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I guess I wasn't very satisfied with your responses to my question posed in (122310.145). I respect your decision not to critique Juice's performance, but then when you answered the U21 portion in (122310.147), I felt you kinda just threw around some probabilities and made up numbers to support your contention that you were analyzing things statistically. In your follow-up (122310.151), you then trotted out some statistical terms and generalized numbers, again not providing much in the way of support for the numbers you came up with.

Even allowing that you feel the research you've done and would be bringing to the NT job provides you with a competitive advantage that you don't want to have endangered, why not provide some actual hard numbers behind at least one a posteri analysis, to give the voters a clearer idea of what "regime change" might mean for the US NT?

ETA: And as far as the three questions, I missed them in my marathon reading sessions where I was skimming through for things I needed to answer. My answer to all three will have to be, I'm not certain. I would expect, from logic and the way that you phrased the questions, that there are statistically significant decreases in FT shooting on the road, on a TIE, and to OR chance when you shoot more 3s. That said, I would also expect that those effects are fairly small.

well, sorry that you weren't satisifed with post 151.

I think most people could put two and two together, specifically people that had a good basis in statistics.

it should have been implied that if i think we are 20% to win a game, we are something like a 11-12 point underdog under those circumstances. If we were 70% to win a game, we might be a 7 point favorite on average. How do I get to those numbers? Well you would look at past matchups, expected shooting percentages, and try to mean-adjust for any outliers (injuries, an unexpectedly horrifying freethrow shooting performance from a prominent ft shooter in strong form going 3-15).


once you make those adjustments, you will have a reasonable idea of what kind of favorite or underdog you should be, and then make the adjustment to the decision tree.

Am i going to go too deeply into detail about the cases you mentioned? No. I dont know 100% the circumstnaces around argentina's enthusiasm, but i would hope most voters see how i think about games, and would get truly detailed analysis from me shortly after the start of really big games.

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as for your bottom paragraph, well, you should know those answers. if you don't know them, you should really ask around asap and find out, or you know, read a few posts down from my question.

Here's my question TUG. You claim to have a good insight into the GE that would give us a tactical advantage. And yet, your team has gotten worse in each of the past 4 seasons, going from one game away from making the NBBA to not even being in div II this past year:

In season 7, Unrepentant Gunners made the finals of the playoffs in league USA II.3
In season 8, Unrepentant Gunners finished 5th in league USA II.3
In season 9, Unrepentant Gunners lost the relegation series and were relegated from league USA II.3
In season 10, Unrepentant Gunners were crowned champions of league USA III.12

Clearly, not everything you think you know about the GE is correct. So, (1) are there specific things wrong with your understanding of the GE that has led to your poor performance lately? or (2) have the changes in the GE simply left you behind?

(The part of this answer I'm actually interested in is whether you're capable of critically analyzing yourself and your deficiencies in understanding of the GE)

Is this a final cheap shot? No way you can compare an NT role with a club role.

A club role requires far more financial skills than tactical. He has admitted his shortcomings in the election thread and its sad to read this is your parting post to try and win the public votes.

No way you can compare an NT role with a club role.

His entire campaign has been based on having tactical insights and advantages. He has intentionally removed himself from contributing to the NT in the past. Other than his club team, how can we evaluate him?

edit: I'll add that I have nothing personally against TUG, and I don't think I've been particularly combatative in these threads (please don't attribute what Juice & Coco say to me). I have tried to point out flaws in his logic, but this shouldn't be interpreted as anything personal. My preference is obviously that the NT should be in the hands of someone who's participated in the NT or U21 efforts in the past, but we've certainly had worse candidates than him before. And I'll happily admit that his posts have made me re-evaluate some of my own tactical ideas. In fact, I sincerely hope that no matter who wins, this time around he'll chip in his thoughts and ideas, even if they are contrarian to the decisions that get made.

Last edited by wozzvt at 12/20/2009 10:10:24 AM

I guess Im saddened more in the fact that there are so few contributors to the election debate.

One thing that cant be disputed is that yourself URP & Azariah would all be committed to the cause and you can never all agree on each facet of the game.

I am still amazed (unless I missed it) that no-one has stated they would risk upsetting the apple-cart by writing off players from contention if the owning managers don't play ball with the requests asked of them. I am equally amazed about the Steve Smiley comment from yesterday. If that really is the case then someone from the past has to take the blame/responsiblity for there not being more options available.

1) is it the case?
2) if 1 is yes then who is to blame?

Last edited by Superfly Guy at 12/20/2009 10:16:18 AM

Is this a final cheap shot? No way you can compare an NT role with a club role.

These are the exact same questions I had, how are they a cheap shot?

You don't need an MBA to succeed at the club level. You do need to understand how to build a roster and implement a long term training plan. To some extent (even the latter where you'll be dispensing advice to managers on their trainees) that's all relevant at the NT level.

I will agree to meet you half way but no more than this.

You can dispense great advice on how to build the perfect players or pass over optimal training regimes that suit both the trainees club team as well as be useful for the NT.

You can't magic money out of fresh air at club level and you dont have limitless player options as you do in most established countries.

Here's my question TUG. You claim to have a good insight into the GE that would give us a tactical advantage. And yet, your team has gotten worse in each of the past 4 seasons, going from one game away from making the NBBA to not even being in div II this past year:

In season 7, Unrepentant Gunners made the finals of the playoffs in league USA II.3
In season 8, Unrepentant Gunners finished 5th in league USA II.3
In season 9, Unrepentant Gunners lost the relegation series and were relegated from league USA II.3
In season 10, Unrepentant Gunners were crowned champions of league USA III.12

Clearly, not everything you think you know about the GE is correct. So, (1) are there specific things wrong with your understanding of the GE that has led to your poor performance lately? or (2) have the changes in the GE simply left you behind?

