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In the course of scheming to reach the top of BB world, I stumbled upon an interesting idea. I don’t know if anyone’s thought about or tried this strategy yet, but it seems to have some potential.

Pretty much the main restriction on developing and acquiring great players are the prohibitively large salaries that come with them. The main culprit of this are quality big men, who should ideally be trained to high levels in IS, ID, and RB, however, due to the way their salaries are calculated, increases in these core skills results in very large jumps in cost. Although bigs on the TL come relatively cheap compared to guards of similar caliber, their bloated salaries generally take their toll over time.

An idea to work around this predicament comes from the ability for a manager to select separate positions for a player to play on offense and on defense.

By setting a player to play as a C on offense and a PG or SG on defense, the number of essential skills is reduced to two: OD and IS. A high OD is the sole component necessary for a great perimeter defender, and unlike their backcourt counterparts, mono-skilled IS monsters generally shoot a high percentage and perform well. With this concept in mind, a trainee with reasonable starting stats could be developed into a beastly perimeter defender/inside scorer.

And it gets better.

Hypothetical scenario time.
Take this newly-minted draftee snagged from the transfer list for 22K (note the potential):

Weekly salary: $ 3 085
Age: 18
Height: 6'6" / 198 cm
Potential: star
Jump Shot: inept Jump Range: mediocre
Outside Def.: respectable Handling: average
Driving: pitiful Passing: mediocre
Inside Shot: respectable Inside Def.: awful
Rebounding: awful Shot Blocking: average
Stamina: awful Free Throw: pitiful

One position train him for 6 years in OD and IS with level 5 trainer: (OD slightly favored due to personal preference)
The results*, according to coachParrot (http://www.buzzerbeater.com/community/forum/read.aspx?thread=119279&m=1):

Weekly salary: $ 19 717
Age: 24
Height: 6'6" / 198 cm
Potential: star
Jump Shot: prominent Jump Range: mediocre
Outside Def.: phenomenal Handling: proficient
Driving: strong Passing: mediocre
Inside Shot: marvelous Inside Def.: proficient
Rebounding: awful Shot Blocking: average
Stamina: atrocious Free Throw: pitiful

SO. 18 OD, 15 IS, 20K salary. Not bad, right?
*coachParrot doesn’t have the elastic effect nailed down perfectly yet, but I doubt that the current model differs from the actually result by more than +/-1.


Last edited by Mujachi at 10/21/2010 4:28:47 AM

Alrighty, so now we have a lock-down defender who is also a go-to inside star. I don’t see why you would stop at one, so lets make two or three of these guys. But, the creation of these abominations creates a new problem. What, you ask, happens to our team’s inside defense? Well, here’s where things get sticky. To cover the holes created by our new bigs we’re going to need a pair of players to fill in at SG and SF that have above average ID and RB and also have serviceable guard skills so they can bang with the opposing bigs on defense and get the ball inside on offense w/out too many turnovers, and maybe even contribute some points on their own. A look through the TL found two that best-fit these criteria:

**If GMs have a problem w/listing stats of players currently on TL, feel free to remove them from the post. But please do not delete the entire post as I would like to edit content as needed.

Thing 1

Weekly salary: $ 57 964
Age: 27
Height: 7'0" / 213 cm
Potential: superstar
Jump Shot: prominent Jump Range: mediocre
Outside Def.: prolific Handling: respectable
Driving: average Passing: mediocre
Inside Shot: sensational Inside Def.: tremendous
Rebounding: wondrous Shot Blocking: mediocre
Stamina: proficient Free Throw: sensational

Thing 2

Weekly salary: $ 96 053
Age: 27
Height: 6'11" / 211 cm
Potential: perennial allstar
Jump Shot: sensational Jump Range: strong
Outside Def.: respectable Handling: proficient
Driving: proficient Passing: mediocre
Inside Shot: wondrous Inside Def.: wondrous
Rebounding: wondrous Shot Blocking: strong
Stamina: respectable Free Throw: mediocre

And that makes 4. Now all we need a PG with great passing to pound the ball inside, along with good scoring skills so our offense isn’t so one-dimensional. Decent ID helps as well because he well be in charge of containing the opposing SF. Our best fit from the TL at the moment:

Weekly salary: $ 95 606
Age: 23
Height: 6'1" / 185 cm
Potential: perennial allstar
Jump Shot: wondrous Jump Range: prominent
Outside Def.: prodigious Handling: marvelous
Driving: sensational Passing: wondrous
Inside Shot: atrocious Inside Def.: strong
Rebounding: inept Shot Blocking: mediocre
Stamina: average Free Throw: respectful

So that’s a quick 5-man rotation. I know those last three have big salaries and won’t come cheap either, but looking at the big picture shows that we now have a very solid team with a low cost of upkeep in comparison to the performance we’ll be getting.

