BuzzerBeater Forums

A question for each of the candidates:

@Brutus: what, if any, changes do you see yourself making (from the style Tom employed) should you be voted in as NT manager?

@A Wildcats: Convince me why I should give my vote to you, given your lack of success/staying power in the JBBL...

Well, Tom was pretty successful so as far as on the court goes I'd like to fully understand what he was doing first, then make sure we can continue the success. I will then try to enhance things with my own philosophy, but maybe I will learn some new things on the way.

However, as a local manager you can expect someone who will be active in the forums and regularly in contact with managers of our players and prospects as well as with the U21 coach. So the main difference you can expect is someone more involved in Japan.

It's more the overall *big picture*. Without a doubt, it's the best two-year-run we've had since I've been in BB. And it's the highest ranking we've enjoyed in that period too.

Now, I'm not naive. I understand that it's largely the result of the managers training players that has caused this, but he's the guy whose been in the seat when that's come to fruition, and has best been able to draw good results from players. We have a pretty fair contingent of bigs, and are guards are coming along nicely.
Another thing Tom did well was begin to cut ties with the older contingent that Nippon had relied upon in the past, and that allowed a few younger guys (mid-to-late-20s) to step up. Guys like Yasujiro, my K-Mat and Toranaga's coterie of bigs. Truth be told, the same could probably occur now with some of the older guards - who are non-essential, and are occupying spaces up and coming youngsters could take.

I look forward to our next NT manager doing well, and I'm quite confident they will.

Actually if look at last season I'm not sure the results were as impressive. There are a couple questionable losses against Senegal and Al Javair. Maybe those teams are better than there rating but the amount those were lost by is what makes them bad losses. The lessons from those two games is to not be too predictable and not to take teams lightly. I had one of those in my own teams in the final game last season and that was a big lesson for me. So to add something you can expect to change is that I will take every game seriously and put the full effort into preparing for it. (including making sure we set the line-up (253107.32))

However, I do think the significant improvement from Season 23 to Season 25 is worthy. In season 23 we were 3-3 and out in the first round. In season 25 we were 4-2 in the first round and then 4-1 in the second round. The wins against Hong Kong and Philippines were pretty impressive, we don't win those games in the past. Hong Kong maybe is because their manager had checked out. But if you look at the Philippines game, I don't know that we should have won that. Maybe we were just lucky.

That much improvement in two years is pretty good, and maybe we got a little lucky. Probably the players improving over that period is helping a lot But I think better management is part of it as well (no offense to his predecessor).

The schedule for this season looks pretty favorable to start off with. First 3 games are lower teams ("do not underestimate India" - GM-Nik0). We should win those and there is a bye mixed in. If we take care of business we may have our spot in the next round secured by the Australia game. If not then we need to get a win against Australia (challenging) or New Zealand (doable). But going into those games we will know exactly where we stand and could be building enthusiasm for the next round. So, for whoever is managing getting to the second round should be a minimum level success measure.

How do you find what players are available in the world for the NT? Is there a tool or something where the manager can search for all players for Japan?