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+1

Awesome post ¡

Pat Pat.

The exact problem of the 2/3 zone is we don't want a zone that we have to build a team around. The points of the zones is to use them in specific situations.

I play man to man most of the time as I should.

If I play a team with weak big men and strong guards that tend to run motion or run and gun offences I play a 3-2 zone. I don't need any special players and it works.

If I play a very unbalanced team with pathetic big men and sensational guards who always play motion or run and gun I play a 1-3-1 zone. I don't need any special players to do this and it gives a fantastic perimeter defence.

If I play a very unbalanced team with a $300,000 center and no-one else worth more than $30,000 who always play look inside or low post, which I have done, I want a zone that will at least give me a chance to slow them down.

I don't want to have to sell my entire team and find PFs with 14 OD and 14 SB if they even exist just so I can play a 2/3 zone. Does the 2/3 zone even do it's job? Ok their $10,000 guards have a field day, I can understand that, but when their big men also seem to score at will and all I get is a higher rebound % of the few shots they actually miss, I feel sad. Don't you?

The game should punish obviously unbalanced teams by providing a tactic that neutralises their strengths if they are so predictable. It does for outside attacks but doesn't for inside, this is a problem.

Most of the changes of this season come from things that have been suggested here and discussed lot of times(some of them before you joined the game);

*give up Strategys (178778.1)

*Better Training Method For SF (174785.1) (season 17 trainings change i suppose)

* Make the best players actually (158188.1)

We got luck BB's heard us, but they don't listen us so often to be honest...

This kind of comments, comes from new managers or from managers who haven't a wide experince on the game and the complains normally comes from managers who have been playing on this game lot of seasons.

You just have a few experience, but it seems you got lot of experience to talk about GE and so on...

Normally I read the whole post before commenting but this entry stopped me in my tracks. This is a straw man argument. "You havent played as long as I have so your opinion isnt as valuable as mine". Does this mean that people who played in seasons 1 and 2 should dismiss anything you say because you arent as experienced? The guy you responded to is absolutely right. If the BBs made all the changes suggested, even by 'veterans' like you it would ruin the game, just like GLB. When the game first started anyone who logged on everyday and had a decent understanding of the game could move up. Now with the competition getting tougher every season I see many suggestions from veterans that are thinly disguised as a means to 'hold on to their spot'. As the game get older and older the better managers are slowly rising to the top and passing the 'older more experienced' managers who then claim 'foul' and start trying to think of unselfish reasons to implement thier selfish changes so no 'inexperienced' manager can pass them. I can think of no greater example than teams operating deep in the red, then crying for the BBs to change the economy so they can continue to use their foolish strategy because 'it used to work'.

For a guy who has only played 3 seasons, the poster you reamed has just as many championships as you do in your 13. Does that worry you?

Most of the changes of this season come from things that have been suggested here and discussed lot of times(some of them before you joined the game);

*give up Strategys (178778.1)

*Better Training Method For SF (174785.1) (season 17 trainings change i suppose)

* Make the best players actually (158188.1)

We got luck BB's heard us, but they don't listen us so often to be honest...

This kind of comments, comes from new managers or from managers who haven't a wide experince on the game and the complains normally comes from managers who have been playing on this game lot of seasons.

You just have a few experience, but it seems you got lot of experience to talk about GE and so on...

Normally I read the whole post before commenting but this entry stopped me in my tracks. This is a straw man argument. "You havent played as long as I have so your opinion isnt as valuable as mine". Does this mean that people who played in seasons 1 and 2 should dismiss anything you say because you arent as experienced? The guy you responded to is absolutely right. If the BBs made all the changes suggested, even by 'veterans' like you it would ruin the game, just like GLB. When the game first started anyone who logged on everyday and had a decent understanding of the game could move up. Now with the competition getting tougher every season I see many suggestions from veterans that are thinly disguised as a means to 'hold on to their spot'. As the game get older and older the better managers are slowly rising to the top and passing the 'older more experienced' managers who then claim 'foul' and start trying to think of unselfish reasons to implement thier selfish changes so no 'inexperienced' manager can pass them. I can think of no greater example than teams operating deep in the red, then crying for the BBs to change the economy so they can continue to use their foolish strategy because 'it used to work'.

