BuzzerBeater Forums

What are those salary range and tsps you listed in the last post?
So for every skill level your player has, you have to pay them salary, and they will eat up your potential cap space. But not all skills are paid equal/eat up the same amount of potential. I can't exactly quote a source for this, but I think the weightage for salary is similar to the weightage of potential space. So in short: if a skill costs more in salary, it will also take up more potential.

For example, for Cs, rebounds (and other 3 inside skills) are very expensive, while passing and OD are essentially free (means you can put in a lot of these on Cs without affecting salary and taking up much potential space. Here is an example of two capped centers with MVP potential (unmentioned skills are at 1/atrocious):

Player A: IS/ID/RB/SB at 17 (220k salary, 74 tsp)
Player B: IS/ID/SB at 17, RB at 16, OD at 21, PA at 20 (200k salary 112 tsp)

As you can see, by sacrificing 1 skill point of RB, you can squeeze in 39 more skill points in OD and PA (I put OD at 21 because it seems like OD has lower weightage than PA, although the difference is really really small).

The same goes for guards, although the "free" skills are IS and ID (although ID seems more heavily weighted than IS, and the difference is significant enough to notice). So lets say you have two guards, both of them have all their 6 guard skills (JS/JR/OD/HA/DR/PA) at 14 (wondrous). They will have the same salary (based on the calculator) even if Guard A has atrocious (1) IS while Guard B has legendary (20) IS. Although IS would take up salary cap, so if we are to have them both hit the salary cap, you will see something like this:

Based on Perennial Allstar potential:
Guard A: JS/JR/OD/HA at 15, DR/PA at 14
Guard B: JS/JR at 15, OD/HA/DR/PA at 14, IS at 20

So you traded 2 points (1 at OD and 1 at HA) for 19 points in IS, and made your guard very good at inside attacks. In fact, if you put the points into PA instead of OD/JR/HA, you'd have less tsp because PA is weighted heavier than those 3 skills (meaning Guard A will have JS/JR/PA or JS/OD/PA at 15 instead of 4 skills like above, due to PA being more "expensive").
Note: Guard B is also cheaper despite having more tsp, because like I said, IS is free on guards.

I won't get into the exact math of the salary/potential formula, but if you're a math geek, head on down to https://www.buzzer-manager.com/ and try out their salary estimation function. The amount of salary is a bit off, but it isn't too far off (rumours also say that the calculator says it caps players slightly early, but the data it uses is from the most reliable sources we have).

Listed Positions
So we were talking about what skills were free for what positions, but how are positions determined? Basically, listed position in this game doesn't affect a player's performance on court. However it can affect how fast your player hits their potential, and also how much salary they earn for a particular skill up.

Listed position is affected by the player's skills. A player with high all round guard skills but low inside skills will be listed as a PG. Those with low PA but the other 5 guard skills will be listed as a SG. High guard skills (except for PA) and high ID will put them as SF. High inside skills will have them listed as C, but if their JS is high enough, they will be listed as PF. At NT level, hardly anyone uses Cs, because they need their players to be versatile both outside and inside, so the player is very often listed as PF. If there are Cs, then it is usually a playmaking C which don't make a lot of shots (I've seen China build some). We'll talk more about this in the player builds section.

Again, if you're interested to see how skills affect listed position, go over to https://www.buzzer-manager.com/ and try out their salary estimation feature.

Last edited by BuzzRBeater at 1/19/2025 5:38:46 AM

i feel u bro. No matter what.. u r the best🫡

I know that pain, I sometimes save the text to notepad)) But yes, 100%, you're the man helping us all get better.

Hahaha thanks. Actually there's a workaround where you open a match replay in another tab and have it playing. The game will not log out as long as the match is ongoing. But I totally forgot to do it last night xD

Player Build 1: Point Guard
1. OD is the most important skill for a PG. At NT/B3 level, you want it optimally at least at legendary, or beyond that (21). 2. Next is HA and DR. HA is very important due to elastics for OD, and DR is heavily weighted in driving layups (driving is a skill which helps your player get into a good position. High DR players tend to take more shots. But since Look Inside utilizes guards to drive inside, you will want this skill at a high level so that you have an extra offensive tactic at your disposal.
3. After that comes JS and IS (since IS is free). Top tier NTs usually have them around 20, but 18 and above would be acceptable as well.
4. Then comes PA. While it does come as a surprise, but we don't train PA really high because of 2 reasons: 1) It's very expensive, and the cost you have to pay doesn't justify its effect at higher levels, and 2) Top NTs and BB teams usually have good passing on all other positions, so that lessens the playmaking burden on the PG. In that case, you will probably only need around 15 passing on your PG.

Suitable height for a PG
Unlike the NBA, where length is everything, and people want tall PGs like Stephon Castle, Luka Doncic, DeJounte Murray, and Ben Simmons, you want shorter players for PG because the most important skill is OD, and shorter players train OD the fastest. That said, other than OD and HA, the other essential skills for PG aren't height related (JS/PA), so there is more leeway in building a PG. I would still go for a player that is around 6'1" or 6'2" at most, but you can still turn a 6'4" or 6'5" player into a PG.

