BuzzerBeater Forums

I just thought it was kind of ironic that we were still using the S17 'start of a new season' thread, and it was just me and Lemony, who is no longer with us, having passed on (in a much more positive way than dying, however). Anyhow, probably no one will use this much, but since I don't have Supporter atm at the very least it will serve as an informal log of the inner workings of the KT team and management for the remaining 15 games of the season and playoffs. So without further ado:

Training updates: Len Smiley pops in passing from respectable to strong and in driving from inept to mediocre. Overall he's popped seven times: once in JS, once in OD, once in handling, once in driving, once in passing, once in inside shot, and once in inside defense. Hopefully he should be near a pop in JS and JR as he received one week of JS training without a pop. In the meantime he'll train pressure, but later on hopefully a single-position JR week (once Zhizhi gets back from injury) will get him a pop or two. Also Faina popped from pitiful to awful passing. The nice thing about being the clearly dominant team in a mostly inactive D.V league is that you can afford to play players so obviously out of position and get away with it.

Speaking of dominating D.V, I just realized that when I play War Eagles it will hurt my PD, since I'll only win by 25 due to forfeit. Such a shame that a 20-2 team with a 735 point differential, coming off of their first finals appearance against a very tough opponent, would be discouraged enough that their manager would run off, never to be seen again. But I digress.

Cup updates: after beating two bot teams and a weak D.V team, the Tornadoes are still alive, but now face their first semi-significant challenge in the D.IV southside boyzz. However, southside has no one with even $10K salary and their starters should be clearly outclassed. Check back Thursday, but the Tornadoes should keep their faint hopes alive and more importantly collect their $50K for another week.

Future plans: don't expect many big additions from the Tornadoes as they're content to stand with their current roster and simply focus on expanding their arena and improving their players, especially future stud Len Smiley and also Rafael Faina, with the possible intention of moving him to SG at the next level to improve the LI offense while minimizing the effects of his inept inside defense.

Team goals (in rough chronological order): train Len Smiley. Train Rafael Faina. Find another decent young preferably American player and train him, then possibly sell him next season (contingent on good draft pick). Shatter BH's point differential record. Do lots of scouting and wind up with the steal of the draft. Promote. I think we have a good chance at doing all of these.

If anyone else wants to chime in on this thread (Avenel Falcons? Erie Razors?), feel free. Buzzerbeater is exponentially more fun when the managers are active and communicating.

Shatter BH's point differential record.
Just you wait! Some new user will come in, buy some good players and will stop you!

But Smiley popped 7 times in 4 weeks...that is pretty good..

Well congrats to Erie Razors...they held the Tornadoes to under 100 points, 83 to be exact, becoming the first team to do so in either a league game and only the second to do it in a league or cup game. The Tornadoes played a little defense of their own though and still managed to put up a respectable point differential despite their inability to light up the scoreboard, limiting Erie to 53 points on 19 of 92 shooting (20.7%). Also Faina sustained a hard hit and was held out much of the second half as a precautionary measure. He finished with 11 points on 5-7 shooting in 22 minutes. Antonio Astudillo, one of the team's original recruits from its first days, seized the opportunity and ran with it, aggressively drawing fouls and converting from the charity stripe (9 of 11) for a team-high 19 points.

Len Smiley is expected to be a long-term project, but he continues to improve and has impressed in game situations albeit against weaker opponents. He had a difficult time getting his shot to fall tonight, finishing a disappointing 3-11 from the field but recording a solid overall stat line: 6 points 6 rebounds, 7 assists compared to only one turnover, just his second in league play this season. For the season is averaging 7.9 points, 3.3 rebounds, 5.3 assists, and 0.6 steals in just under 25 minutes a game. Not bad for someone who's the fifth option to score on the court at any given time.

During post-game interviews, team captain Rich McNeill noted, "you haven't seen the best this team can bring. When we give everything we've got, we'll be virtually unstoppable." Whether he was referring to starting the rookie Smiley over dynamic passer Li Zhizhi (currently injured) and last year's starting point guard, starting all-star point guard and team assists leader Angelo Iriarte, or whether he was referring to the "take it easy" mentality that can be observed in the team's games this season is unclear. Still, it's something to monitor going forward, as the team saves high intensity for playoff games and worthy cup opponents.

On to the game against southside boyzz, as the Tornadoes embrace the opportunity to compete against other clubs from around the country. Rumor has it that the manager keeps his team motivated for the extra weekly game by treating them to dinner or promising them a short weekend of practice for every cup game they win. Whatever he's doing, it's been working so far.

