BuzzerBeater Forums

Special lineup for training
If you want to specialize in training (this is only applicable if you have 3 players training single position training or 5-6 players training two position training), you will need to set a specialized lineup, or they won't get full training. Below is an example of how the lineup is set if you are training Outside Defense for PG:

Substitutions: Follow Depth Chart
Foul Trouble: Let Them Play
PG: Empty Slot (starter), Trainee (subs), Trainee (reserve)
SG: Guard 1 (starter), Guard 2 (subs), Guard 2 (reserve)
SF: Forward 1 (starter), Forward 2 (subs), Forward 2 (reserve)
PF: Bigman 1 (starter), Bigman 2 (subs), Bigman 2 (reserve)
C: Center 1 (starter), Center 2 (subs), Center 2 (reserve)

As you can see, the starting PG is empty. This is to guarantee that your player plays all 48 minutes of the game (unless they get injured or foul out). If you place the trainee in all 3 slots, then they might end up getting subbed by one of the subs in other positions. The same will apply when you are training double positions. Below is an example for people training One on One for Forwards:

Substitutions: Follow Depth Chart
Foul Trouble: Let Them Play
PG: Guard 1 (starter), Guard 2 (subs), Guard 2 (reserve)
SG: Guard 3 (starter), Guard 4 (subs), Guard 4 (reserve)
SF: Empty slot (starter), Trainee 1 (subs), Trainee 1 (reserve)
PF: Empty slot (starter), Trainee 2 (subs), Trainee 2 (reserve)
C: Center 1 (starter), Center 2 (subs), Center 2 (reserve)

The empty slots are in both SF and PF starters for the same reason as previously. Do note, you can only leave a maximum of 2 empty slots in the starting lineup, or else the game will mess up your lineup into something terrible. This "feature" was done because previously people would send out blank lineups and the game would automatically pick the best competitive lineup for you, so to prevent people from exploiting it, they made the game do bad decisions. Hahaha.

Last edited by BuzzRBeater at 1/3/2025 11:36:17 PM

Elastic Effect
In the early days of BB, a lot of players focused on monoskilled players. In order to encourage players to build more well-rounded players, the devs introduced elastic effect. Elastic effect is also sometimes called the rubber band effect - it's like pulling a rubber band. The further away you stretch a rubber band, the faster the rubber band will spring towards you. Using that metaphor, we can see that if you train 1 skill to a very high level, when you start to train another related skill, that related skill will improve faster than normal, and its speed will slowly normalize the closer it gets to the first skill. However, not all skills can pull up other skills. You can find the list here: (307729.7).

When the elastic effect was first introduced, it was said that there were negative elastic effects. Metaphorically, if you pulled a rubber band hard, the further away you pull it, the tighter it gets right? So theoretically, it was said that if you train a skill too high and far away from its associated skill, its training speed will be slower than normal. However after a lot of data gathering, it has been deemed that there is no sign of any negative elastic effects, so you don't have to worry about training a skill too high.

Cross Training
Another effort to encourage well-rounded players, the devs introduced cross training. Every week, about 10% of training effort gets put into another (totally unrelated skill). Rumour has it that it goes to an untrained skill that is the closest to pop (needs verification). It usually goes to a lower skill tho (so if your player has awful/pitiful skills while the rest are very high up, then those are the ones likely to get cross training).

If you have a gym, it provides extra cross training slots (up to 3 extra slots). However the nature of how exactly it works is still unknown. Here is a thread you can read up on (309316.1)

Other Factors that Affect Training Speed
Two important factors that affect training is height and age.

Age
Players of all age will benefit from training. However younger players improve faster. That's why quite often, an 18 year old will often be prioritized in the drafts (of course, we also need to take starting skills and potential into account, since 19 year olds can have considerably better starting skills). To get a better idea of how much slower a player trains as they age, you can refer to this post: (295510.6).

A player will also start to deteriorate in skills at the age of 35, just like how players get slower when they get older. As far as I know, the rate of skill drops is random (and which skill that drops), so there are times when you can get a double drop. To slow down this drop, you can get trainers with Career Extension specialty. Players above 35 can still be trained, although their skill drop rate will definitely outpace the skill training rate.

