2 above: there must be a reason why JR is fairly expensive.
2- Why do we assume training JR beyond 9-11 doesn't add much to a player? If most GE functions are comparisons between the skills of two players (JS vs OD, RB vs RB, etc) why do we assume the comparison for JR is only JR vs. distance from the hoop?

Wouldn't it make sense that a player with 15 JS and 15 JR might have an equal or even better chance to hit a 24ft'er with a 15 OD defender in his face than a player with 16JS and 10 JR?

Does anyone really believe the BB would cause the diminishing returns of training to stop around 10 for JR, when that is not the case for most other skills?

3- Who says JR doesn't do more than just let you hit a 30ft three pointer? What if having a back court with 15+JR forces the defense to extend itself out another 3 feet past wherever they'd normally defend: could that extra space make it easier for your guards to drive past and get to the hoop? Could it make it easier for passes to get in to the big men? Could it make it harder for the defense to collapse on big men in the post because they're farther away, or open up a lot more kick out 3's because the defense can't rotate back in time that far beyond the 3pt line?

I know it might seem like I'm giving the GE too much credit, but it already knows where players are in space on the court, it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to imagine that it may take into account how much room a player has/who is nearby when deciding the outcome of actions.

If there are unappreciated advantages to these skills, and if our country can get a few seasons ahead of the curve on something as big as two nearly untapped skills doesn't that give us a huge advantage at both the U21 and eventually NT level? (I'm not saying you have to agree with me but I'm hoping to drum up some discussion on these skills).

Last edited by J-Slo at 3/27/2010 2:58:15 PM

I am alone with my son (7 weeks old) for the night, so I'll try to answer in a brief way and then elaborate as I can. It's just hard to stay on a single track thoughtwise. =D

I sorta think of passing in the same way for both big men and guards. In very low amounts its horrible, but above a certain threshold the returns from training more passing are small. This sorta ties into the 2nd question. The u21 is an arms race. Once you get your passing to the 11-12 range, you are probably better off training more OD and JS on your guard. Especially in the Worlds. Bronson was an exceptional guard, but we ran into teams that had guards that were better.If Bronson's owner In almost the same token, this is why SB is not in vogue. It isn't as effective as additional levels of ID. It is very hard to tell the difference SB'ing make since it doesn't always show up. I really want to believe that it can help, I just haven't seen any evidence that it does.


Last edited by Dawson at 3/27/2010 6:50:34 PM