Well, the nice thing about having Zhizhi back: not only do I get a great passer to play PG for me now that Iriarte seems to have found himself a job at PF, but I get to play Smiley at SG for single-position outside shooting training without compromising my lineup. My only question: if I want to make Smiley a true PG, which I do, then I have to do a lot of passing training. And what's the point in having three players with really high passing? But I really love the idea of having him be the PG of my future, not the SG, especially since that's where I plan on playing Faina due to his inept ID, so McNeill can slide to SF and not have his mediocre ID exposed by D.IV and D.III PFs. In that case though, where does Iriarte fit? Backup PG? Then what to do about Zhizhi? And who will play PF, and how can I afford a decent one, especially while still expanding the arena, which is too small for D.IV in the long run? These are all long-term questions that I'll have to answer when Iriarte can no longer get by at the power forward position. But for now, Smiley has popped 8 times (granted only five of those pops are in guard skills-1 JS, 2OD, 1DR, 1PA, with the other three being IS, ID, REB) and should pop soon in HA, JS, and JR, maybe DR too. So he looks to continue progressing quite nicely. I'm not saying U21 just yet, but he'll be a very good player for my team for a while.
In other news, ho-hum, Smiley played 48 minutes at SG, the outside offense and defense ratings took a hit, but still another 58 point victory (I know, I'm slacking from the normal 65.7 average, but it was without the two top wing scorers Faina and Aldridge and also due to 2 3-pointers in the last 30 seconds). There's just no excitement. I'm looking forward to D.IV, where I expect to be able to hold my own but am equally sure that I won't immediately contend for a title. But even if everything went wrong and the more experienced D.IV teams exposed my guards' lack of perimeter defense and my forwards' lack of inside defense, while simultaneously shutting down my center by playing hack-a-Catapang (0 for 313 FT attempts at last count, and even worse now), even if wins were nearly impossible to come by, I could at least take pleasure in knowing that the wins I did get actually meant something. And I don't expect it to be that bad. But even if it were, it would still be more exciting than this.
I must admit that there are some perks about playing in a bot league, one of which is that I can play whatever lineup I want, and that's mildly entertaining. I've toyed with the thought of playing Catapang at PG against the Falcons, just because I can. But still, even the fun of that wears off. It does make it easy to train Smiley. And also hopefully in a mostly bot league I can pick up another decent draftee along the way to either train with Smiley or sell for cash to pave my entrance into D.IV--I know Erie Razors does scouting and the Falcons might do some too, but there's usually more than one good prospect anyway. You might say that there's rarely more than 1 elite prospect, which is true, but I did get Smiley from them, didn't I?
Anyhow, there's still BB work to be done, fine-tuning the roster as I alluded to in the first paragraph of this late-night semi-rant. There's also IRL life to be lived. This is just a game, after all. But it's a great one and even the tediousness of working my way to the top in some ways enhances my enjoyment. The things most worth doing never come quickly or easily, and the same is true here. So, starting point league V.101, final destination NBBA (with Len Smiley hopefully leading the charge)!