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These questions are primarily for E.B.W. since they are based off of his speech but can be answered by other candidates as well.

1. (E.B.W.) You mention you're training two SF prospects, Dennison and Palmer. I imagine Palmer especially is a lock regardless of who is manager, but if you were the manager, would your owning Dennison affect your decision making of whether or not to put him on the roster? (Other candidates, if applicable) If you own a player who is a borderline candidate for the U21 team and you were manager, would that affect your decision to put him on the team?

2. When you talk about the importance of being able to play two or three different offenses because of the GDP, is one of those offenses going to be our 'main' tactic, or should we be able to play all three offenses equally often/equally well?

3. With your term only lasting two seasons, how do you intend to get those "true PFs" or "true SGs" you talk about, or do we already have those players waiting in the wings?

Fun fact, Dennison was originally drafted by me, LionPride. E.B.W must also prosper on the successful scouting of others. Tsk Tsk ;)

1. Dennison will not make the U21. He is essentially the same player as Palmer, who will make the U21 probably, and we don't need two of the safe build SF's on the team. I'm already pronouncing my SF, who just turned 20, as one who will not make the U21, even though he will be borderline, because you want your best team on the court at all times, so you have to look past you bias, and pick the best players.

2. We will not be picking two to three different offenses because of GDP, unless the GDP bonus is proved to be significant enough for some mid-tier continental team to be able to upset us at full strength. Being pro-active is good, but picking a roster that is good for three tactics is not even close to your best overall roster. You need a certain type of player to make one tactic dominant, and a roster that makes three tactics dominant simply does not exist. The extent to any of my tactic changes would be LP v LI, or RNG v Motion, because that changes the pace up, without damaging our rosters effectiveness at a significant level.

3. You plant the seeds now, and leave the next manager with an abundant of riches at SG, and PF(if you don't run and win your next election). Other than that you just hope there are some waiting in the wings. And upon further review, we've got one true aged 21 SG, but no real true PF. Oh, well, you make do with what you have.

Last edited by oriolekid at 12/24/2013 2:15:16 PM

Hey Ken Simons, thanks for your questions!

1. Palmer is most likely a lock already and Dennison is probably the 4th best SF right now if i had to guess, so he will most likely not be on the team unless injuries or game shape management issues for the other SFs. This will not affect my decision to put him on the roster, because not only do the decisions run through many other managers before we decide the roster, but I am a strong believer in giving the best players their rightful spot on the team. I don't play favorites. My hopes are actually that Dennison never has to be put on the roster because that means that Palmer, Sawyer, and Gamez have all managed game shape well and their is no need for him to be added.

2. I feel like our main tactic will be LI (since that is our best tactic, along with almost every other NT team) but the main reason we need to be able to form a team that can play two or three different tactics are so that opponents are reluctant to even use the GDP feature. Even if we run LI for 90% of our games, as long as opponents know that we are capable of running other tactics, they probably will not gamble and assume that we will run LI. That is what I look to achieve. IF it is up to me, I think our two main tactics should be BO and LI because they both vary in pace and offensive orientation.

3. Well there are many many people involved with trying to recruit people onto the offsite so they can learn how to train their U21 NT players and form them the way that makes us most successful. Numerous people on the offsite scout every category of player and we bbmail their managers to see what they want to do with their player and if they have questions on how to train them. There are many 20 year olds that could easily be turned into decent PFs and SGs within this last season of training before worlds, as well as the fact that our new crop of 18 year olds can become very diverse. Even if it isn't me coaching for a second term, these types of players will still help whoever the manager of the team is I believe. Right now, we have one true SG (Keith Irizarry) that we are trying to figure out how he can work in with our plans and see if true SGs can be efficient on the U21 roster, but unfortunately there aren't many true PFs. The good thing is that we still have one whole season to prepare players for World Competition.

Last edited by E.B.W. at 12/24/2013 2:23:18 PM

Here's my question for you fine gentleman....

In what situations would you "throw" a game?

I would be willing to throw a game in the case where we could get a more favorable matchup in the follow games in a tournament. This sort of thing actually happened this last season with the NT and it worked out pretty well. The NT threw a game against Panama in order to play Chile in the next game and it was a success. We went on to beat Chile, Brazil and many other teams to get to the final and a big part of that was throwing the game against Panama. Besides that, I don't see a solid reason to throw a game.

How about early on in a the tournament against a favorite and specifically setting them up for a certain lineup or tactic? This may be even more important now with the GDP. If we "look" predictable it benefits us later.

My point is the importance of thinking big picture in a tournament.

PS...I believe I was the first U21/NT coach to "throw" a game back in Season 14.

Yeah, I was wondering if this was the same Jelme

I could see the U21 NT possibly doing like that for Worlds, but once again this will run through many other people, not just myself, so it would be more of a group decision. Luckily we won't have to worry about that until Worlds, but the ultimate goal is to place in Worlds for the first time in a few seasons, so whatever can get us to place, I would definitely look into.

Heres another question that is rather selfish. I've been gone for a couple season (maybe 5-6?). What has changed in the game engine that can be exploited and what has changed in the scenery of the national stage? We can be local with the Americas side.

Well although some people may disagree with me on this, I feel like LI has been pushed down a little bit and 2-3 defenses and SBing in general is a bit more effective. An example of this would be the B3 Tournament championship, (65653784), where the team that won, played 2-3 for defense and beat a stacked team when his own roster had one of the lowest salaries in the tournament. It is very impressive to me and proof that things are changing a bit in BB. I think teams with good Forward/Wing positions generally end up performing better than teams that just stack their bigs. The GE has also changed due to the GDP which many people do not have a lot of information yet but it will certainly help while face standard LI/M2m teams that do not play anything else. As for the national stage, I am only focused on the U21 NT so I do not watch the NT as much, but the U21 NT is a lot like it's been for the past few seasons, but a bunch of people on the offsite have been trying to create different type of players to see how they work into the U21 NT and how effective they can be (Patrick Connor and Joseph Hamel come to mind from last season, as well as Keith Irizarry this season).