BuzzerBeater Forums

I'm not sure why everyone is obsessed with the draft. Sure if you get a monster prospect you can either make a bunch of cash selling on the TL or train him up yourself to whatever level you like, and it's always kind of nice to train players that you actually drafted,

Stopping you mid-sentence to remind you that there are merchandising implications that surround players that you draft as opposed to those you buy, even if they're from the same country. So it isn't just "kind of nice," it can have a huge economic impact. Continue:

... but the draft is still largely about luck (even in the real NBA draft). And if you know a players salary and suggested position you should have a pretty decent idea of their skill distribution.

OK so you know more about the draft than I do, obviously. Help me out. I have a 5* guy who is listed as a C. Tell me his skill distribution. In fact, I won't even ask you to list all of his skills. Just tell me what his Jump Shot and Passing skills look like, and whether or not I should draft him based on that.

But the point is that good prospects are always available on the TL. If you don't believe me just wait until a few weeks after the draft then search for 19 y/o with 5000+ salary. you can usually buy one for 10-50k. You can turn that player into a very good DIV player or a decent DIII player in a couple of seasons training.

Contrary to popular belief, BB doesn't stop at div IV (or even III). I could give a shit what would make teams in those divisions happy in regards to my draft picks, because I'm not trying to play in those divisions. I'm trying to survive my own division and make another run at the NBBA (spoiler alert: I'm not trying that hard, am I). If the draft is designed to keep folks dominating IV forever, then it must be perfect. That is, until you promote to III, and have only "decent DIII players" and your opponents have great DIII players.

But just because you don't score big in the draft doesn't mean you have no prospects available to you.

I never score big in the draft. {{Here's a bunch of irrelevant crap, feel free to skip: Since I got my team in Season 2, I've drafted 11th, 15th, 14th, 14th, 16th, 1st (drafted this kid, if you're keeping score: (7923262)), 11th, 14th, 14th, 14th, 15th & 15th. I've picked lower than 11th once.}}

If draftees were not tied to merchandising, it wouldn't make any difference to me. As it stands, I do care. If you bother to check my roster, I currently have seven guys on my payroll that I've drafted. Half of my team is former draft picks. Two of them play for me in games that matter; the rest of them are crap, I assure you. Those other 5 would not be on my team if they didn't come out of a draft, and further, wouldn't be there if draftees weren't tied into merchandising.

Please don't try to tell me how to use the transfer list. I can find overpriced 19yos without any help, thank you.



I'll just use this space here to apologize if I'm coming off as mean, as I'm pretty drunk right now. Oh, and if I haven't said so anywhere else, Garth Brooks can kiss my balls.

I totally agree with what you said, no apologies necessary

I agreed with what you said, too, but I wasn't quoting you ;)

I know we've gone off-topic a bit with all this draft talk, but there are four main skills I'm looking for in the draft, and I'd like to know the guys I'm scouting have those skills (is mediocre too much to ask?). I don't care about how many basketballs represent their salary (potential is a different story, but potential is gayer than Jelme, so nevermind).

Well of course I can't tell you what a the secondary skills of a C are, but if he has >2 assists in his boxscore I would guess his passing is at least awful. The point I was trying to make was that if you have a 5* C prospect you can likely safely assume that 3 of ID, IS, SB, and RB are mediocre or above. If you want a C prospect with mediocre JS and PS you are probably better off drafting players 6'9 or taller that are projected as PG. If you want a 18 y/o player with mediocre+ in JS, PS, IS, ID, RB, 6'9+ I'm not surprised you haven't drafted one yet since there is probably only one player like that every 3 or so drafts, and given that you have spent your entire time in the upper leagues where you don't have the advantage of bots making top picks, with out a top 5 pick you are unlikely to get the chance to draft a player like that even if he were available.

I'm well aware of that BB doesn't stop at DIII, but DIV and DIII are where the majority of USA players are, so that comment was more directed to them. As a DII player I'm sure you have much greater financial means than a DIV player so of course you aren't going to look for a 19/yo you can turn into a $20k salary player in a couple of seasons. With your economy you can shop for top tier 18 y/o prospects.

But ok, I am not claiming that the draft system is perfect. Sure it could use more tweaks and improvements, but I don't see it as a major fault in the game.

Well of course I can't tell you what a the secondary skills of a C are, but if he has >2 assists in his boxscore I would guess his passing is at least awful

What offense were they running in that game? Who were those assists to? What were the skills of the player who defended those assists? I have a player with atrocious passing who has had two assists in a single game. Can we continue this discussion without pretending the boxscore means anything? Thanks.

The point I was trying to make was that if you have a 5* C prospect you can likely safely assume that 3 of ID, IS, SB, and RB are mediocre or above.

The secondary skills are important, as those aren't the ones I'm training if I'm drafting a C. And what if you're right, and I can "likely safely assume that 3 of ID, IS, SB & RB are mediocre or above," but the one skill of those four that isn't above mediocre is ID. How likely are you to train a C with atrocious ID?

