BuzzerBeater Forums

Credits to thenewchuckd, manager of U21 Canada for this great write up. I was in no part involved in making this, thus all credit should go to him.

Pick what position to train:

The first step before starting a training program is to decide what position(s) you will train. Ideally, I would suggest setting your training program around your U21 prospect(s) and then picking up other players to fill the remaining training slots. First, take a look at your player to see where his strengths are. Then, keep in mind that different positions need different skills. These tend to be my preferences:

PG

Primary skills: Handling, Passing, Outside Defense, Driving
Secondary skills: Jump Shot, Jump Range

Driving I almost put as a secondary skill.

SG

Primary skills: Outside Defense, Jump Shot
Secondary skills: Handling, Passing, Driving, Jump Range

Ok, here's the deal on Jump Range. Basically, the word on the street is to not train it past prominent. Once JR hits prominent, it is more effective to train Jump Shot. So, while I would say Jump Range is important for a SG, after prominent you are wasting your time training it.

SF

Primary skills: Inside Defense, Outside Defense, Jump Shot, Driving
Secondary skills: Rebounding, Jump Range
Tertiary skills: Handling, Passing

However, for a SF it all really depends. It is easy to change the skills required for a SF in an outside or inside based offence. Just keep the inside and outside d but make him look more like a SG for an outside SF. More like a PF for an inside SF.

PF

Primary skills: Inside Defense, Rebounding, Inside Shot, Jump Shot
Secondary skills: Jump Range, Outside Defense
Tertiary skills: Driving, Handling, Passing

C

Primary skills: Inside Defense, Rebounding, Inside Shot
Secondary skills: Shot Blocking

I do not list tertiary skills for some positions but let me just say that atrocious anything is bad. I would still prefer my C to have inept Passing and Handling, for example. A Center with atrocious Handling and Passing vs a Center with a bit of Outside Defense can still turn the ball over 3-5 times a game.

Also, don't discount height when choosing what to train. Guard skills tend to train faster if a player is shorter and inside skills tend to train faster if a player is taller.

Pick how many positions to train

Ideally, if you want your player to make the U21 team, the fewer positions you train the better. One position training is starting to become the preferred way to train Pilipinas U21 players. Of course, some skills cannot be trained using one position training (Rebounding, Jump Shot and One-on-One). You can either train those skills when you have fewer games during the week (at the all-star break or in the off-season) or have back-up players to train on an ad-hoc basis. If you really want to train an U21 player, you just cannot be doing three position training.

Get a good trainer and doctor

If you're training a U21 player, my opinion is your trainer should not be lower than level 4 but the higher the better. Same goes for your doctor. It is a real pain if your prospect goes out with a 5 week injury. It would seriously set him back. Plus, level 4s are generally quite affordable.

Pressure, One-on-One and Outside Shooting

A frequent question of new users is what do these train? Pressure trains mostly Outside D. One-on-one trains a bunch of things (depending on what positions you are training) but it trains driving and handling for the most part. Outside shooting trains mostly Jump Range but includes also do some Jump Shot. I think that the remaining options are self-explanatory.


Last edited by liadcruz at 9/22/2009 9:17:11 AM

Minutes

Once you have picked what you are training, pick the position you want to train. For example, if you want to train Jump Range, pick outside shooting. If you want to do one position training, SG is your only option. The training screen is pretty clear on what position(s) are being trained. The new site is even more helpful with this, as when you go to "manage my team" there is an explicit training box showing what you are training, what position(s) and who has minutes at those positions for the training week in question.

Ok, once you know what position(s) you are training, now you have to make sure you get your trainees at least 48 minutes in those position(s). Less than 48 minutes is not helpful - the formula is not linear. What I mean is that 24 minutes does not give you 50% training. In fact, it is significantly less than that. I would not worry too much about getting 47 minutes but 45 or less and you might as well do some team training. On the other hand, more than 48 minutes does not give you anything extra.

Use a training rotation

You have to be careful of skills that get really high in comparison to the other main skills for the player's position. For example, if you are training a PG and you push his Outside Defense to 13 while leaving the rest of his guard skills at 7. First: this type of player will not be as good as a player with more balance. But the second point is that it is also not an efficient training program. Once his Outside Defense gets up it will start to train slower than the rest of his skills. The reverse can be said for a skill that is much lower than the rest of the skills for his position. So, for example, a C with high Inside Defense, Inside Shot and Shot Blocking but atrocious Rebounding will train faster in Rebounding.

For this reason, it is more efficient to rotate the skills you are training and never let any of the skills for his position get too low. For example, when training a PF or C, make sure to rotate between Inside Shot, Inside Defense, Rebounding and Shot Blocking on a regular basis. Sure, SB is not as important as the other inside skills but it is still important to train it from time to time or you are not training efficiently.

Similarly, for a guard, rotate between the 6 guard skills. For example, for a SG, of course you may want to train Outside Defense, Jump Range and Jump Shot more than the others. But you do not want those skills to get too much higher than the other guard skills.

Also, I have seen some people focus on one skill for half a season, then switch to another skill. Again, I have to emphasize that this is slightly less efficient than a training program that rotates training every 2-3 weeks.


Last edited by liadcruz at 9/22/2009 9:18:31 AM

Team Training

Your options here are basically Stamina, Free Throws or Game Shape. This option will train the whole team, not just your trainees. Also, they will get full training regardless of how many minutes they received during the week. Game shape is just not something you want to do if you are training a world class player. Maybe in the future, when our talent pool is much bigger, game shape training may be useful when playing an important opponent. But I don't think we are there yet.

In general, I tend to value stamina for my starting players and a bit for my back-ups. In theory, the game engine should substitute in the best player. However, as BB-Forrest has stated during forum day, it is not so simple. The game will always tend to keep your starter in more than your back-up, even if you use "coach picks from depth chart". As such, starting a guy with atrocious-awful stamina is just a no-no. I personally would only make an exception for an extremely talented player. However, I have had big disagreements with some managers on this, so please fell free to make your own opinion.

My suggestion is, if your player has less than mediocre Stamina, to get him Stamina training whenever he doesn't get his full 48 minutes during a week (more on minutes later). If he has mediocre Stamina, basically same thing, although if he is borderline 48 minutes (like 46), then you can probably just do his regular training. I would prefer average Stamina and above for a starting player.

If Stamina is not an issue, then free throw training is another option. I particularly like a high free throw skill for inside based players but it is useful for all players. For example, shooting 70-80% of your free throws can make the difference between losing a close game and winning it. Just like everything else, atrocious in this skill is really bad. In fact, just pushing the skill to pitiful is already a big improvement. But again, I would wait for weeks when you can't get your trainees full minutes.

Optimizing your minutes

It is really tough to get a player 48 minutes in a game unless you really work for it. Here are some tips that should get your guys 48 minutes in 95% of the cases in a 1 position training program:

-Set your trainee as the starter, back-up and bench player for his training position
-Only put 9 players in the line-up. If you have 10 or more players, your trainee will go off the court during garbage time
-Make sure every player other than your trainee has a back-up and every player in the line-up needs to be either a starter or a backup somewhere.
-Set your substitutions in the event of fouls to "let them play". If your guy fouls out, you are still screwed. But at least he won't come out in the 1st quarter with 2 fouls, for example.

-Use strictly follow depth chart or Coach picks from depth chart