To wit:
~300K in salary buys us team ratings that will look like this on opening day*:

Outside Scoring mediocre (low)
Inside Scoring proficient (high)
Perimeter Defense proficient (medium)
Inside Defense strong (medium)
Rebounding mediocre (high)
Offensive Flow average (medium)
Total rating: 44.3

*again, coachParrot (low post, M2M, home court, enthusiasm = 5)

I’d reckon that there is worthy o’ the NBBA. Wachu think?

And this rating is based on our PF and C having atrocious stamina and all players going the full 48.
Bump their stamina levels up to awful and have an identical backup (we should have three trainees after all) play 24 minutes and our ratings have improved to this:

Outside Scoring mediocre (medium)
Inside Scoring prominent (high)
Perimeter Defense prominent (medium)
Inside Defense strong (medium)
Rebounding average (high)
Offensive Flow average (medium)
Total rating: 47.3


Last edited by Mujachi at 10/21/2010 4:33:54 AM

Allowing 100K in salary for back-up players gives a total team salary ~420K, which would rank 15th in the NBBA. (http://www.buzzerbeater.com/community/forum/read.aspx?thread=158671&m=23)

So there it is: a cheap, badass team built around a rather unorthodox training idea. Of course with Pros this big there are gonna be some Cons. Some that I’ve come up with:

-restrictive rotation: the defensive assignments are locked in for the game, so any subs will have to fulfill the same role as the starters.

-team will only be competitive in one game a week. Maybe two if you’re very good at minute distribution/can deal with frequent drops in GS. Means each season will either be devoted to doing well in league or the cup, achieving success in both at once is rather unlikely.

-obscenely predictable: only one way to play with this line-up

-relatively weak ID: however, as Heathens has shown to great effect, good perimeter D is a hell of an equalizer

-heavily dependent on starters: strategy is screwed if starters are foul-happy or go down hurt

-worthless trainees: typically you can expect a multi-million dollar return if you decide to sell a player you’ve put six seasons of training into. not so here.

-must develop own players: the bigs this strategy is based around do not exist in BB. A very large amount of time and effort need to be put towards their development to see this strategy through. Also, new trainees will need to be constantly trained to replace the current starters as they age.

-elastic effect may be larger than predicted and impede training

-actual gameplay may not function as predicted. I believe this need for actual gameplay testing is the biggest obstacle.

That said, I personally believe the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Suitable trainees are dirt cheap because they only need a minimum of starter-star potential. In principle, this team is essentially unstoppable when it chooses to be and one win a week should be sufficient to either make the playoffs and promote or compete for the cup and then come back and win enough games to avoid relegation.

Also, the potential for a team built like this is INSANE.

With two additional years of training, better starting stats, and a level 6 or 7 trainer it’s possible to achieve an OD of 21 (20+) and IS of 15.

Using these stats and upgrading our other three starters* we get these ratings:

Outside Scoring respectable (medium)
Inside Scoring sensational (high)
Perimeter Defense wondrous (low)
Inside Defense prominent (low)
Rebounding proficient (low)
Offensive Flow average (high)
Total rating: 59.3**
Team salary: ~650K

*stats used from actual players formerly listed on TL
**coachParrot: Low Post, M2M, home court, enthusiasm =8, GS = 9 for all players

For reference, rating of USA NT vs Senegal (http://www.buzzerbeater.com/match/12186/boxscore.aspx): 58.1

Cool beans.

Tl;dr summary:
1. One position train OD and IS
2. Play as C on offense, guard on defense
3. ???
4. Profit!!!


Last edited by Mujachi at 10/21/2010 1:33:03 PM

a while ago i had thought of something like this, but i was thinking more of having a SF/C not necessarily SG/C. Also driving and rebounding could be useful at like prominent/prolific.

good work by the way!

another key issue is that once you create these lopsided out of position players their salary will change because the game will change their position wouldn't it?
i mean once the outside players ID got so high that it outweighed the guard skills they have that player would be updated and considered a center