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I am also a strong believer that a ral SF on the SFspot would benefit a NT on overall performance.

et there often is a reason why the managers select PF or SGs for that spot, even when they get a real SF available, yes even a C somethime, because they opt for an inside or outside attack, and just want to get an extra strong man for that tactic rather then putting the more versatile SF on that spot.

So on 1 side , yes, the real SFs are scarse, but on the other hand, some managers still prefer SG or PF/C for their team.

I'm training an SF and getting him 100% training each week since I bought him at his early 18, yet I am unsure that he will even see any playing in the NT. I'm almost positive he won't get in the U21, because his defenses might be 10, but the U21 manager might prefer a defense 12 or 13 on OD when he will be playing a strong outside team, or Id when he plays a strong inside team, or when he is expecting those offenses from his opponent...
So it's also the NT managers choice.
I somethimes have put PFs on the SF spot, even though I always had 2 splendid Sfs, to surprise my opponents with it, and it has worked well, so I realy can't blame managers for choosing 1 inside SF (read PF) and 1 outside SF (read SG) over 2 real SFs, for the NT.
It's just how that manager feel, and what he thinks would work best.

So I, and others can be convinced a real SFs will benefit an NT more then playing SG and PFs out of position, if the NT manager feels diffrent, our players won't even reach the NT team.

But to get back on tpoic. Would this be enough reason the simplyfy, or even improve SF training? I don't realy think so. At first sight it might look like that, but I think that if they improve it, so the SFs actually get better then what they become now, I think the teams might get imbalanced, and the SF players might show op on 2 spots on the field. We would get PG-SF-SF-SF-C formations all over BB, and I don't think BBs would prefer that over PG-SG-SG-PF-C or PG-SG-PF-PF-C.

There is a delicate balance, which I feel is about right in this game right now, and to tweak it might improve it, but there's equal or more chance it will disturb it.

That being said I am still pro working out new training. Mostly because some skills are only trained in 1 trainingstype (passing) and some are showing up in far too many (handling or driving), but then best revise the whole thing. Not just adding some single SFspot training.
The system is good, they just need to tweak the options.

There is also huge issues with how players get labeled their positions. I had a player once who was atrocious in IS & REB and was labeled as SF when he clearly was a guard. Whenever I see that rare player who is all around skilled at every single one they are labeled as PF, so the labeling can also be misleading.

The thing is that I also think needs improvement is the fact that JS seems to only work for short players, while many of the greatest outside shooters such as Ray Allen happen to be 6'6 - 6'9.

I noticed that for a player labeled at SF, the IS skill has no factor whatsoever in the salary calculation for SF. So there are all those other things that's happening in BB that shouldn't happen. Those things not only need to be tweaking so we can see more Ray Allen like players out there, but also because they will help solidify the SF training as well.

Whenever I see that rare player who is all around skilled at every single one they are labeled as PF, so the labeling can also be misleading.

1 of my trainees has been switching between PF and SG a lot of times, and he is prety balanced. The reason why he never gets tagged as SF is because his JS it to low for that.
I can be wrong, but I could bet money on it that the player you mention had high JS, and not so high defense. Players which clearly have higher JS then other skills are mostly tagged as SF players. On the other hand I also have some players in my team that my own formulas tag as PF and that the game tags as SF, while their JS isn't THAT high.
So I don't thnik I can agree there. The game does label SFs correctly too. Often it's a narrow line between the tagged positions, and the sublevels in the skills often decide, and as such it is possible a player with visually the same skills is tagged as SG, or as PF, I had it! (when my player changed his tag with getting a pop).

I you are too focused on advantages/disadvantages of training an SF thinking in his performance as a hight level player in the NT. I train SFs because THE ARE CHEAPER TO MANTAIN and with the strong econmy dificulties that whe have to live whith, i think it is an important reason to tren SFs.
I have discovered that to train a SF and have good results, you need a trained SF to play in SF spot, because your trainees will not play in this spot as titular until the last years of their training, so when i got an SF trained, I continued training SFs and now i have 4 players (one is not training) that can play in SF spot. As a result, my team have not very hight salaries and performs quite well in games. Economy is very important in this game, specially for teams in lower divisions of countries like spain, with lots of teams. You have to wait your turn to rise up between very good teams that could play in the inmediatly superior division with any problem and make good results. Waiting with an eficient preformance/salary team it is much better than doing it with an effective but too expensive team becouse no team can have the rise up guaranteed.

Throughout any of my arguments one thing I want to make sure that I point out is that I'm all about balance and equality. As far as players impact the player ratings is probably best indicator of how the player impact the game and the ratings are clearly lower for SF than the rest. I was thinking if by the algorithm of BB if splitting C/PG training would make that player overall not as worthy then considering maybe 60% improvement on both sides instead of 50/50 like I mentioned could balance it more. It seems that the difference in impact from 100% to 75% (48+ compared to 36 min) is superior to difference from 75% to 50%. Even if that's not the case, its really the shortest or tallest that have easiest time to improve, so while it may sound that doing 60% improvement on both sides makes SF unfair, the shortest or tallest would only get 60% of it still opposed to 100% training in their natural position. the once with average height at 6'7 cannot drastically improve so 60% training on both sides would bring more equality for the average height players without it creating any inequality that now training SF is superior to C or PG because of how height impact the difference.