If you want a C prospect with mediocre JS and PS you are probably better off drafting players 6'9 or taller that are projected as PG. If you want a 18 y/o player with mediocre+ in JS, PS, IS, ID, RB, 6'9+

Don't care about JS or RB, but throw in OD and you're on the right track...

...I'm not surprised you haven't drafted one yet since there is probably only one player like that every 3 or so drafts, and given that you have spent your entire time in the upper leagues where you don't have the advantage of bots making top picks, with out a top 5 pick you are unlikely to get the chance to draft a player like that even if he were available.

If only bots could make the top picks, the draft would be awesome. Gotcha. I'm not looking for an 18yo ATG-potential guy with all skills average+, I just want to know whether or not a PG I'm drafting has atrocious OD & JR.

I'm well aware of that BB doesn't stop at DIII, but DIV and DIII are where the majority of USA players are, so that comment was more directed to them. As a DII player I'm sure you have much greater financial means than a DIV player so of course you aren't going to look for a 19/yo you can turn into a $20k salary player in a couple of seasons. With your economy you can shop for top tier 18 y/o prospects.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Oh, my economy is awesome, and I have loads of money to spend on 18yo turds. Right. I keep forgetting. Thankfully I'm not wasting 30k/wk on the draft, as I could use that on the TL instead. Oh, wait.

But ok, I am not claiming that the draft system is perfect. Sure it could use more tweaks and improvements, but I don't see it as a major fault in the game.

Aside from new teams, it is the only mechanism that adds new players to the game, and we're completely in the dark about the skills of those players. As long as that's not a problem for anyone, the draft is just perfect.

Completely in the dark about the skills of those players? Really? I just gave you a couple ways to get indications of the players general skill levels and distributions. So unless you have the ability to get a numerical value for whichever skill you want we are completely in the dark? LOL

But I guess we can't continue this conversation since you think the boxscore means nothing, whereas I think it means something. Not much, but something.

Somebody mentioned that "luck" is largely involved in the NBA draft...and to an extent that is true. However if you spend $40k a week you should be privy to far more information than you are. NBA teams scout players thoroughly and have a good knowledge of the skills of EVERY player in the draft. Do players bust because they never develop their potetial? Sure, but the trend in the NBA draft is if you aren't drafted in the top 10 it is very rare to be a superstar. So you at least have the ability to know which ones will be awesome (NT/U21 players) and which ones might only be role players or starters at very best. After pick 10 if a team gets a player that develops into a starter in the NBA they generally are happy. There are anomalies but for reading articles from analysts as well as NBA GM's this is the general hope. If you look at past drafts you would see this trend...and yes I know there are exceptions so don't throw guys like Josh Howard, et al in my face.

So yes luck is involved as there are lottery busts and post lottery surprises, but generally the trend is the same. Therefore in my opinion there should be more information given to the "lottery" teams to insure they have a better shot at getting a good pick as well as those who spend $40k. What would be wrong with doing a system at the end of the season in which the 8 non playoff teams got extra points to spend, or even a system that gave extra points at the end based on your finish in the league? If you were 1st on either side maybe you get zero points. If you were 2nd maybe you get 6 extra points, 3rd 10, 4th 14...and so on? What do you guys think of that?

Actually I dont think it is a good idea to give the lottery teams "extra" points for the draft. They already have the benefit of a higher position in the draft. A better solution would be to give more points overall; an additional feature that would be desired would be to scout key features, OD for guards, ID for PF/C, and to make that changeable by the user.

Actually I dont think it is a good idea to give the lottery teams "extra" points for the draft. They already have the benefit of a higher position in the draft. A better solution would be to give more points overall; an additional feature that would be desired would be to scout key features, OD for guards, ID for PF/C, and to make that changeable by the user.

I can get on board with this.

I think incorporating your last idea would be great and giving more points overall for spending money is also in my previous post.

I do think that the "lottery" teams should get more points though. That is the ENTIRE purpose of a real draft; to help the teams who need it and to allow the teams that need it the most to be helped the most. So it would be great to give teams extra points based on their finish IMO as that would allow for more scouting to be done and also allow the teams that deserve it to find a great draft pick to help their team greatly.

Yes I know this could lead to teams tanking, but if they are willing to do this and demote just to get a draft pick then that seems fair. In the NBA teams do this a lot. Cleveland did it to get Lebron in the first place and lot's of teams gut their squad to free up cap space and to earn a high draft selection. It's part of the game.

Perhaps "giving" a number of extra points would not be the best way to handle this. Giving extra % to each team based on their season ranking would be the way to go. Start with 1% and the last get's 16% extra (or make it proportional raise based on record). That way if you do not put any money in to the draft you actually can't get anything for free. Now putting in 40k a week with that extra 16% at the end of the season makes a difference.