BuzzerBeater Forums

- MOST IMPORTANT: choose either "guards" or "inside players" and stick to either outside or inside training. Don't mix up the two. Train outside and buy inside, or viceversa

- don't train players that have less then allstar potential. One of the trainees should have at least perennial allstar potential.

- single-position training will get you there much faster than two-position. It's worth it.

- watch the heights of trainees. For guards don't take anyone over 193 cm and for inside players don't take anyone under 201 cm

- the younger, the better. Try to start with 18 years. Don't bother training 24y old players unless you are "rounding them out" with those final pops.

- secondaries rule. For guards: IS, RB. For inside players: PA, HA.

This is all great advice. I wasted several seasons of training because I didn’t understand some of these points. I would like to add one bit of advice, in my opinion defense will get you to D-IV faster than offense (especially OD), so creating a Dirk should be less important than creating a Ron Artest. And one more thing, I know you really like him and you don’t want to hear it, but don’t train Meert. Sell him, and get someone with more potential and better ID (strong, at least). Good luck!

I support you on this. Don't listen to those who force training, thus making 21-years-old-or-so players with 100+-or-so salaries. You're still not up to handle those players. The vision is the key, if you sense that that European center could become Nowitzki-like, then be patient and train him, it will pay out, and I don't mean financially. I never mixed outside and inside training, but I have seen that forcing with training is crap. You get a rookie with higher potential, you get a dearly bought trainer, and you force, force, force. In three or four seasons, the guy simply grows useless, as his salary grows to an unbearable level. Eventually you choke, you can't sell him for much money as rare managers won't them, or you could, with some luck, if you're training for money. For lower than first divisions, it's nonsense to have one such trained player. I have one, he's playing well and all, but on Mondays I won't to strangle the guy.

So what I'm saying is, do not force with training, don't trouble yourself with minutes, go easy and have patience. You don't want a player who's going to be a financial burden.

damn now you know one player ...eem ... even two players of my team now you can easily destroy me.

Having just limited my D5 opponents to about 58 points per game, I want to second the notion that defense is one of the fastest ways to get good. It's also pretty cheap in terms of player salaries.

When I started I wanted to train both guards and big men too, but as many people have said here, it really won't end up working very well. Because training slows as players age, it's better to start with training one type (guards or big men), and then switch once your first crop of trainees have gotten trained. In that case you can buy veteran players to play with your trainees. For D5 those veterans don't have to be high salary, and now that the playoff deadline has passed, I'd guess you can pick up many of them fairly cheap.

Also, like the original poster, I had notions of training one of the guys I picked up very early, who I really liked for some reason, and I did waste about a season of training on him. But it was still better to dump him and move to better trainees, who have decent starting skills in the slow to train. For guards those are jump range and OD, and starting with decent passing is important.

Having just limited my D5 opponents to about 58 points per game, I want to second the notion that defense is one of the fastest ways to get good. It's also pretty cheap in terms of player salaries.

that sounds less impressive when you know that 5 of 7 opponents in your division are bots and also on the other side are also just 3 humans.

D is on a certain grade really good to outperform the opponents, but also offense is important.

Last edited by CrazyEye at 10/18/2011 2:49:33 PM

Fair enough, the competition in D5 isn't great. But let's recall that the original poster is in US D5, so the comparison is actually relevant.

Note also that I never claim that offense is unimportant.

well my 3 trainess guards have 11, 11, 9 OD starter centers 11 and 12 iD, so i allow people shot bellow 30%, while i am shooting bircks at around 40%, defence is only good salary-wise, cause 11 OD guard salary is only like 6k and he can defend anyone in league 5 lol...

Last edited by Gajus Julijus Cezaris at 10/18/2011 3:12:52 PM

but you could also overpowering it, and multiskill is even cheaper ;) I haven't the biggest salary in the league, and especially outside relativ weak defenders but i am still one of the top teams.

And at tangosz, i thought you wanted to say that instead of a versatil player only defensiv player are worth it.

Let's assume you're starting to train an 18 year old MVP potential big man, say a power forward, which would you train first, the guard skills or the big man skills? Putting into perspective that the trainee will get 1 position training for about 4 or 5 seasons at minimum. I'm thinking that since the hypothetical Amar'e would be about 201cm-216cm tall then i would most likely go for guard skills at first, the gains would be faster that way and i'll get quite decent results in the first season. Or you would recommend equally training all of the required skills (i'm thinking IS,ID,RB,DR as primaries, concentrating on DR. Adding to that would be JS and handling, also a bit of passing and shotblocking.

Any thoughts?

My thinking is this... One Stud would become very exspensive, and then One Injury could end it all. Building 6 Players (Two Position Training) on the First Tier would net me 6 Valuable Players, so 5 seasons down the road I have these guys as Vets. I've got a legit player at every spot, capable of handling most situations. Not spectacular, but well rounded and everyone pitches in.

By that time, they will be 'to old to train' so I'll have 1-2 really good guys (probably bought prospects) to train into the Stars that should take the team to the next level.

I'm looking for Two Position Training over the next 4 to 5 Seasons to build those 6 (one to be picked in the Draft upcoming). Since I am in V League, the talent shouldn't be huge, I should be able to compete. After all, the 2 Seed I just beat lost because they suited 3 Players most of the season. 3 Good Players... but 1 got hurt. 3 Good Players healthy was good enough for a 2 Seed, but the risk was the injury that happened, now that 2 Seed Season is going to be out the door early in the play offs because of it.

None of these players should get stupid high salaries, all of these players should be able to function in the Offense/Defense, and losing any one won't tear the whole thing down.

Now, I totally agree that this is not the best way to maximize a single players training, or even two players. I don't want 1 really good guy and then they game plan to stop that one guy, I want 5-6 guys that can play ball at some effective level so I can be the one to adapt as needed. There is always some one who can train better, so if I focus on making the next Shaq and you make your Shaq better... I lose. But if I have 5 guys that can play, your Shaq beats my C... but I allow it and beat you with the other 4. You'll have to train 5 guys to play my 5, not one guy better than I train my one.

Anyways, that's the IDEA. Not saying it will work or that it is perfect, and eventually adding players from the List to improve the squad will help, along with my actual draft picks.

From what people are saying, most teams are either Inside or Outside... and really good at one of them. Then they have to buy pieces to get the other. This is V League... most don't have that kind of money... so your Inside may be better than mine, but I have the Outside advantage. Your Outside may be better, but now I have the Inside Advantage. I want a balanced team to take advantage of those that haven't filled all the pieces, find the weak spot and exploit.