BuzzerBeater Forums

So I think I may have been giving too much credit to the link between salary and player ability because I have the highest paid starting 5 in the league (my bench is subpar, but not terrible), but I lose to teams that have lower paid players than mine at every position. My teams stamina and GS are not amazing, but totally fine - mainly respectable... Thoughts?

Here's a breakdown:

PG - 77 k, 24 years old
...........JS - 16....JR - 13.....OD - 15......H - 16.......DR - 17......PA - 13......IS - 4.......ID - 4.......RB - 2.......
SG - 68 k, 28 years old
...........JS - 18....JR - 12.....OD - 13......H - 13.......DR - 16......PA - 12......IS - 6.......ID - 4.......RB - 7......
SF - 32 k, 30 years old
...........JS - 15....JR - 10.....OD - 9......H - 8.......DR - 9......PA - 3......IS - 9.......ID - 8.......RB - 7.......
PF - 44 k, 26 years old
...........JS - 9....JR - 1.....OD - 1......H - 3.......DR - 7......PA - 1......IS - 11.......ID - 16.......RB - 13.......
C - 43 k, 24 years old
...........JS - 9....JR - 4.....OD - 7......H - 5.......DR - 9......PA - 4......IS - 13.......ID - 12.......RB - 13.......

I'm about breaking even financially and am in 3rd place in my division for the 2nd season in a row. So I'm kinda stuck in no man's land. Should I blow up the team? If so, what direction should I take?

Thanks!

Well what need to do is play to your teams strenght in tactics.

The only teams that you've lost to seem to be very good. The main things I would try would be to improve GS and improve your bench. Don't underplay the importance of having a good bench. When a $5000 SF comes into a game in DIII, bad things happen. Also, you could try acquire more well rounded defenders. Your PG and SG only have ID of 4. Your forwards though are the biggest concern. A PF with 1 OD can cause problems, and while you SF is balanced defensively, 9 OD is still pretty low. I might also consider changing to a Motion offense. This team's strength on offense is definitely on the perimeter.

Thanks! I'll switch my offense and look into getting better defenders. Bench definitely needs some work too. I've been wanting to move my SF for awhile anyways. Again, thanks for the advice!

I would delete your post before every team in your league copies your player skills. Then I would BB-mail a mentor from your country and ask for his opinion.

Respectable for GS is not good enough at this point in the season. Every player should be 8-9 unless you have bad luck or injuries.

Well, you do pummel all the teams in our league except the top 3 or 4, so don't be too upset with your performance.
I'll leave suggestions up to other people since I'm one of the teams you beat soundly.

I would also suggest looking for more well rounded players. A few of your starters are lacking any secondary skills. For instance, your SF/PF/C all have very little passing, and your PF lacks any OD at all.

When you see lower salary players out-performing high salary players, its almost always because they are more well-rounded. I would be willing to bet the lower salary teams you are losing to have much more versatile players than yours.

Last edited by yeppers at 1/30/2013 8:49:50 PM

I'm no expert, but trying to help out.

Game shape: Don't underestimate this. The difference between 7 and 9 can be pretty big. This one is the easiest to improve for you, don't play your starters in scrimmages, and if you get a decent bench you can bring your starters off the bench against weaker teams.

Bench: A lot can change in the 10 minutes your bench players are on the court. It's more than 20% of the game, which is a big enough room for improvement to invest a little in it. As said above, if you have a good bench you can maintain your starters' minutes better to allow for better game shape.

Enthousiasm: I don't know if you're doing this already, but just in case, maintaining enthousiasm also helps your team play better. You're significantly stronger than most teams, which should enable you to Take It Easy in enough games to have high enthousiasm against the few strong teams in your league. 2 of your lost games can be accounted on your opponent putting more effort in the game, which is an easy explenation why you can lose to a (possibly) weaker team.

Offense - Personnel: if you run LI guards with good IS will perform better. As said, with your current players a motion offense might suit you better.

Salary distrubution/efficiency: Valueing your players solely based on salary isn't very accurate. There's a lot of skills your player can have for (almost) free, while other skill cost you a lot for 1 extra level. The difference between 16 and 13 HA for your current PG? Costs you almost 13k! 14 IS instead of 4? Those 10 levels costs you just 1K salary. This also goes for salary distrubtion over your roster. That 13k you can save on your top paid player, you can spend on a 7k bench guy. The difference between a 7k and a 20k bench player can amount to a rating increase from 8 to 14. You should try and download the salary calculator, or use the on from Buzzer Manager (see the helpful programs topic).

I hope you can use some of the advice and improve your team :)

Last edited by Jeründerbar at 1/31/2013 10:22:47 AM

I know folks have said motion for you, but I think your team passing is too low for a good motion offense. And your IS on your bigs isn't a big enough threat to LI.

The 1/1 OD/PA on your PF and the 8ID on your SF are definite problems.

I would consider either:
1) replacing your SF with a SG with 15+ OD, replacing your C with at least 7/14/14 PA/ID/RB and running RNG/3-2, or
2) replacing your SF with a SF/PF guy who's 10+ OD/ID and has IS=JS and lower JR (so he's not trying to put up 3's when you have the LI outside Offense penalty).

Wow, just looked. Apparently you're blowing up your team. Good luck!
Remember that about 30% of your time on the court is played by your bench. If you invest 30% of what you pay your starters on 2-3 good backups, you should be well-taken care of.

The prices you set for most of the players you are selling are too high.