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Player A (14682583)
Jordi Fabregà (14682583) Shooting Guard (I play him at point)
Weekly salary: $ 3 810
Age: 18
Height: 6'3" / 190 cm
Potential: starter
Game Shape: strong
Jump Shot: respectable Jump Range: strong
Outside Def.: inept Handling: mediocre
Driving: average Passing: respectable
Inside Shot: respectable Inside Def.: pitiful
Rebounding: respectable Shot Blocking: average
Stamina: average Free Throw: inept
Experience: atrocious

Player B (11920511)
Andrea Iannuzzi (11920511) Point Guard
Weekly salary: $ 3 937
Age: 20
Height: 6'5" / 196 cm
Potential: perennial allstar
Game Shape: strong
Jump Shot: respectable Jump Range: average
Outside Def.: awful Handling: strong
Driving: mediocre Passing: respectable
Inside Shot: inept Inside Def.: awful
Rebounding: mediocre Shot Blocking: awful
Stamina: proficient Free Throw: strong
Experience: atrocious

I play both of these players at PG, and Jordi looks like he should be better, but isnt playing better.
In terms of attributes that effect scoring:
They have the same JS (respectable), same experience (atrocious), and most of the time same game shape (strong to proficient).
Andrea has better handling (strong to mediocre) (does handling help a player score?), free throw (strong to inept) (FT hasnt been a big factor), and stamina (proficient to average).
However, Jordi has the better JR (strong to average) and IS (respectable to inept) and DR (average to mediocre).

I play both of these players at PG for 48 min. so they get training. I've always used run and gun, so I would've expected to see Jordi's higher JR show. The opponents always have both perimeter and inside defense ranging from pitiful to inept (most of the time awful). When I watch the games, most of Andrea and Jordi's shots do not come off a pass, so I also expected Jordi's stronger DR to show, as well as IS (in general). The only reason I can think of is the stamina, but stamina has not been a problem for my other players that I play 48 minutes (I haven't yet played a team this season that runs FCP if that matters). For some reason, (IMO) Andrea is overperforming and Jordi is underperforming when you look at the stats.

In regular season games:
Andrea's shooting: 55-123 (.447), 28.4 ppg, 3 PT: 18-46 (.391)
Jordi's shooting: 16-50 (.320), 17.5 ppg, 3 PT: 3-17 (.176)
Counting cup and scrimmages:
Andrea: 9-19 (.474), 20 ppg, 3 PT: 0-5
Jordi: 5 - 33 (.151), 8 ppg, 3 PT: 1-8 (.125)
I don't understand how Jordi can shoot so poorly against pitiful to inept defenses, while Andrea shoots a lot better.

Another question: Jordi is averaging 23.33 shots (from the field) and 8 3-PT shots per game. Not points, but shots. In his last game he went 2-20 from the field and 0-7 from 3-PT.
Andrea is averaging 24.6 shots (from the field) per game (and also 3.6 FT / game) and 9.2 3-PT shots / game. In his last two games, he has taken 68 shots, going 28-68 from the field and 26 3-PT, going 8-30 from 3 PT, plus 8 FT.

In run and gun, my PG is always taking way too many shots. Is this normal? They both have respectable passing, and I always play games using several good scorers like this one (at SG and SF):
Jump Shot: proficient Jump Range: average
Outside Def.: respectable Handling: proficient
Driving: average Passing: average
Inside Shot: respectable Inside Def.: inept
Rebounding: respectable Shot Blocking: inept
Stamina: inept Free Throw: inept
Experience: pitiful -- (He has the highest exp and skills on my team and is shooting .493 from the field, shouldnt he be the go to guy?)
However, in a game where Andrea took 30 FG, 14 3-PT, and 6 FT, this player only took 14 FG, 7 3-PT and 2 FT.
Similar story with the game where Andrea took 38 FG and 12 3-PT. My 2 best scorers that game (played at SG and SF) both got a lot less shots than Andrea (this was against a team with both pitiful ID & OD).

Last edited by j9s3 at 8/2/2010 9:51:30 AM

I would find someone better then Andrea to train. His skills are very low for a 20 year old and his Awful OD is a killer.

Thanks for replying, but
1)That doesn't really answer either of my questions.
2)I agree about Andrea, but he is only my #6 trainee, and I don't have much money to spend.

From what I can see Stamina is the big factor here. Especially when you play these players 48 minutes a game. Jordi might be better on paper but with only average stamina, he will get tired. Andrea's proficient stamina lets him play a lot longer without getting tired. So when Jordi gets tired, his performance suffers.

Couple of things it could be.

1. Matchups, Player A may be facing tougher opponents. Looking at the game ratings for OD won't necessarily give u a true indication because your opponent could have a gun SG or a weak SG which affects the rating.

2. The randomness of the game engine. Say 2 teams match up with the exact same tactics, players etc its highly unlikely u will get the exact same result from in the second game. Like in real life a player could just have a bad shooting night.

Thanks everyone for the replies.

