my own experience was shaped by my initial season or two in DII. getting out of DIII had been a struggle, and the team i had in DII, i soon realized, had no future in DII -- the players were all of a late-prime age, and i was never going to generate the income necessary to save money to replace them and stay at that level -- demotion was only a matter of time. still one of the toughest decisions i made in this game, i jettisoned the team at the beginning of a season, spent a season training and losing, demoted, and barely hung on in DIII until my youngsters got their feet on the ground.
a couple of lessons i learned:
-- the importance of constructing a team that will survive the next level. this is tricky, for not only is it necessary to win at the lower level, but i wanted the core of that team to be good enough to survive at the next level.
-- this is complicated by the vicious competition at the lower level. this may be too self-revealing, but i am guided by not losing rather than winning absolutely. i have a real aversion to relegation,
and the idea of dropping down and then going through that process of promotion (with all the randomness involved as well as teams spending wildly the last three weeks of the season) -- no thanks.
-- my view of "winning" is skewed -- i think the amount of luck involved is important, and i have often seen seasons where the best team did not advance. or, in my case, that a lesser team did indeed win.
so, my approach to this game is building a franchise that lasts, that does not achieve and flame out -- my model is san antonio, and my goal is not the NBBA championship, but rather making that list magiker has of teams winning 100 games at this level. eventually this game will catch up to me, but i think for me the challenge is fighting all those forces trying to tear down my team.