BuzzerBeater Forums

I don't want to debate you, I'm not a candidate, but I have to address a few points.

I think you're trying to argue (correct me if I'm wrong) that we had one of the best rosters in season 16, and since then everyone else has passed us by. I think we were way behind in season 16. We're closer to the best now, but we still have a ton of work to do.

No, I don't think that we had one of the best rosters in season 16, and that isn’t my point. You think we’ve improved relative to other countries since then. I think the results speak for themselves. In S16 we wouldn’t lose to Egypt, or on a TIE/CT against China. This isn't to say the NT hasn't made great strides, it has, but I think it's disingenuous to say our training regime has outpaced Chinese farm teams. Regardless, everyone agrees we need to close the gap between the best countries and ourselves.

This is all tangential to the point though. Whether or not we were better off or worse off in the past, you said in your speech your goal is to make the semi-finals, and you don’t know that we’re good enough to get there.

I'm a few beers down, but if you could find where I said that in my speech and quote it here, that'd be great. I believe I said "competing for a semi." That's different.

My goal for these next two seasons is to compete for a semi-final at worlds. I don’t know if we’re good enough to get there, and I’m cautious because I’ve been guilty of overestimating our team in the past.

With sound tactics and some stamina/FT training, I think we can compete for a spot in the semis.

Enlighten me. What’s the difference between “your goal is to make the semi-finals, and you don’t know that we’re good enough to get there” and “I think we can compete for a spot in the semis” “I don’t know if we’re good enough to get there”.

If you mean that you’d conserve enthusiasm and be attempting to win the semi rather than sacrificing enthusiasm just to get there, I like your stance.

Thanks for the questions SM, keep firing away!

Endearing.

I love the NBA and cannot stand Stern. I hate the Knicks.
Hamburgers are my favorite food.
Soccer is for girls.

;)

Better. :)

First off: I love me some soccer.

Adchester:

Who could know them better than me? By knowing them so well I'll obviously give us the extra step up ;)

But what I am arguing is that when we get to that point of having a player like that, who's to say that isn't an outdated build? If we had players like that I wouldn't be arguing about this at all and we wouldnt have this conversation about different player types right now. What we are arguing about is the fact that we continue to be like CR and Poland but lack to have players even like them. So if we can't train those types of players why do we try?

Honestly, I'd be shocked if either of those players were ever ineffective or outdated at the NT level. But I don't think we should build a strategy around a scenario that starts with "what if the best players in the world are outdated in a few seasons?" A well rounded guy with 147 skill points is always going to kill us until we develop similar players. You're going to eventually have to play M2M, and we currently have exactly 1 player in the entire USA that can guard him. That's our problem. We need better players.

And... we CAN train these types of players. Why try? Because I don't see what's so special about the European teams (aside from less competitive D1 leagues... which is another conversation) that they can and we can't. I'm not ready to give up. I think it's still our best strategy.

Here's where I'm getting at with why try. Something has kept is from reaching this type of player. What is it? We have yet to get there and one thing that could be different is the trainers we use. We advise on using advance or superior trainers (with good reason) but those trainers do not get these players to those levels. So therefor we need to make the best players possible with the trainers we advise to use. That forces us in a different direction of training. We need to approach it differently to create players that are better but maybe with less needed pops. I'm not going to argue and say those players you pointed out aren't great, they are, I just believe there are other ways of doing it.

I respect a manager which big brass balls and a deep, deep voice who sees what is important and takes it. If you were to convince me you were the sort to do such a thing by, I don't know, committing to CT your TV games this season, that would go a long way toward securing my vote.

"What will you do uniquely to make the NT more successful than it would be with another coach, both during this term and in the future?"

Here is where I stand with this and it ultimately goes with my basis of changing things up. The NT has become predictable and a one trick pony ( this isn't bad but it does need changed). People continue to lose interest with it, which part of that could be from the declining amount of people on buzzerbeater, but I want to help make it more exciting.

We have, for several seasons, made it less possible for teams to train NT players unless they were willing to make their team a LI team. If you look at the growing amount of teams going to outside and neutral offenses, you will see that things will eventually have to change anyways. People want to create players that work for their own teams, which means as tactics change, LI players will be less common. This can be seen on the TL where LI guards(high OD, high PA, high DR) has gone down in value. Although the whole TL went down in value, these players are similar in overall value to even outside players.

I want to create excitement in the community so people know that anyone can create a NT, or help create one at the lower levels, that can be used in their own type of schemes. No longer must you create a player towards LI.

So excitement is the number one thing I will work on, to create the sense that anyone can help and bring back the drive in everyone to try to make a special player.

If we can improve the drive of teams to create players then we will also improve the overall contribution in decisions. If you look at the NT forum the amount of people in on discussions has declined and there's only 10 people, tops, that make suggestions. That's because 1) excitement isn't there 2) everyone already knows what's going on because its the same thing every season.


If I can make people excited during my tenure as NT coach then it will also help for future NT managers because they will have the attention of managers and participation. That's the main thing about a NT. However, if we continue to do what we are doing, we may or may not reach the other teams, but we will soon lose the excitement from everyone as well as their willingness to contribute.

I'm not a candidate, but let's talk about Aquino for a moment. This may help sharpen your question (also I'm drunk and can't fall asleep, but let's not digress :) ).

His primaries are behind the pace of an NTer (about a full season behind: these days if you want you can get a 21yo big man around triple 15---but even a triple 14 would be massively better in primaries). His secondaries are 5-2-7-2-4-2: these are hardly remarkable and *lots* of our 18yos are born with better secondaries.

This player was not trained all that well, but he can serve a role on the U21. What's the point of disrupting that role to try and make him serviceable to the NT, for which frankly he has *no* shot for?????

Ok, maybe I didn't give the best example, but the point I was making was that a lot of the time with a HoF/ATG potential player, you have to choose a NT path (secondaries as a youngster) vs a U21 path (primaries as a youngster). The U21 path yield salary-inefficient players that are hard to correct and can't compete at the highest level of NT competition.

To Eminence

In your speech, you said to address questions directly to you because you likely wouldn't have enough time to read through the entire NT debate thread. With those time constraints, explain how you will make enough time to be USA NT coach (a much bigger time commitment than reading through this thread)?

if I win this election, I will commit to CTing my TV games ;). You have my word on that.