BuzzerBeater Forums

I'll try to be more clear. Making the semis is actually playing a semifinal match. Competing for a spot in the semis, means being one of the teams in competition to make that final semi spot. To be more specific, I think you can be "competing for a semi" if you're on the second round with a couple of wins. The goal is to at least make it exciting in the second round, and give us a chance at a semi.

Yes, I don't think it makes sense to normal 3 second round games to reach a semi. We're gonna need to take risks, and playing TIE for most of the tournament is a little risk that I think makes sense to take. The goal won't be a semi. I'll be a content with our progress if we get some second round wins.

Another note, is that might change based on the new guessing game that we'll have next season. Depending on how large the factor is, this could help us. We weren't going to compete with the best teams still going LI/M2M, but maybe this gives us a better chance. Gives us another opportunity to take some small risks in games where we're an underdog. Maybe with some good tactics, roster choices, and some good planning for guessing, we could get a few extra wins that what I was planning.

Thanks.

I am aware of the opposition's bigs and how they are more skilled with low salary. However, we have had two options in the past of either creating players like them(which we aren't there) or create huge salary bigs, which is innefficiant). Neither of those options has worked for us yet, so in comes the creation of players for other tactics. Thats where I stand on this. I think our best option is to try other forms of players, especially now that it is even more important to mix things up.


As for if you win the election, I will of course put my info and opinions out there, as long as they are acknowledged and not ignored because if they are ignored then I see no point in stating them. Also, should I win this election, I still hope you have an active part in the NT community like you have been for the past several seasons.

In the end I think our goals will match up and we will get to where we need to be in the next few seasons, which is compete and win a worlds gold trophy.

I am aware of the opposition's bigs and how they are more skilled with low salary. However, we have had two options in the past of either creating players like them(which we aren't there) or create huge salary bigs, which is innefficiant). Neither of those options has worked for us yet, so in comes the creation of players for other tactics. Thats where I stand on this. I think our best option is to try other forms of players, especially now that it is even more important to mix things up.

This would be a lot easier to swallow if you had followed through on training players like Elwood Crawford or Daniel Juarez (or kept training Wofford, and if you can actually continue training Smeall). Instead, you didn't even inform the offsite that you were gonna sell Crawford and Juarez. Do you acknowledge that you are part of the problem you are describing?

And I still don't understand how if we cannot succeed in creating players for LI-probably the best understood tactics in the game- that we'll succeed in creating players for other tactics. And are you abandoning your shotblocking experiment on your team, and if so, how does that impact your stance on what kind of player builds are feasible. Lastly, will you ever post some serious analysis of your shotblocking "study". [team=XXX]

I read a lot of personal attacks, while in my believe a NT manager has to unite.

If team USA want to compete for the world title, players need 140 and more skillpoints. This means a lot and long training. Or one side trained monsters with salaries that no team in the world can pay out for long.

To get well trained all-round skilled players a country has to unite and help each other!

To get well trained all-round skilled players a country has to unite and help each other!

Or open a bunch of Chinese farm accou....

I mean, um, show extraordinary dedication.

I have never been to China, but if you get there soon, please open a couple of farms......

Criticize all you want, but in the end it was better for the NT for me to sell Juarez and Crawford because where I was going wasn't in the direction that was best for the NT. Plus, I specifically talked to the buyers of both,prior to selling, to know they would be trained. If I knew they were going to be trained then I would have bought them back and continued training.


As far as SBing, I am still training it on Smeall and will continue on several more players from here on out. I bought Wofford for cheap in case I made it to the NBBA and I would have continued to train him had I made it. But I did not and it was either Wofford go or I go bankrupt, and that wouldn't have been good would it??

For the "study", first I have been answering many questions through BB mails that people have sent me. As for the full fledged study from a year ago it did not work out because I did not get enough participation on it, plus SBing has changed since then so it would nee to be restarted all together.

See you guys believe the NT manager is completely based on the NT manager holding an creating players themselves, but my belief is the NT manager is meant to make decisions and generate excitement from the community as well as get everyone involved. That's what ill be doing as the manager.