(The part of this answer I'm actually interested in is whether you're capable of critically analyzing yourself and your deficiencies in understanding of the GE)

You obviously missed chewbrian's post where i had to defend myself season by season.
Post 104 in the general thread.

I will readdress though

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Season 7: False dawn. I get very lucky with a # of buzzerbeating wins, finish 15-7, make the finals, take Thats WhatSheSaid to game 3, he has the better team and can match up with greer and ortega, i lose.

Season 8: I actually have what's close to the final version of the tool here. I am complacent abot improving my team, and finish 11-11, miss the playoffs narrowly (also helps that right at the end of the season I get married of all things)

Season 9: Disaster. Infatuated with Paul Wendon, i attempt to make my own mini wendon, hoping they become the wave of the future (for those who don't know WEndon is the canadian SF that has prolific in just about every skill). I buy some short 19 year old centers with some meaningful inside skills, and try to play them at guard and train as such. Epic Failure. Too much talent being mis-allocated = demotion.

Season 10: I realize my mistake, cut my losses (selling my most promising guy for a loss a full year later), keep training guards, adjust for the fact that my best outside players sometimes have to play SF, and roll through the season, calling my record 3 weeks in, hitting it on the head and sweeping through the playoffs.
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With that said, I can elaborate more if you wish.

Season 7 I caught some breaks. At the time i ran my own pythagorean tool, i was probably a 13 win team not a 15 win team. (ouefetes tool i bet has me doing even worse). The reality is that i also has the tactical game of my life in the semifinals, with lower enthusiasm and on the road against a very good Rojos team.

I was able to play the finals more or less right but was always going to be a big underdog going into game 3. So that was a clear overachievement.

Season 8 I figured natural improvement via training would carry my team to near the same level as the year before. I was wrong. I take a small punt at the end of the season (as called in the forums)

Season 9 was my huge mistake. The short version is i bought players that had a full season of inside training, but had heights in the 6'3-6'5 range with sky high potentials. My own 6'7 PF draftee then also got guard training. I was playing 4 of my 6 trainees as forwards masquerading as guards. This was a huge managerial mistake. It might actually be easier to do today, if you could have those players guard SF/PF and my natural guards playing at SF guarding PG/SGs.

My other mistake is i didnt punt the cup early enough. I was giving too many quality minutes to players that should have only played in the league.

My mistakes overwhelmingly were on team building, and attempting to get too ambitious. THe fact that i had to sell off players for a loss explains it all really. I cut my losses and am now in ok shape with some cash to burn.

Is this a final cheap shot? No way you can compare an NT role with a club role.

These are the exact same questions I had, how are they a cheap shot?

You don't need an MBA to succeed at the club level. You do need to understand how to build a roster and implement a long term training plan. To some extent (even the latter where you'll be dispensing advice to managers on their trainees) that's all relevant at the NT level.

I think I explained my mistake fairly. I overshot my capabilities, thought I could keep my team up with some suboptimal lineups in the hopes of creating some monster forwards. I failed.

I would argue that making ONE player is alot easier to do, and if someone asked me on how to train one player to an awesome level, nearly all of us could get that more or less right within a fairly narrow range of deviation. (maybe disagreeements on exact ratios, or what to train first for salary purposes vs training speed purposes).

I paid for my mistake, really a 2 season mistake, as last season was spent by me recovering from my screwup.

I am back in d2, have enough money to buy another big-time bigman, and shold be just fine.

I have proven in the latter stages of the debate thread my technical competence, even my major detractors acknowledge that.

If you're referring to my comment, I think this is a stretch of what I said.

I think the separation between "TUG the tactician" and "TUG the GM" is mostly artificial. If you can't pick out the right players, it's probably because you're thinking that the GE works differently from how it actually does.

I also have reservations on "TUG the tactician" (your opening game of this season is a perfect representation, but perhaps you were punting it, so I won't insist on this point, but it's there for everyone to see).

FYI (but I don't expect you to comment on this), my experience is that there are two areas of managing an NT that you have not addressed (i) coming up with a good estimate of what the opposing team is going to do (ii) guiding the managers who have NTers and want suggestions on training.

On (i): if you have a good estimate, "coming up with the right tactics" does not require any thinking. In the other thread, there was a lot of discussion of my (no-brainer!) decision of normaling Brazil, and no emphasis to the actual mistake I made in that game: setting a 3-2 zone.

On (ii) it seems to me that your downplaying "TUG the GM" actually reflects badly on your ability to be a good guide.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

1) i think isnt so hard. it's probably harder for you actually where players on aggregate are closer in ability and form matters more. Against unsophisticated managers we can both agree you look at their tendencies, look at the forms pf the players available to them, and take a good guess. Sophisticated managers are of course harder to game plan for, but again you have to look at their overall situation.

Is this a game they are likely to TIE?

Is this a game they really need to win (Meaning not only CT, but also a non-trivial chance you will get their best lineup and default tactics)?

Is this a team you might see again? If so are you willing to do something slightly different in expectation of a more important match later on?

Is this a game you really need? Do you think your opponent will recognize that by looking ahead at your future schedule?

There are other perhaps even bigger questions to ask. Specifically have you maybe been weak in an area (say defending the 3 ball) that you have since fixed?

As for ii, see my earlier post, but training one player to the max is *significantly* easier than balancing a team, maximizing increases in team skills via training versus keeping a competitive lineup on the field. My failing (and it was a HUGE one) was overestimating my ability to win games by playing 2 19 year old forwards heavy minutes at sg and pg.