Well last night's cup game was a mixed bag. On the bright side, the Tornadoes stayed alive in the cup by rolling to a 40-point victory. Also positively, Iriarte got 48 minutes at PG for training purposes. On the significant downside, Rafael Faina was injured and is expected to be out for two weeks. The team shouldn't miss him for league play, but in cup games it could hurt. Fortunately the next cup opponent looks to be manageable even without Faina's scoring punch. And anyway, there are much worse backups than Himadas, and Zhizhi is expected to be back for that game. It will certainly be close, and we might even lose.

Training update: Smiley failed to register a pop for the first time this season and in his career. Pressure training was very disappointing as Iriarte popped in ID, but no one popped in OD. Very disappointing on the whole.

Even without leading scorer Faina, the Tornadoes still rolled to a 116-37 point win, highlighted by stifling defense (the opposing team failed to score double-digit points in a period until the fourth quarter against the backups). Staggering performances were registered by Angelo Iriarte (22 points on 11-13 from the field and 11 rebounds in only 22 minutes), Len Smiley (career-highs in rebounds and assists with 14 boards and 12 dimes, flirted with the triple-double but only scored 7 points), and Simon Zoric, who also came close to the triple-double (29 points on 13-19 shooting, 22 rebounds, 8 assists, 5 blocks). The team had a scare when star center Lorenzo Catapang went down after a hard foul on a shot attempt and was unable to return to the game. Thankfully he avoided serious injury and is not expected to miss any time. [side note: seriously, I upgrade to a basic doctor from a minimal one and I get two players injured for multiple weeks and a third knocked out of a game? If someone injures Smiley I will ragequit). Simon Zoric replaced him and did his best Catapang impression from the free throw line, missing both attempts. Catapang has failed to make a single free throw on 313 career attempts.

Man why didn't this happen when I was playing against you...would've made it so much easier.
You winning with Iriarte at the PF, makes me shake my head...and then I noticed that he was playing at PF for most of this season. Then I missed the feeling of being in a league full of bots.

Yeah I know isn't it great? I can do whatever the hell I want with lineups, enthusiasm, etc. (including normaling or even CTing the cup games) without worrying about losing. And anyway he's a backup to McNeill, but even still average in all big man skills makes him a passable D.V PF. Then his mediocre OD and inept JS aren't too sub-par for a D.V PF, while prolific passing is great for a PF in just about any division. So because he has great passing and a lot of other scorers, he never has to take bad looks, hence the high shooting percentage. And since I'm training Smiley, he has to play somewhere else most of the time.

It definitely would have made it easier, but wasn't it so much more fun to know you at least beat one decent team en route to promotion?

What more must I do to get perfect ratings from the fans? Out of 5 balls on "all things considered, I am happy with the direction the team is going in" I have only 4.5 balls. This despite being currently 8-0 with a 73.5 ppg differential, still alive in the cup, and coming off a 20-2 season with a 794 PD. Also, I haven't made a player transfer for a month, and the team is only getting better. What can they possibly object to?

Decision time! What do you think: shold I CT my next cup game, since my opponent will TIE against bad teams, but against the non-bot cup team he faced he normaled even though he could have TIEed? I feel confident he'll normal me. Looking at the salaries of his players, I definitely can't TIE and would probably lose on normal without Faina, maybe even with him. I also know I can build up my enthusiasm again in league games and I'm so much better than any other team in this league that I can almost certainly beat them regardless of enthusiasm, although Avenel Falcons and Erie Razors are both doing a good job of managing their enthusiasm. So it's not like I absolutely NEED the enthusiasm for league play. I remember you had a pretty good cup run last year before getting an unlucky draw this year, so any advice?

Also, McNeill had 1 foul in 36 minutes of play heading into the fourth quarter of a blowout. He was playing at PG for training. He picks up 5 freaking fouls, the last with 6 freaking seconds left to go, and doesn't get 48+ minutes for maximum training. I know it's not a major difference, especially compared to the reduced training speed for being 22 years old, but still, very frustrating. Now I know what you must have felt like with Pringle sometimes.

LOOOL I saw McNeill had 6 fouls and it said 48 minutes in the box score, oh wells.
I would CT, I had the same problem as you except my game right after was the War Eagles and an Allstar Break and I just normal'd that game. I rather go for the 50K and go further into the Cup, because...well free 50K does help for when you promote this year. Its not like anyone can beat you.

And a pretty solid cup win. Not dominant, to be sure, but solid enough to make me wonder if I could possibly have won it without CT'ing. Considering it knocked my enthusiasm from 12 all the way to 5 (!) and I'm playing a D.II team, I figure I'm out of the cup next round, so I'll have plenty of time to build the enthusiasm back up. In other news, Smiley popped in OD and also randomly in rebounding (mixed blessing there in slightly higher salary), Iriarte popped in OD, but no pop for McNeill which, due to his age, is not a huge surprise.