Height
Height has no impact during matches. A short player can still consistently outrebound a tall player if their rebound skill is better. I know some people might say "how is that possible? The taller player doesn't even need to jump", but imagine a short player who can jump so high that they can catch the ball above the taller player's outstretched arms, or the taller player gets boxed out by the shorter player and is in a bad position to catch the rebound, or they just have butter fingers or bad coordination. Either way, height has no impact during matches.

However it does impact training a lot. A taller player would train much faster in rebounding than a shorter player, while a shorter player will train much faster in handling than a taller player. The equilibrium, where a player trains all skills at 100%, is at 6'7" or 201cm. Here is the list of skills and how their training speed is affected by height: (295510.5).

Does that mean 201 cm players are the best? Not necessarily. For guards, shorter players are better because they train handling and outside defense faster. You would want taller inside players because they train inside shooting and inside defense faster. However, this isn't exactly set in stone because it all depends on context. A player who is around 6'9" could be a more ideal post player than a 7'2" player. I'll get into that later on when I talk about player builds.

Training Staff
There are two types of staff that affects training speed: Trainer and Youth Trainer

Trainer
You will have this dude by default, although his level will be very low at the start. In order to train players, you should get a higher level trainer, at least Superior. Here is a list which shows the difference in effectiveness of trainers of different levels (295510.13).

Optimally, it would be good to get a world-renown (level 7) trainer. However, they can be very expensive (up to 3 million) and their upkeep can be quite expensive. So many people go with at least level 6 (exceptional) trainers if they are training for the NT (or if they want to cap out a MVP/HOF).

Remember to watch out for the staff's salary when bidding on him. You might be able to get a world-renown trainer for $1000, but if his weekly salary is $100k, then you might find yourself bankrupt soon.

Youth Trainer
Only get them if you are training players aged 18 or 19. They won't work on players aged 20 and above. They're much cheaper than trainers, so if you're serious in training players with MVP or higher potential, you should at least get a level 6 youth trainer. Again, watch your finances. You don't want to go bankrupt just because you can't wait to train your next franchise player. The difference in speed of Youth Trainers is still pretty unknown at the moment, so there isn't much data.

Potential Cap, Salaries, and Player Position
In order to prevent users from training players into a legendary machine, the developers introduced Potential some 50+ seasons ago (was it season 6? 7? I can't remember). So players who existed before that had their potential set to allstar, with an asterisk. For reference, here it the oldest player in BB that I know of (2313980).

How does potential work?
Basically Potential is a limiter which determines your player's final product. So if you don't plan on training anyone, DO NOT get a high potential teenager, because you will be paying a premium for a player you can get for much cheaper. Potential DOES NOT affect game performance.

Also if you don't plan on training, and you somehow manage to draft a MVP or HOF potential player, then sell them off. It's good money. Not a lot if it's MVP or if they have bad starting skills, but at least it's still a good 5-6 figure price tag rather than paying them 2-3k a week for nothing. You can even buy a low potential replacement player with the same skills for 1k.

Every single skill your player improves in, they will take one step closer to achieving their potential. When they reach their potential, they can still train, but at 1/3 of the training speed, so you can still train a player that has reached their potential. Although personally I would say it won't be worth it unless you are training a HOF/NT player. That said, do bear in mind that different positions have different weightage for skills. I'll talk about that later on.

What is a good potential for training?
I'm sure everyone is hoping to hit a ATG (All-Time Great). Guess what, these people are very hard to come by. So should you "settle" for a HOF (Hall of Famer)? Well every potential has a value (you'll notice if you put your cursor on the potential, it will give you a numerical value. The value for ATG is 10+, while HOF is 10. Why is that so? Because each potential has subvalues (decimal points), so yes, in case you were wondering, not every HOF caps at the level. The value of HOF players are 10.00 to 10.94, while ATG is 10.95 and above (They will be the top 5% of HOFs). So a ATG can just be 0.01-0.05 levels higher than a HOF.