For a guy who has only played 3 seasons, the poster you reamed has just as many championships as you do in your 13. Does that worry you?

???¡

You misunderstood me.

What i said there is that managers suggestions also help to make better this game and on the past the suggestions improved this game, but he wasn't here to read some of them.

The manager who created this thread suggested this;

I think it would be wise to halt any non-cosmetic changes for a calendar year.

Dou you think this make sense? And i repeat he is here just from season 12 and dind't have the chance to know that suggestions of the managers helped the game to keep improving.

For a guy who has only played 3 seasons, the poster you reamed has just as many championships as you do in your 13. Does that worry you?

I had the luck to enjoy of this game in the highest level( most of my experience comes from it) and was lucky enough to be successfull.


Good luck for you this season ¡




Last edited by Marot at 4/28/2011 1:55:36 PM

I've been puzzled by your reasoning skills on the 2-3 zone ever since you took up the cause and began to defend it so adamantly. The problem I have is that you're basing your entire argument on hypothetical players with not a single shred of evidence to back up your claim. I'm still not entirely sure how you stumbled upon the notion that having big men with amazing OD would be the key to making the 2-3 zone more effective, and more recently, the 2-3 supporters have also claimed a good deal of shot blocking is necessary. It's possible that you (and the other 2-3 zone guys) are right about OD and SB being the answer, but as it stands, there's no evidence that supports that conclusion. Your claim is no different than me making the claim that a player with legendary passing and shot blocking will magically begin to fly around the court and hit 4 pointers. It's complete non-sense, right? The only way it wouldn't be complete non-sense is if I showed an example of some players with highish passing and shot blocking that began to flutter and glow.

The facts that 1) there's no evidence to refute that conclusion and 2) Charles has said 2-3 isn't broken still exist, though.

You should know, what's the point of a hypothetical? Even if it's proven incorrect, it serves the purpose of calling into question an existing idea. A defendant of said existing idea can disprove the hypothetical, making the idea even stronger, but if that fails to happen, the idea remains in question.

In this case, the idea is that "2-3 is broken" and the counterargument is "maybe the GE isn't at fault?"

I don't care if I'm right or not; that doesn't affect the validity of the hypothetical. The point is that it needs to be refuted with something other than an appeal to ridicule.

Absurd analogies aside, let's assume that big men and forwards trained very high in SB and OD (I guess) do in fact make the 2-3 zone work efficiently. This leads me to two new questions:

1. Why does the 2-3 zone require such extravagant players to to be effective while all the of the other defenses do their intended job without said players?

In this example, the players required are only "extravagant" because not enough of them are trained. Once again, this is an argument of "it is possible" rather than "it is."

cont.

The 2-3 zone is a simple zone defense. The goal of it is to clog the lanes under the basket, preventing opposing inside shots and inversely, allowing more open looks from the perimeter. But the 2-3 zone in BB doesn't seem able to accomplish this on a normal basis (at least at the higher levels). Not only does the 2-3 zone give the opposition's guards great looks from the outside, but it completely fails in preventing them from scoring on the inside too. The general consensus amongst the 2-3 zone detractors is that at no time does the 2-3 zone do a better job at defending the inside game than a man-to-man would. A lot would even argue that the 2-3 zone is the worst defense in the game and that it allows an opponent to score more points than they would have using any other defensive tactic. Sure, there are examples of games where a winning team used a 2-3 zone (with moderate success compared to other defensive tactics)... but for every one of these rarities there are many, many more games where the 2-3 zone completely fails. I'm breaking my own rule by not giving evidence but my post (essay) is already long enough and there are more than enough examples of what I'm talking about in this thread and every other2-3 zone thread in existence. So now looking back at Team A... Why is it that they are capable of playing a tactic with its intended purpose even though they do not have the right players for the job, while the 2-3 zone fails to meet its intended purpose when teams do not have the right players for the job?

(This is of course assuming that there are "right" players for the 2-3 zone)

I think the tendency to compare how one team runs man-to-man vs. how they run 2-3 is a mistake in the first place. A team that excels in 2-3 has to be built that way - and this may mean they're worse man defenders, but better team defenders (OD/ID more balanced, higher team SB). I sense a lot of negative sentiment from M2M teams who tried the 2-3 and lost, but not many teams are built specifically to run zones. The feasibility of doing this is another discussion - the idea is that it may in fact be possible to build a team to excel in the 2-3.