So how do you train a PG to that level?
1. 1 on 1 forwards
1 on 1 forwards mainly trains HA/DR. HA has positive elastic effects on 2 important PG skills - OD and PA. It also has a positive effect on DR as well but since DR is trained, so you won't see any effect. The best part of 1 on 1 forwards, is that it trains IS as well. You won't get that in 1 on 1 guards. Since our target OD is 21, it would be great to train it up to 19 HA at least since OD training will also give you handling pops. You might also want to watch out if he has much higher DR than HA, or if they are taller (hence DR will pop faster than HA since DR is not affected by height). In that case, I would stop at 19 or 20 DR and make up the rest with HA training later on.

2. IS for C
This step is usually done if you plan to forgo U21 eligibility, or if they are still 20 years old when you start training them. Training IS gives elastics to ID, which will be trained secondarily when you train OD. So you should aim as high as possible. It would be good if it's around 17, as you can round it up with JS training later. Do note that you'll have to play your player out of position at C for this, but don't worry, you can try reverse patient.

3. JS for forwards
So you've got IS until 17, you can boost it further with JS for forwards. JS for guards and wings will not give you IS pops. But this training is essentially just to improve your player's JS. Try to hit around 19? JS is already trained by 1 on 1, so it will just be the finishing touch.

4. OD training for PG
If you're aiming for U21, then you can start this training at the season they turn 21, IF their OD is average and above. If it's lower, then just aim for the senior NT and only start after you hit 17 or more in IS. This is because with elastic effects, you're likely to get 1 OD pop a week for the first couple of weeks. Plus ID will also train pretty fast thanks to the elastic effects from IS. Feel free to go all the way up to 21 OD without changing your training.

5. PA for PG
All the way to 15 PA. After that, if you still have cap space, go for Outside shooting for SG to train JR.

The final product should look something like
JS 20
JR 11
OD 21
HA/DR 20
PA 15
IS 19
Salary: 200k

Extra notes:
Try to get one with low RB, because RB eats

Last edited by BuzzRBeater at 1/19/2025 10:54:10 AM

Player Build 2: Shooting Guard
SG and PG are pretty similar, probably the biggest difference being the importance of PA and JR.
1. Similarly to PG, OD is the most important skill. However unlike PG, JS is also very important here, so we can try pushing it to 21 if we can.
2. Similarly to PG, HA and DR comes next, for the same reasons.
3. IS comes third, for the same reasons.
4. Instead of PA, we have JR here. In case you didn't know yet, JR is not a 3 point shooting stat. All jumpers (midrange or threes) are calculated using JS. But the further away your player shoots from the basket, the "lower" their JS will be. So let's say they have 20 JS. Their JS might work like 10 JS if they're shooting a 3. So JR will reduce the "penalty" imposed by the distance. So if they have high JR, they might be shooting from the arc like someone with 15 JS instead of 10 JS. So it's useless to have high JR but low JS.
5. PA comes at the lowest priority, but you need to train it to around 10-11.

Suitable height for a SG
Unlike PG, where PA is not affected by height, JR trains better with shorter players. So it's best to get players as short as possible. I won't go for players above 6'2". If they're 6'2" or more, I'll probably train them into PGs.

Training Program
1. 1 on 1 forwards
Just like PG training, jack up their HA and DR with 1 on 1 forwards. Do note go for 1 on 1 guards, because 1 on 1 forwards give you a boost in IS. Go all the way until 19 HA, or if your DR hits 20.

2. JS for forwards
Unlike PG training, we're going with JS first, as JS is a very important skill. Going up to 19 would be fine, since JS will pop with IS and JR training which is what we will be doing later. But remember, it is JS for forwards, because it will also improve IS. JS for wings and guards do not give IS pops.

3. IS for C
You'll have to play your trainee off position at C. The good thing is, with 20 JS, your trainee will definitely be torching opposite Cs with reverse patient. You can go all the way to 20 if you like, since your player's IS would already be considerably high at this point. Stopping anywhere between 18-20 is okay (but ideally you'd want 20 IS).

4. OD for PG
All the way to 21 OD. The high IS would also give elastics to ID, which will pop from this training.

5. PA for PG
Push it up to 10 or 11. Nothing less. After that you can go for outside shooting for SG to train JR, all the way until he caps.

The final product should look something like
JS 21
JR 13
OD 21
HA/DR 20
PA 11
IS 20
Salary: 160k

Extra notes:
Similarly to PG, get a player with low RB because RB eats up a lot of potential.

SGs are very much cheaper than PGs because PA is soooo expensive. Alternatively, if you don't hit 21 JS after all that IS and JR training, you can bump JR one level higher to 14.

Player Build 5: All-Round Bigman
This is the standard bigman build. The build between C and PF aren't too different. Really costly, but not as costly as the mono C. There are several important points to take note of for high level bigmen:
1. OD is free, and is very important. It would be great to have their OD somewhere around 11-13, to prevent them from getting torched during reverse patient.
2. PA is free too. In order to limit TOs and improve team offense. Minimum PA would be 11.
3. The most important skills for such a player would be IS and SB. Surprise, it's not ID, that would be second most important.
4. JS is pretty important, as it allows you to run outside offense smoothly. PF will have more JS/JR, while you can have less JS/JR on C. But regardless, you still need a decent amount of them on your bigs.
5. Try to keep rebounds down. Not too low, somewhere around 14 will be sufficient. This is because rebounds take up a lot of cap space, and it is more beneficial to use that space to maximize other skills.

Training Plan
To be continued

Last edited by BuzzRBeater at 1/20/2025 10:46:48 AM