BuzzerBeater Forums

I'd like to wade in with my size 13's if I may with my take on what needs to be done in order to up the chances of the USA NT... bear with me as my NT managerial experience is somewhat limited, but Japan are still ranked ok ish considering we are at 30-35 users, anyway. I wish to add I am not for or against anyones campaign, just adding a viewpoint as you never know I might just throw my hat in the ring for consideration at some point in the future.

I appreciate the various spreadsheets and formulas that you guys have behind the scenes. I also appreciate the tireless hours that go into scouting a large nation such as yourselves. The candidates past and present have stated what they would do in order to try to bring the US to the dizzy heights of world champions and I respect each and every mans view on how they would get the best out of the players at their disposal.

Some of you may recall I briefly ran for the NT managers role of England. My campaign was pretty blunt and one dimensional and basically insinuated if you didnt find 15-20 managers to single position train the best prospects that were currently out there you could kiss goodbye any chance you wanted of trying to be successful.

I believe the same situation applies here but on a larger scale. Please treat this example independently as it is not intended to be an alternative approach to the offerings from the current candidates. This approach may not reap instant rewards for the next manager taking the helm but I would hope for the seasons beyond this it will do - its simple.

Find 20-30 (40 if possible) willing coaches to train and build 20-40 perfect players. Do not settle for second best and allow players onto your roster that you know aren't getting the optimum training, at the first sign of this relegate them from the roster. I imagine you have a pool of 200+ players and with respect anyone who knows how to sign in could pick 5 guys, a tactic and select CT/Normal/TIE and get you guys pretty much to the best 16 in the world. If you want to go further it stems from not accepting excuses as to why players aren't being trained at all times to create the players you want to have at your disposal.

Now in England this argument fell on deaf ears as the managers with NT prospects prioritised club success over their country but in a country as large as yours there must be 20-40 fanatics (or dare I say it farms!) able to take on the responsibility of creating Buzzerbeaters greatest players ever. Japan forget about it - I can count the pops on 4 hands the whole NT got last season.

So, in my opinion it boils down to who's brave enough? As I say, you can either coast along with a gigantic pool of great players and always finish in the final 8 maybe 4 of major tournaments or you can risk this and insist on managers dedicated to training the very best players in the buzzerbeater world (no matter what cost) for the sake of national triumph.

My BB3 success last season was nothing more than being able to assemble a roster of quality players faster than the chasing pack. This season there are many teams in a similar position to mine and the gap has been closed. It is the best players that win you games and tactics (which admittedly can alter this slightly) play 2nd fiddle to the outcome of games.

To summarize. Whether there is an old guard of managers that dominate proceedings or maverick managers willing to stir it up a bit to try and win attention or votes, it really doesnt matter. The USA needs a manager that is willing to fall flat on his face at the expense of creating the best roster in the BB world. Accepting mediocrity will only lead to mediocre results. All the offsite forums/chat rooms/formulas in the world wont overcome this matter.

20-40 managers - thats it. We all know you have them. There really is no excuses.

Yes this is a very vulgar way at looking at things and it doesnt take into account the evolution of where we are since BB started but I trust you get the picture and if I was a US user I'd be asking why don't you have superior players on your roster to chose from come match day? Why does Spain/Italy/France (i say france cos my PG is no-where near their roster!)
have players with seemingly superior stats? Answer in my opinion is more dedicated user base. Nothing more nothing less.

If you could not vote for yourself, which candidate would you vote for (nobody is an option) and why.

I think the most important trait in an NT manager is the commitment to the team, and being willing to devote the time and energy that it requires (not just setting lineups, but tracking several hundred players to keep the DB updated, communicating with managers to help get optimal training, etc). Azariah has already proven a willingness to do this, and if I were not running, he'd have my vote. And if he doesn't end up winning this, I hope he'll consider a u21 run next season.

Last edited by wozzvt at 12/17/2009 10:10:01 AM

20-40 managers - thats it. We all know you have them. There really is no excuses.

You think we're not doing this? We had a systematic effort last season to give experienced owners the contacts of the managers that drafted all the top 18yo's to encourage them to give these rookies effective, single position training, or to sell them to someone who will. I know I'm doing it personally, although my trainee wasn't perfect to begin with (I've had great success with Villapadierna, who's the 13th highest salary 21yo in the world, and am using the same plan with a 19yo American now).

The early returns are actually pretty good. We have probably our best 20yo ever that will be fighting his way onto the u21 squad this season, and a really nice looking crop of 19yo's.

Then hats off. I wish the English took this approach, alas they opted for the route leading to mediocrity and arent likely to deviate from that soon....

charles, thank you for your patience. to get to the rest of these questions...

b) Much of club level management involves building a roster, while at the national team level it's primarily about setting the correct game-day tactics. What do you think were your best couple of "tactical" wins at the club level, beating teams you shouldn't have been able to beat in games where everybody was trying their hardest? [This hopefully will get a good discussion going for less experienced users too, since it means you can explain what you were thinking and why it worked. The most common post we get in the help forums is seeking advice on how to beat a strong team with a weaker lineup.]

charles, to get to the rest of these questions.. my best win was here:(10538484)
i went 1-3-1, something i hadnt shown all year. i further started a pf at half of the salary of my typical starter at PF, because the player profile fit the defense better, and because i wanted the more diversified offensive skills. i was also up against US NT SG thad whittington, who was playing mostly pg (but playing it well), and knew that my own combo guard could not go at pg where he usually went. i also got slightly lucky, which you always need as well. If UHRojos win that game, they are a more favorable matchup for the great ThatsWhatSheSaid, and maybe Rojos stays inthe NBBA the last 3 seasons...


5) JuicePats in particular used a very different style of enthusiasm management than almost everybody else at Worlds. Was he doing something better or worse than the rest of BuzzerBeater? How would you have handled the tough group we were dealt?

I want to comment on what someone else said, that we were one result away. Technically yes, but beating spain by 46 on the road is no way to get there. If you need to win all of your games, your best approach is to try to keep the odds of winning each game similar to eachother if it's a linear relationship. So better to have a 50-50 chance in each game than 10-90 in one and 90-10 in the other (the odds of winning both games in the first scenario is 25%, the 2nd scenario it's only 9%). I feel Juice violated this rule, among countless other mistakes.

6) Part of the reason we seem to be in tough groups might be that we have a tendency to focus on minimally getting to the next stage and then conserving enthusiasm. At the U21 level, Brasil played crunch time against us and avoided Argentina, while we saved enthusiasm but lost in the semis anyway (so did Brasil). The situation was set up because we didn't put effort into a game against Argentina that decided which group we would be in for the second round. Should we have been willing to give up enthusiasm to end up with different opponents? Similarly, our tough group draws at Worlds have been in part because we tend to CT the semifinals (and qualify for Worlds) at the expense of trying to win the continental trophy. Is this a good policy? Should we care about winning the Americas?

Again this is relative. How much of a gain would it have been to play Peru vs Brasil in odds of winning? you can set up a fairly simple decision tree, and usually it will yield the best answer. In coco's partial defense, counting on the irrationality and complete misunderstanding of the rules by the brazilian coach would have been tough to predict.

THe continental trophy is a minimum requirement for our userbase. We should care about winning it.

you could sort of hide that guy somewhere

porzionato, gambino, fanesi, zanotti, romagnoli.
where in the world do you think you can hide a 11/8 defender?

ill give up my opponent shooting 7 for 9 (10 points above average) if i can extract 12 extra points of offense on aggregate.

would that work against italy? i am not sure. but it's a different approach