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I prefer thinking of players by role, rather than position.

E.g. 1st scoring option, 2nd option, 3rd option, 4th wheel, 5th starter, bench scorer, bench flow guy, bench defender.

skill choices are then based around what I need them to do.

for my team, Osman is 1st option, Barker 2nd option, Big Mac is 3Rd option, Willis is 4th wheel, Ostres is 5th starter, Adams bench scorer, Westcott bench flow guy and Lloyd fills in as bench defender, although he's not much of a defender to be honest.

(Just my opinion)

Yours is as valid as anyone else's. And it's a very interesting opinion too. I'm not disagreeing but my suspicion has always been that inside offences in general dominate in part because most people train offence higher than defence and of course, a lot of people ignore shot blocking.

And yes ID gets secondary training with RB, though not as high a percentage as with SB.

Interesting. I'd always wondered how you put your team together. I knew it was different to me of course.

For the Wasps I prefer a passing point guard, a shooting guard who can shoot, an all round small forward, a power forward who can score and defend, and usually a big defensive plank at center. I'm also one of the few who favours aggressive players but I'm not sure I feel comfortable recommending that to others.

All players should ideally be able to defend inside and outside, and I think its fairly well known that I look at defensive levels first. And I'd argue that generally defence should be at least as high as offence.

I like aggressive players in some roles, but not all ;-)

I did passing last with Fallon, the last player I trained to a high level, and probably didn't get it quite as high as I wanted.

As I said I struggled with where to put passing on the lists above, and in the end, felt the others were more important to place there. But I also said PFs should have all skills and I didn't mean to imply that the skills I left out weren't wanted or required.

Generally I'm trying to avoid giving minimum levels of skills, because I know when I pick my squad I won't be able to apply those minimums or we'd end up with a very small squad. But since your question is general and doesn't apply to the U21s, I'll make an exception.

I noticed that PA is not in your SF or PF list. So how do you feel that affects the flow of the team?

It doesn't affect the level of offensive flow that shows up in the ratings at the end of the game. But, in terms of your actual flow, very low passing will kill your flow from that spot. Anyone who has had a big man with decent passing will tell you that, especially when facing an opponent with low OD, you can see how much better your offence works. Some offences, princeton, inside isolation among them, just won't work with low passing on your big men.

As an example in England's last game with Uruguay, the center led the team in assists.

and when training what would be your minimum level of PA you like to see for each position when a player is in their prime for the trainers who are up and coming.

Obviously this depends on the players' potential and the level you're training them for, but since you're asking me, I'll assume you mean for either my needs or the NT.

I value passing highly at PG. Ideally I'd love to have 20 PA (I had that once and loved it), and again I hate to use the term minimum as I'd probably take less, but I want at least 18 PA.

At shooting guard, again, I want as much as possible. In fact, I'd probably prefer a point guard who can shoot at this position. So for the NT 15/16 PA would be great, and for me 14 is what I would prefer. My current SG for the Wasps has lower passing than I'd normally want, so I am fairly flexible with my supposed minimums.

For small forwards, ever since my time with Morwood on the U21s I've quite like a point guard with inside defence at this position. Fallon, my NT player is listed as a point guard but I don't think anyone looking at him would want to play him there. He's basically a small forward who doesn't shoot like a small forward. I'd look for about 12 PA here at least but again, if forced will accept less.

I don't always separate the big men. I used to play two centers, and now I use two forwards. Again they do need passing. As a minimum for a forward I'd say 9/10 and I'll take 7 as a minimum for a center, but ideally I'd prefer more.

I am planning to expand on monday's post in future and be more specific about what I would want an ideal player to look like, but that's a complicated task and could take some time.

On a slightly different topic, offences generally work better if all players have driving and passing, since those two skills are the ones that create shot opportunities.

just a slightly different take, all players should be able to make a pass but you don't necessarily want your scorers to pass the ball to other scoreres - you want them to try and score!

I'm astounded at your views on passing, by the way, I always thought 16 PA was the upper limit to balance wage dollars against performance. I think in an ideal world, I'd want my guards to have 16 PA each, one of my forwards to have 12 PA and my centre to have 9-11PA, with the other guy expected to shoot when he gets the ball, but still with 5 or 6 PA to avoid turnovers (at that level they can usually make a simple pass out if they really have no shot).

Last edited by Elmacca at 10/4/2016 9:22:03 AM

just a slightly different take, all players should be able to make a pass but you don't necessarily want your scorers to pass the ball to other scoreres - you want them to try and score!

I had to laugh at that. I think you might have exposed my weakness.

I'm astounded at your views on passing, by the way, I always thought 16 PA was the upper limit to balance wage dollars against performance.

I think most people would agree with you. I was extremely frustrated when I was NT coach that my best point guards all has 16 PA. I just never felt it was enough. That's 16 PA going against 20 OD in a lot of cases. I just don't like that.

Expense is an issue though. Just look at where I'm spending most on salary.

I think in an ideal world, I'd want my guards to have 16 PA each, one of my forwards to have 12 PA and my centre to have 9-11PA, with the other guy expected to shoot when he gets the ball, but still with 5 or 6 PA to avoid turnovers (at that level they can usually make a simple pass out if they really have no shot).

Tbh I'd be fairly happy with those figures myself.

What would your ideal U21 player look like at each position (at the start of their age 21 season), obviously it's different for each offence but try to list a reliable starting five. Let's say the guards are drafted at 6/6/6/6/6/6 4/4/4/4, the bigs at 4/4/4/4/4/4 6/6/6/6, and the SF starts with straight 5s.

Last edited by Cranston at 10/4/2016 11:39:23 AM

Sorry for my ignorance in not replying. I started working this out using a simulator but had made an error and had to start again, so I've decided that I'll be using your question next monday so I hope you'll forgive me.

(38869)
England U21 142 Malta U21 72
This is what happens when a team goes against an opponent with low enthusiasm. Malta had crunched before playing us and so we managed 13 steals, 44 assists, and our shooting percentage for both 2s and 3s were better than for free throws.

Fairly easy to pick the player of the game this week even in a good all round team performance. Ethan Sanderson may only have been a backup but he had a huge performance, racking up 33 pts, 9 assists and even a couple of steals.

Standings here: (http://www.buzzerbeater.com/world/standings.aspx?teamid=1...)

Next week sees the start of the much harder games. Our opponents will have much higher salaries and it will be difficult even to make the games interesting.




Last edited by Gully Foyle at 10/7/2016 5:04:45 PM

This week's important lesson should be for me, in how to spell names correctly when creating a database of players. One letter can be the difference between a 20yo Englishman and a 32yo Scotsman.