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1. 3 weeks of FT and 1 week of RB. I think FT is very important so I would want the FT close to the mediocre+ but the RB is one of the most important parts of basketball so I would train in RB for at least just 1 week. If the best big gets that 14 to a 15 RB then he'll be a beast

2. I would go for the best true SF. His secondary skills may not be great but the OD is good so I would use him to shut down the guard like SF. I would also consider their tactics. For example if they go for motion I would easily choose my best true SF however if they go for LI or even LP then it would be a tougher decision because the first guy has nice secondary skills.

But what if their JS/JR combos aren't good enough against other championship-caliber U21s, and they end up chucking jumpers all game long?

Jacob Martinez has a good shot at making it. If I were you I would train the JS, JR, and OD. If you get those he'll be a good one for the U21 team and also build the PA a little. Maybe to about 8 but your main goal should be the JS, JR, OD. I don't think I would take William Miranda. I would mainly train the PA and JS. However even then I don't know if he can make so focus on Jacob this season.

1. Let's say our best big is 17/17/14 in IS/ID/RB, but he had atrocious FT. Let's also say we were getting out rebounded every game, and there's only 4 weeks left in the season. The owner of this player asks you what you want him to train. What do you tell him? 4 weeks FT? 4 weeks RB? 2 weeks of each? Something else?

4 weeks FT training gets our guy to awful, lets say. According to our handy little chart here: (http://photosliv.ru/9297.jpg) that pulls him from 22% to 50%. I pretty much see that as gaining like 1 more point of offense per game. I'd rather get him to 15 (with decent sublevels 16) rebounding and try to cover the rebounding gap. Losing out in rebounding is not going to be made up by 1 point of offense. And while harder to quantify, I'm going with better rebounding being worth more points in the end.

2. You've blanked SF for a few games, hoping to get a distribution of minutes between different types of players at SF, but the GE ends up playing this guy: 10/6/4/3/6/2 - 17/15/14/7 there all game. It's looked really nice in the ratings and pp100. But the next team you face plays a guard type at SF, perhaps this guy: 12/8/14/11/11/11 - 10/7/6/4. Do you keep rolling with the blank lineup, or do you start the best true SF you've got: 11/7/12/10/10/11 - 10/10/7/4 ? What else would you consider in this decision?

The tactics used would be a big consideration here. I'll take this hypothetical a bit further and say that we're playing inside and the opponent plays outside (based on these players' skills). The question for me here is then whether to try and neutralize their guy (12 OD vs 12-8 JS-JR) or hope the offensive mismatch will be more beneficial to us with our big guy (17 IS vs 7 ID / 12-8 JS vs 4 OD). Honestly there's not enough information here to say what I would do...team ratings, other players, GS, opponent's tendencies, and other standard considerations all need to be factored in. But this is the framework with which I would view the dilemma.

1. So basically, the Huston situation. It depends on how aggressive the player is, if he's getting fouled a lot then I'd advise more free throws. It also depends on the rebounding of the other players on the roster. If he's less aggressive and without good rebounding teammates, I'd advise at least 3 weeks rebounding, no more than 1 week FT. But this season, I'd advise at least 2 weeks free throw. Wilder is a good rebounder and we have some decent rebounding guards (like Jackson). Normally though, I'd say rebounding is more important.

2. If our ratings look that good, I doubt the other team plays a guy with 7 ID/6 REB at small forward. They probably at least think about setting a big at SF, or blanking when the GE will probably put a big out at SF for them too. The passing is also low, which doesn't help the flow. Also, SFs seem to take a lot of jump shots, and so although his IS is a big mismatch he probably won't take as many inside shots as we would like. So the IS might be better served at PF, where it's still very good, and he would take more inside shots. Defensively he'd be better there too than at SF. We don't have enough good big men that I would want one of my best to be playing at small forward, where he risks getting burnt outside. I'm assuming GS isn't a question here? In any case, the true SF is a much better matchup defensively, the big man is a better fit at PF offensively, and assuming GS isn't an issue I'd almost always rather start the SF and play the big at PF.

@gwoodyard: Martinez makes it, definitely. If I were hired, you'd need to train passing. He's kind of like Serrano (super-skilled, but low passing) so he can be effective, obviously, but passing on small forward is important for offensive flow. Also some more defense (either OD or ID) would be nice, but passing is #1 priority. Miranda probably doesn't make it, because he's kind of a carbon copy of Martinez except slightly worse, and for a backup I think I'd want someone with a different skillset who can do something Martinez can't (whether that's defensive specialist, passing small forward, rebounding, etc. I don't know yet).

There are no U21 players who will be NT ready immediately after their 21 year old season. Having that high standards will exclude even the best players, no matter how well trained a player will never reach that level. Defensively, it's always M2M.

1. Ideally a top shooting guard would something like 14/14/14/10/11/10 by the beginning of their 21 year old season. That's basically Lucas at the start of his 21yo season, taking the extra passing and moving it to JR and the extra OD and moving it to JS. Basically I'm looking for more JS/JR. You need a fair amount more, though, or else you get players like Donnie McDaniel, who fewmit was describing when he mentioned "chuckers who play LI". I'd rather have another point guard than one of those players. But a great shooter like Jonathan Yi or Jimmie Brown could be a valuable asset, I think.

Question for you, Jon. You mention few times now about having better offensive SGs could be an asset. And you here you specifically mention Yi and Brown, so here's my take on Yi and Brown and I'm curious what you think of it:

Yi shot 44% and 37% on treys. 12.6 pts/game. Pretty spiffy, aye? Now this was an Americas season. The teams faced that season an average team WR of 44. Correspondingly, magiker had the flexibility to only run LI 4 out of 13 games.

Go back a season and Brown shot 25% and 0% (0-19) on treys. 7.7 pts/game. Not so spiffy. But why? Because, I posit, Rambo played LI 10 of 11 games and faced teams with an average WR of 11.

So my take away from this is that an elite SG is not going to be as much of as assist as some think...they'll get shut down against better competition, and against better competition the best tactic is most likely to be LI. What is your take on what I have here, and how does it fit with your feeling a shooting SG would be an asset?

I never thought it would be a huge assist. I did think it would make us slightly better. I might have to reconsider that position in light of this evidence.

One thing I've noticed, though: there were several games where Brown was the best passer in terms of # of assists on a team with Kenny Luther and Laverne Goddard, both now NT-caliber point guards who were better passers even then. There were at least a couple of games this past season when McDaniel either led the team in assists or tied for the team lead, despite coming off the bench. In the case of McDaniel, he was tied with players who had as much as +7 passing on him. It seems to support the spacing theory, that being able to shoot opens up the pass a bit more. Of course, I'll be the first to admit that that's just speculation and not based on any study or statistical analysis or anything.

Also, that was a time when we had dominant big men, Hammond and Merrill both being $100K+ salary with great skills. We don't have that as much any more. There were plenty of times this past season when our guards were jacking up tons of last-second shots, having no alternative. It would be nice to have a guard who could actually make some of those. But the evidence does seem to indicate that even a better shooter struggles to make his shots at the U21 level in an LI offense, so we'll see.

Don't worry, Martinez is the one of the best U21 SFs I've ever seen. He's a lock. Official Cabal endorsement.

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Yeah I've noticed the passing deal also, and the spacing theory is something I don't discount. The flip side if true is that being able to shoot makes these guys, well, shoot So cost / benefit of opening up the floor vs low shooting %...???. I lean towards fixing/nixing the shooting but I can see where there's room for debate.