All I'm saying is that this is good way to perhaps at least experiment and check in coding debugs if it does bring equality without creating any advantage/disadvantage situations.

Let's add some more fuel to the debate...

I train SFs because THE ARE CHEAPER TO MANTAIN
i have 4 players (one is not training) that can play in SF spot. As a result, my team have not very hight salaries and performs quite well in games.

Let me know how this goes when you get to higher divisions when a player who is a jack of all trades but master of none can't guard a player with a tremendous JS and prolific JR and turns the ball over more than twice per game against superior defenders.

My experience was that versatile players were extremely helpful in the lower divisions since my team had flexibility in lineups making training go smoothly and GS stayed high, and as you point out my payroll never go too high. I burned through the lower divisions, evidence that I understood the system. But once I hit D.II, it took about three weeks to figure out that this formula wasn't working against superstar lineups and that get a pure SF who wasn't beaten badly either inside or out was a extremely hard find, and these players typically sell for quite a lot from teams that sacrificed a lot to get these players to higher levels.

I have a theory that when the game engine went away from rigid one-on-one defense many seasons back and allowed for players to be guarded by any defender depending on the situation that this helped to take the edge off of potential SF mismatches (such as playing a JS/JR freak or IS monster at SF) since sometimes guards with better OD or the C/PF defenders will temper an offensive advantage at SF. But this is just a theory, and what this does to the value of well-rounded SFs is debatable.

well, and I have to say that in Belgian top division I have always been able to stay in the top-part with wages that where lower than average for the entire league. I think it is the balanced end of the story that made that happen.
Also my 27k SF performed prety well in there too, while SGs of 50k where common and Cs of 80k as well.

Over the seasons teams keep evolving, and now you probably need a better one, but the wage of the SF will still be lower, and I am confident that the rate cost/performance is much better on the Sfs then on the other players.

So a team with 5 SFs will then be the best option?
no!
each position requires his own type of player, and 5 Sfs won't work.
I don't kow how they programmed it, and maybe it was sheer luck, but the GE magnificently succeeds in preventing some stuff, while make other things real.
Having a C play the SF spot and use inside offense will work, if you suprise your opponent, but if he is prepared and answers with the correct answer, you're busted. And so will the regular SF come out on top in most standard types of play.

So unless you are a money-creating machine that can maintain 4 players for each position, you either opt for the real positional players, which in most cases will perform well, or you opt for extra SGs or PFs, but become predictable and will suffer not being versatile enough to play a wide range of tactics without sacrificing performance.

Ofcourse all this is also just my theories based upon my experiences.
But I have been having decent SFs since I started out, and never regretted it, so there has to be some strength in them after all?

I've been training SFs since I started in Season 3. I totally reject the idea that training needs to be dumbed-down.

First of all, Apart from the very, very best SFs, the best SFs aren't considered by BB to be SFs, they are balanced SGs or PFs. A typical BB SF is defined more by what they can't do than by what they can and is generally a liability.

If you look at my roster, you won't see a mature player listed as a SF. What you'll see are extremley wage-efficient PFs and SGs, who can play either SF or PF (or Guard or SF) depending on the tactics I decide to use for the next game.

Points to consider when opting to train SFs.

It is an art form compared to training other positions but once you crack how to do it, it has a lot of benefits.

It's plain wrong to say that you have to play your SF trainees at PG or C, most of the time you play them at SG or PF, with occassional goes at SF in Wingman training. Most SF training is two-position training - and because of this you train 18 year olds for at least eight seasons*

*I would recommend carefully buying 20 or 21 year olds, then training them until they are 25, 26 or even 27.

You have to set up your arena well and be generating plenty of cash to train SFs, as you have to select your trainees very carefully and pay a good rate for them.

Benefits
You get great performance per salary dollar.
You get to buy in players from the over-stocked and devalued C and PG/SG markets, getting great value per transfer dollar
Your trainees are generally in demand when you decide to sell and you get a decent return on your training investment.

Downside
You have to be very careful in assembling your roster as often they also need to be effective out of position - or be prepared to regualrly buy and sell on the transfer list to get the right supporting cast.
Generally your team only gets to play at its optimal level a few times a season
You must sell your trainees when they are 26, any older and they lose their value. Or keep them until they can't play any more but then renewing your team becomes a significant challenge.

Last edited by Elmacca at 3/9/2011 6:18:55 PM

It's plain wrong to say that you have to play your SF trainees at PG or C, most of the time you play them at SG or PF, with occassional goes at SF in Wingman training. Most SF training is two-position training - and because of this you train 18 year olds for at least eight seasons*

Strange when you consider that 6 trainings on 10 are one position training so how do you train OD ID IS or Passing ?

OD/ID/Passing & IS all have two position training options, with your SF trainees playing either SG or PF.
One position training is simple and you see fast rewards for small number of trainees; it is not the only effective training model.

It's shocking to see how SF trainers here are completely contempt with the current training methods of having to play a SF at SG or PF for half the skills such as REB,PAS,OD,ID in at 2 or 3 positions. I mean I would assume especially those that train SF would want more to be able to have a guy play at SF and have the comfort of being able to have 1 or 2 position training like at PG or C. If you want a guy to play at SF and give him the normal productive training you have to play him not at SF the whole time until you decide to no longer to train him like when he's 26.

Its discombobulating for me to understand how those of you that try to train a SF are happy with the way things are now when you can have a one or two position training available to you like in the PG or C.