Regarding Team A - they played R&G correctly, but they did not succeed because it played to their weaknesses. When you say the 2-3 completely fails, I'd argue that the team in question is playing it correctly, but once again it plays to their weaknesses. It's just hidden beneath the PBP. You're supporting your argument for Team A by saying they take their shots, but there's no support for the claim that the team playing the 2-3 isn't positioning and rotating correctly. Like Team A, they are executing as intended, but they're not doing it well.

Comparing offensive tactics to defensive tactics, when only one can be accurately and unquestionably quantified with the PBP and box scores, is a false equivalence.

cont.

Last edited by RiseandFire at 4/28/2011 2:33:49 PM

2. Should shot blocking really be that powerful?

There's no denying that every team (salary not taken into consideration) would prefer to have big men with shot blocking than without it, but it doesn't make sense (at least to me) that SB is the answer. Shot blocking is not a primary skill and its effects shouldn't be as powerful as one. In real life it is not necessary to have Cs and forwards with insane shot blocking skills in order to run a 2-3 zone. Again, it does help but the real key is to have players that are great defenders in general. I know it's a little silly to compare BB to the NBA but do you really think guys like Chuck Hayes, Lamar Odom, Kevin Garnett (in his current form) or Gerald Wallace would get obliterated if they were defending in a 2-3 zone?

"Shot blocking is not a primary skill and its effects shouldn't be as powerful as one?" Wow, there's a lot wrong with that statement. Why can't shot blocking be a primary skill? The threat of a shot blocker by the basket is extremely valuable, and it impacts the attempts taken by the offense.

The players you listed make no sense to me. What's the argument here? All of them (besides maybe Hayes) would do well as forwards in a 2-3 zone with their ability to defend on the perimeter and in the post. Players resembling them could do well in BB, too. Really not sure where you're going with that one.

To summarize everything really quickly:
- It's silly to use hypothetical arguments to defend the 2-3 zone.
- It's silly to make claims for or against the 2-3 zone without backing them up with hard facts and evidence.
- Even if the 2-3 zone "works" with specialized players it's not right that it requires special conditions for it to be effective while the other tactics in the game (excluding the new ones) do as their intended without specialized players.
- If shot blocking is the key to making the 2-3 zone consistently effective, that doesn't make a lot of sense.
- This took way too long to write and I'm considering this my BB essay for the year.
- If you managed to read this all the way to the end without getting bored or looking away in disgust give yourself a pat on the back.

Is the owner of a team called the Philosopher Kings really dismissing hypotheticals with appeals to ridicule? I'm flummoxed.

The point remains that there's a strong counterargument to the idea that "2-3 is broken," and your main defenses (no pun intended) are logically unsound. Once again, I don't care if I'm wrong. I just think the argument against 2-3 needs to be a lot stronger.

I guess I did midunderstand. It sounded like you were saying 'You are a noob, who cares what you think', in a nicer way. Apologies for reading it wrong.

I am not sure that the original poster's idea was what I would suggest, but I wouldnt discount his suggestion for any reason other than the merits of his ideas. In my opinion it wouldnt hurt to at least slow things down a bit to see the long term effect of what I consider big changes to the game the last couple of seasons. Stop non cosmetic changes altogether? maybe not. Slow them down to see how things go? Perhaps not a bad idea.

I guess I did midunderstand. It sounded like you were saying 'You are a noob, who cares what you think', in a nicer way. Apologies for reading it wrong.

I am not sure that the original poster's idea was what I would suggest, but I wouldnt discount his suggestion for any reason other than the merits of his ideas. In my opinion it wouldnt hurt to at least slow things down a bit to see the long term effect of what I consider big changes to the game the last couple of seasons. Stop non cosmetic changes altogether? maybe not. Slow them down to see how things go? Perhaps not a bad idea.

In any case i didn't want to be disrespectful with him.


All i think is that i dislike the idea of having 1 year without any change...


PD: I liked more the 2-3 of the past than the 2-3 we have now.


Last edited by Marot at 4/28/2011 5:31:41 PM