BuzzerBeater Forums

Below is a complete list of skill drops due to age since I acquired my team. You can check my transfer history for dates bought and dates sold but they were each on my team for about one full season. All were 33+ at the time of the skill drops.

I've had a couple other old dudes on the team who haven't ever dropped. At age 35, one even popped in driving when he got caught up in 1on1 training one week!

I employed a career extension trainer from the beginning until May 18, 2012. Since then, I haven't employed one.


8/24/2012 Didi Gercke ↓dropped↓ in Outside Def. from respectable to average .

8/3/2012 Egbert Brackx ↓dropped↓ in Shot Blocking from strong to respectable .

7/27/2012 Michael Parlapiano ↓dropped↓ in Shot Blocking from respectable to average .

6/29/2012 Radu Nicolaescu ↓dropped↓ in Driving from tremendous to sensational .

5/25/2012 Egbert Brackx ↓dropped↓ in Inside Shot from respectable to average .

4/20/2012 Nader Bjørn-Andersen ↓dropped↓ in Jump Range from average to mediocre .

3/16/2012 Jostein Kjos ↓dropped↓ in Driving from prolific to prominent .

3/9/2012 Nader Bjørn-Andersen ↓dropped↓ in Rebounding from average to mediocre .


My conclusion is this: Skill drops aren't a very big deal if you're in the lower leagues, but they are quite inconvienent and you need to remember that your player is invisibly deteriorating in every skill, every week. So, don't rely fully on them. Use them to cheaply fill gaps, but spend your money on an arena, good trainees, and eventually good younger players who fit your individual plan. Use them to help you promote, so that your sustainable core of young talent and smart financial planning can reap the benefits of being in a higher league quickly, and just dump them at a minuscule loss when they're not good enough anymore.

Last edited by 五毛党 at 8/30/2012 11:24:19 AM

A few of those guys had 13+ skills in some areas (hnd/drv usually) and I didn't notice a difference in drop frequency. Is there one? This needs to be studied at far greater length, since skill drops (like pops) only show when the drop is from one number range to another (e.g.13.05 to 12.96) and the decay happens across the board every week.

I'm searching the TL and I came across a 34yo who dropped in two skills last week. Yikes. I wonder if anyone's landed the vaunted quadruple-pop in the opposite direction. Considering the slow rate of decay, a triple would be pretty impressive.

A good way to measure yearly decline is salary drops... although it ignores less important skills, it has the advantage of factoring in sub-levels and capturing the whole year in one number. My 34 yo PF went from 26k to 22k and my 33 yo SF went from 44k to 30k.

If someone wanted to actually put some numbers on decline without a massive data collection project, one could look at a large section of old players when the salary changes over (you could use 30-31 year olds as a control to adjust for formula changes). Too bad we'd have to wait ~3 more months for this.

Salary decline is tough, though, because salaries drop across the board every season as it is, and like you said it's influenced by certain skills at every position which have varying degrees of importance. It's still something to keep an eye on. That 14k salary drop is ridiculous, never seen anything like it.

Yeah, it would be great to collect that data while specifying if a career extension trainer was used. We could get a picture of the rate of decline, and the worth of a career extension trainer.

A career extension trainer will limit the drops in skills to 1 or 2 drops a season period from my experience. I must note that I have seen a drop in more than 1 area only once with this type of trainer.

Last edited by BarryS at 8/31/2012 1:41:46 PM

Buzzerbeater is more like a marathon then 100m run.
Training young players, managing gameshape & enthusiasm and expanding arena should be enough to get through lower leagues. I laugh everytime when I see some III-V div team putting all their money to one 100k+ player. They rarely bring fortune when there are no other good players in team.

My 33 years old PG did not drop a lot of skill points. I guess his salary will be lowered from 76k to 70k approx.