So the possibilities are:

1) Match-ups: Jordi is playing against better teams with better defense.
Because of Jordi's poor play, I usually play Jordi against weaker teams or in scrimmages and I play Andrea in tougher games. I am considering switching that, because of Andrea's awful OD, but Jordi's shooting is making me reluctant to do so. Also, Jordi's game ratings have always been 5.0 and 5.5, which are low for my players. (Andrea has gone up to 7.5, and is usually around 7.0). The game where Jordi went 2-20 was a scrimmage against a team with starting guards with salaries under 4k.

2) Lineup: It depends on their teammates for that game.
Recently, I have been switching up the lineups. Before, when Andrea played, I usually played my two best scorers at SG and SF (again, this is run and gun). When Jordi played, I still played my best two scorers, with one at SG or SF and the other at SF or PF. This "Lineup" theory could be true, because Jordi plays with people with bad passing, but so does Andrea. And as I said earlier, most of the shots I see them take are not off a pass.

3) Handling
If the player holds on to the ball until the end of the shotclock, that means he has to fire off a tougher shot right? So wouldn't that mean Andrea would have to take more tougher shots and have a lower FG%? And I would think Jordi's stronger driving would balance the handling difference, because driving helps create their own shots. Plus, both of their turnovers have been low (1.6 per 48 min for Andrea, 2.0 per 48 min. for Jordi).

4) Sublevels
Even if Andrea's skills were high sublevel and Jordi's were low sublevel, Jordi's skills are still better than Andrea's.

5)Stamina
This seems more likely than the previous possibilities. However, it doesn't explain Jordi's 2-20 FG, 0-7 3 PT game. Stamina only comes into effect later in the game doesn't it? And Jordi only had 1 TO and 2 PF in that game playing point guard, so it doesn't look like he was that tired. I went back and viewed the game. In the first quarter, Jordi was 0-5 from the field. In fact, for the first 17 min, he was 0-8. In another game I looked at, he was 0-3 in the 1st Q and 3-13 in the first half. He then went 1-3 in the 3rd and 3-6 in the 4th, so the 4th Q was actually his best. (I didn't bother to look at any other games.)

6) Randomness
This seems to be the most likely theory. However it is the most unsatisfying one, because there is nothing I can do about it (or is there?). Anyway, I still have arguments against this theory. Sometimes players have bad games, sometimes good games. But Jordi has yet to have a good game when you look at his rating, FG%, or 3PT%. His highest rating in a game is 5.5, highest FG% is .321 (9-28), highest 3PT is .25 (1-4). On the other hand, Andrea's lowest rating is 5.0 (happened once), lowest FG is .313 (highest 18-28), lowest 3PT 0-5 (highest 8-12). And Jordi's JR has always been two levels higher than Andrea's. (They both popped at the same time.)
Randomness should balance out in several games shouldnt it? As I said before:
In regular season games:
Andrea's shooting: 55-123 (.447), 28.4 ppg, 3 PT: 18-46 (.391)
Jordi's shooting: 16-50 (.320), 17.5 ppg, 3 PT: 3-17 (.176)
Counting cup and scrimmages:
Andrea: 9-19 (.474), 20 ppg, 3 PT: 0-5
Jordi: 5 - 33 (.151), 8 ppg, 3 PT: 1-8 (.125)

That is not evened out at all...

7) Bad luck
Here's my suggestion: bad luck.

So in conclusion, I will go with a mix of everything. Bad luck, randomness, game engine's discrimination against Spanish players, Italian refs and scorekeepers, handling, stamina, matchups, lineups, and more bad luck.

P.S. I may consider playing Jordi and Andrea in the same game rotating positions to see what happens.
P.P.S. They are my only two PG, so I might not (maybe scrimmage).

Last edited by j9s3 at 8/3/2010 12:06:11 AM

It seems like Jordi finally got some good luck. Playing against the toughest opponent in the league:

The Rebels MIN FG 3FG FT OR TR AST TO STL BLK PF PTS Rating
PG J. Fabregà 48 16 - 26 6 - 9 7 - 8 2 9 10 1 3 1 1 45 7.5

Granted, I used CT and motion for this game. But I still don't understand why my PG always takes so many shots. I prefer to have my SG and SF shoot more.

Last edited by j9s3 at 8/3/2010 9:58:00 PM

A similar thing happens with my team when I play this young trainee of mine at PG (14818791). In one game where I played run and gun he kept firing up and making shots even though he was some 7-8 levels worse at JR and JS than my SG and SF - on top of that he is a good passer so I thought it very strange also. The only explanation I came up with was his atrocious experience - maybe the idea is young PGs get excited at being told to play that run and gun style and forget about their playmaking job completely.

Well, probably the opposite PG had weak defense and the kid was just shooting everytime he could to take advantadge.

Worse than awful? Whereas, like I mentioned before, my SG had many 8 levels higher shooting. And this was the opponent SG: (16267096) in a man to man defense.

As I said, the only reasonable explanation is the lack of experience of the PG.