BuzzerBeater Forums

IMO you should make him a outside focused SF. First of all train od and jr to 70% of your target level, as he is quite long so he'll take time to get pops in these two, if trained later.

I gave you a +1 for your team name,lol

Well all of this is up to you. Just know that if he will be a SF for you then you will need his Inside skills done this season or else it'll hurt you in the long run as Manon already said. Definitely get his IS/ID/REB done now.

I'll say Strong (8) to Proficient (9) will be more than enough on ID for your SG. If I had your SG, I'd also work his IS to Prominent (10) since he's at MVP potential. But this is just me. He will definitely tear things up with those stats.

Sell him.

He might be worth as much as the rest of your team combined, so the cash will help you a lot more than he will in both the short term and long term (expanding arena and winning are good long term). I could be wrong about his value cause it's hard for me to gauge just how much people will massively overpay for potential. But regardless, he needs inside training as the consensus here shows and I totally agree with, and you already have other guard trainees. It would be a pain for you to rejigger your whole team for inside training especially since all these players are playing and would need to be replaced; much easier to just sell and move on.

Edit: also his MVP potential is totally worthless to you if you keep him but makes him sell for a lot more. For your purposes this player would be more useful with allstar potential and slighty higher skills, and you could sell this player and buy one of those and still make a profit.

Last edited by w_alloy at 9/11/2012 2:53:33 AM

I can certainly see many of the points you're making here, but really the original poster needs to consider that this might be the best draftee he'll ever get in his entire Buzzerbeater career. Maybe he'll regret selling, and not training, and missing a chance to craft a home drafted player him into the cornerstone of his team. Maybe he'll regret not selling, and pocketing the cash, using it to buy players and work up divisions as fast as possible. But the fact that many teams never get a draftee this good should be recognized.

As far as training goes, it's actually easiest to get it going in low divisions, and easy to do secondary training. With all the bots, setting this guy at center and training IS/ID isn't a big deal. That gets more and more difficult as you progress in divisions. I'm currently training my PG in inside skills, and a SF, so I know the difficulty of balancing training and staying in a league. But devoting training time to significant secondary improvement is one way to a competitive advantage over your league mates.

In terms of his specific skills, I wouldn't worry too much about the low HA and PA. Those train very fast, and can be fixed this season.

Again for Mr. 495, you have to decide whether you want to sell or train. Then, if you want to train, decide if you want to take the long view, and go for a real SF (which will require a lot of out of position training), or a guard with some good IS (less out of position training here, but I'd still recommend some).

but really the original poster needs to consider that this might be the best draftee he'll ever get in his entire Buzzerbeater career

I agree this might be the best player he will ever draft, but it's only cause he's the most valuable. Just judging by the teams and players that are out there, the vast majority of MVP potentials never reach it or do it with low secondaries (making them cheap and not fulfilling their initial value) and even if he does the vast majority of teams that start in a d5 countries never make it to where having a 150k salary player is a good thing.

There are plenty of players available with similar or better skill profiles for relatively cheap on the transfer list following every draft, so I don't agree this will be the best player to train he will ever get. It's not too hard to think of some SF builds using star potential or some PG/SG builds with allstar potential that are worth a million+ at age 25 and can be a great efficient cornerstones until d2.

but really the original poster needs to consider that this might be the best draftee he'll ever get in his entire Buzzerbeater career

I agree this might be the best player he will ever draft, but it's only cause he's the most valuable.

Well, my statement stands regardless of how each person parses the term "valuable." TL price, quality initial skills/potential , doesn't matter (and the former is obviously dependent upon the latter). This guy might be the high point of Mr.495's draftees. And as I said, at some point in the future he might regret selling him, if he chooses to go that way. Alternatively, he might regret not selling him if he ends up getting poorly trained.

Just judging by the teams and players that are out there, the vast majority of MVP potentials never reach it or do it with low secondaries (making them cheap and not fulfilling their initial value) and even if he does the vast majority of teams that start in a d5 countries never make it to where having a 150k salary player is a good thing.

I agree that many managers in BB overpay for potential. No doubt about that. All that really does is impact how Mr.495 needs to weigh his option to sell or train. And if well trained, and if Mr.495 is able to move up through divisions, he may very well be able to use a lot of that potential.

There are plenty of players available with similar or better skill profiles for relatively cheap on the transfer list following every draft, so I don't agree this will be the best player to train he will ever get.

I was pretty clear to say that this player would be the best draftee that Mr.495 would get. Don't extrapolate that to "best player to train" ever. And even though I have been very lucky with my own drafting, I also would advise most managers to buy new trainees right after the season rollover, and not spend money the crapshoot that is the draft. But in this example, we're past that. The good draftee is already here.

It's not too hard to think of some SF builds using star potential or some PG/SG builds with allstar potential that are worth a million+ at age 25 and can be a great efficient cornerstones until d2.

I broadly agree with your point about potential, and I definitely used to feel that star and allstar potential were sufficient for many builds that I'd label as "good". But having now trained some guys up for multiple seasons, and having a better sense for what kinds of builds are needed to be a strong D3 team, that can be strong in D2, I don't agree so much. I think that star/allstar can get you players who are important role players in D2, as rotational guys and strong backups, but for top line starters I'm don't think so. I've seen too many players who capped at the low end of their potential range, leaving the trainer wanting for a few more pops. So, if I'm going to spend 5+ seasons training a guy, I want there to be a little headroom on the potential end, so I don't have to worry. And that's not to say that every trainee in your training program needs high potential.

I guess in the end, my preferences are exactly that, my preferences. I prefer training to TL buying and selling. I like the idea of trying to have almost all my starters be my own draftees (or at least significantly trained by me). And in so doing I kept a player to train who has excess potential for my training plans. But I don't consider my way to be any better, or more appropriate, than not training.

Mr.495 has to decide what his preferences are.If I'm arguing anything, it's that I don't see the choice to sell v. train here as being so overwhelming in either direction that it would override a reasonable decider's preferences (I fully admit I'm unreasonable when it comes to my own draftees). :)