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First scrimmage game of the off season will be against Indonesia. The younger players will play. Francis Jalius (23), Ray Michael (24) and Rafael Salvado (25) are the future of our NT. They will be in the starting 5 with Somboon Thanarat (27) and Peter Joseph (28). On the other hand, Mark Bugak (23) and Isaac Gatut (24) will have a taste of the NT but shouldn't stay with the team next season.

I didn't select Simon Edwin Edin (22), Scott Eames (24) as my team is playing the MBBA finals against Chosen 5 and knowing their skills would be like cheating. I may select one of them after the MBBA finals.

Edit: due to a mediocre GS, Peter Joseph won't be playing this game. Chosen 5's manager have a few players in the NT and have always kept them in good GS but I want to emphasis that GS is crucial. It will be a rule of thumbs with me as manager, no players with a GS below 7 will step foot on the court even for a scrimmage.

Last edited by Nico4nicolas at 9/13/2024 4:43:49 AM

We started the new season against Saudi Arabia, it allowed us to play with the young core and to notice that it won't be enough to be competitive. The win wasn't an easy one. Two players (Charlie Wong and Rafael Salvado) had GS below 7 so we played with a 10-man roster.

For our next game we will face the strong Latvia team. I don't expect much for this next game but if our current players don't have a good enough GS, I will call back the older guys.

Edit: if someone wants me to try something for our next game, we can try out new things.

Last edited by Nico4nicolas at 9/30/2024 2:31:10 PM

It's been a long time since I last wrote something here. I've been very busy in real life but spent time to prepare the NT lineups. One could say I didn't do a good job and I can't argue otherwise.

We lost by 13 against Latvia which is stronger team than yours. It was an expected result, nothing wrong here especially because they put more enthusiasm than us. Then came the most disappointing result of the season so far, we lost against by 2 Scotland after overtime. I don't mean to be disrespectful but we should have won even though they also put more enthusiasm than us. Gladly, we managed to Iran by 26. Today, we lost against Estonia by 16. The last quarter was a killer for us (-11) with only 7 points scored. Our defense was good but we lacked players to put the ball in the basket.

For the 3 remaining games, we will face Luxembourg, South Africa and Armenia. The goal is to collect 3 wins. After a long injury (13 days), Charlie Wong will be back and should help us.

Time to conclude S66

This is the end of the season, we had a below average season ending with a 4-4 record. It pushed us back to #33, the best team not to be qualified for the tournament bracket. Losing against Scotland by 2 points after overtime was the game which we should have won to have a decent season.

Playing with a younger core

My decision at the beginning of the season was to get rid of all the older players and keep only the young core. The oldest player was Ge Jingwen at 32yo while Francis Jalius (24), Ray Michael (25), Scott Eames (25) and Rafael Salvado (26) were supposed to bring their talents to the team. After only one official game, I realized that we wouldn't be able to do well without a few of the older guys so I recalled Aanandaprakash Srivastava (34), Rob Abraham (34) and Michael Johney (34). These players were even more needed as Charlie Wong was injured for a long duration.

What will come (next season)

There will be an election and there might be a new NT manager so here are some general predictions about the near future.

I don't think it would be a good idea to keep those older players one more season so the roster will be very similar. There is one young player who may join the team, Simon Edwin Edin (23) has the potential to help the team despite his young age. Some of the young players keep improving and Ray Michael finished best scorer for the last official game of the season. Chris Londoh also finished strong after not playing at the beginning of the season. I ended up finding ways to use him.

Last words

As NT manager, I feel I could have done a little bit better but I also see the limited potential of our NT so I find it difficult to have high ambitions.

I will most probably apply as I really enjoy it but I may not be the most suitable person for the role.

Our team results have been good but some managers are to thank for those past results especially Westri who had a long term vision.

Thanks, it's difficult and it takes time to do it seriously. I try to do the best I can with the time I can spend on this game. However, this is fun, I like it very much.

What I feel the most frustrated about is how drafted players are more skilled season after season. In the last draft, there was a Malaysian player with low potential who had 85 TSP (and $10k salary). I remember a time when I didn't encounter any 70+ draftee and when there were very few 60+ draftees.