For the question on how we are supposed to create players for other tactics if we can't even figure out inside, you forget the fact that there are several managers running other tactics that have a plethora of information, that may just not be involved in discussion. While, yes it may be difficult at first, it will be more benefitial to the team. It is never good to only have a one way team. I don't care if it is for the NT or your own team, soon enough LI will not be the powerhouse it is believed to be and soon enough it will be able to be stopped. Then what? We will have to revisit this election, and prior elections, when I've tried to urge the community that we need to start looking at the future and the way things are playing out. It's been right there in front of our faces that buzzerbeater is evolving and there will be other ways of doing things. But because it's been a slow process of evolving, everyone believes nothing will change.

I'm not saying you have to vote for me, but if you look at what I have been urging for the past several elections, everything is playing out just like I have said we need to prepare for. I've urged SBing and sure enough it's more effective. I've urged training JR and sure enough its going to be cheaper and play a bigger role. And I've urged a team that can run multiple tactics, and sure enough BB is beginning to make us switch it up. What more needs to happen?

Last edited by Isaiah at 9/23/2013 4:09:04 PM

I read a lot of personal attacks, while in my believe a NT manager has to unite.
To get well trained all-round skilled players a country has to unite and help each other!

To be fair, we have an off-site forum where this happens all the time. We have an entire section where people post about their teams, and any specific training/tactical/long term planning questions they have. We have a really great and dedicated user base who respond with helpful advice. We have a decent system for scouting (which I think could be better, but that's another topic) where we have different users contacting the managers of all the best USA players from ages 18-26 or so. We've literally be able to contact hundreds of managers each season. If they have an 18 year old, our scouts of tried to educate them on the most effective way to train their player. Our scouts for the guys 22+ have tried to help managers tailor the training more towards the NT needs. Our gameplanning is also a collaborative effort with several people posting suggestions on roster decisions or tactical decisions.

In all, it has been a collaborative effort for pretty much everything we do for the national team. However this thread on-site always devolves into an argument. People with no previous suggestions or interest seem to criticize our recent poor results.

The previous NT managers have all really done a good job of uniting the people who are interested in the NT.


Last edited by magiker at 9/23/2013 7:20:49 PM

If team USA want to compete for the world title, players need 140 and more skillpoints. This means a lot and long training.

Yeah glad we're on the same page. We don't have anyone with 140 skill points. We only have 5 guys with 130+ skill points. We need better players, and a manager or the NT to put the time in to encourage the development of better players. We have an offsite forum with a lot of people working towards that goal.

Then we get on this thread, and have to go back to the "define the problem" step of the process.

Criticize all you want, but in the end it was better for the NT for me to sell Juarez and Crawford because where I was going wasn't in the direction that was best for the NT.

Juarez was the best prospect we had for his age group. He was what 19 or 20 when you had him? What direction could you have been going where you couldn't train the most balanced 19 year old prospect to be a SF? What skills did he not need at 19? And how could it have been good for the NT to take the best prospect we had out of a good reliable trainer who was involved with the NT, and put him on the open market and hope for the best?

A lot of the focus of my term as manager will be to help people find directions with their team that is suitable for both them and then national team. Developing these great multiskilled players can help both the national team and the club teams. We have to encourage managers that this can be a sound strategy, or we won't be able to compete with the top teams.

The direction I was going, and will be for awhile, was SBing. Juarez and Crawford were not best suited for that training. That's why I did what I did what I did.

And to be completely honest about the situation, I was the only American that could afford both players at the time. Both had bits by Chinese teams till I bought them. I didn't want to train them, but figured it was best to keep them out of the hands of the Chinese while I was tanking the season. Should I have just let them go then?? Because next time I can make sure a Chinese team buys two of our best prospects.

Also, I believe I had a notice in my team diary that I may have been selling them. So it was there and I believe I put a post giving a heads up to, but can't remember.

But once again, instead of attacking my tactical decesions or things I would do as a national team manager, which would be completely okay since we are in a debate, you attack things that I did as a manager of my own team. But to each their own.....