Here's a rule of thumb you can follow:
U21 - star (20k salary, 70-90 tsp) and above.
NT - MVP (100-130k salary, 140 tsp) and above.
Francise player: HOF (200k+ salary, 150 tsp)
SBBL PO contender starter: MVP (100-130k salary, 140 tsp)
SBBL PO contender sub: Superstar (60-70k salary, 130 tsp)

But it also depends on your trainer and youth trainer level. On average, it takes a level 6 coach and level 6 youth trainer (for players who start at 18) to cap a HOF at age 25. If you don't have that, don't bother training any HOFs. If you can only afford level 4 trainers, then go for Superstars. They will be decent enough for your team until you get enough funds to upgrade your coach. Remember, BB is a marathon, not a 100m sprint.

Tutorial to be continued at (326268.12)

Last edited by BuzzRBeater at 1/18/2025 10:23:28 AM

This will be helpful , thank you!

I didnt know need to empty starter.. that explain i cant get him train full 48 min even i put strict follow depth chart

What are those salary range and tsps you listed in the last post?
So for every skill level your player has, you have to pay them salary, and they will eat up your potential cap space. But not all skills are paid equal/eat up the same amount of potential. I can't exactly quote a source for this, but I think the weightage for salary is similar to the weightage of potential space. So in short: if a skill costs more in salary, it will also take up more potential.

For example, for Cs, rebounds (and other 3 inside skills) are very expensive, while passing and OD are essentially free (means you can put in a lot of these on Cs without affecting salary and taking up much potential space. Here is an example of two capped centers with MVP potential (unmentioned skills are at 1/atrocious):

Player A: IS/ID/RB/SB at 17 (220k salary, 74 tsp)
Player B: IS/ID/SB at 17, RB at 16, OD at 21, PA at 20 (200k salary 112 tsp)

As you can see, by sacrificing 1 skill point of RB, you can squeeze in 39 more skill points in OD and PA (I put OD at 21 because it seems like OD has lower weightage than PA, although the difference is really really small).

The same goes for guards, although the "free" skills are IS and ID (although ID seems more heavily weighted than IS, and the difference is significant enough to notice). So lets say you have two guards, both of them have all their 6 guard skills (JS/JR/OD/HA/DR/PA) at 14 (wondrous). They will have the same salary (based on the calculator) even if Guard A has atrocious (1) IS while Guard B has legendary (20) IS. Although IS would take up salary cap, so if we are to have them both hit the salary cap, you will see something like this:

Based on Perennial Allstar potential:
Guard A: JS/JR/OD/HA at 15, DR/PA at 14
Guard B: JS/JR at 15, OD/HA/DR/PA at 14, IS at 20

So you traded 2 points (1 at OD and 1 at HA) for 19 points in IS, and made your guard very good at inside attacks. In fact, if you put the points into PA instead of OD/JR/HA, you'd have less tsp because PA is weighted heavier than those 3 skills (meaning Guard A will have JS/JR/PA or JS/OD/PA at 15 instead of 4 skills like above, due to PA being more "expensive").
Note: Guard B is also cheaper despite having more tsp, because like I said, IS is free on guards.

I won't get into the exact math of the salary/potential formula, but if you're a math geek, head on down to https://www.buzzer-manager.com/ and try out their salary estimation function. The amount of salary is a bit off, but it isn't too far off (rumours also say that the calculator says it caps players slightly early, but the data it uses is from the most reliable sources we have).

Listed Positions
So we were talking about what skills were free for what positions, but how are positions determined? Basically, listed position in this game doesn't affect a player's performance on court. However it can affect how fast your player hits their potential, and also how much salary they earn for a particular skill up.

Listed position is affected by the player's skills. A player with high all round guard skills but low inside skills will be listed as a PG. Those with low PA but the other 5 guard skills will be listed as a SG. High guard skills (except for PA) and high ID will put them as SF. High inside skills will have them listed as C, but if their JS is high enough, they will be listed as PF. At NT level, hardly anyone uses Cs, because they need their players to be versatile both outside and inside, so the player is very often listed as PF. If there are Cs, then it is usually a playmaking C which don't make a lot of shots (I've seen China build some). We'll talk more about this in the player builds section.

Again, if you're interested to see how skills affect listed position, go over to https://www.buzzer-manager.com/ and try out their salary estimation feature.

Last edited by BuzzRBeater at 1/19/2025 5:38:46 AM

i feel u bro. No matter what.. u r the best🫡

I know that pain, I sometimes save the text to notepad)) But yes, 100%, you're the man helping us all get better.