BuzzerBeater Forums

Bummer, man. At least Gorostidi will be back for Saturday's games. If he and Stamper are healthy, you've got a good shot at promotion this season. Three promoting seasons in a row would just be mind-blowing!

Yeah, that would be something. I'm hoping Gorostidi is healthy for my upcoming cup game. I was hoping to play him 48 minutes to keep his game shape up.

Your teams doing well this season, bro. 3-3 start's not to bad; hopefully you can make a playoff push, soon! GL

Hello everyone, I only just now figured out how to get to this forum as I have been playing less than two seasons, but now that I've figured it out I should be reasonably active.

Honestly I'm somewhat shocked that my team is off to a 5-1 start and I am positive that my #1 place in the conference is temporary, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

Good luck to all the other managers, it looks to be a competitive season.

Haha, don't worry, it took me 6-7 seasons before I found out about these forums.

Congrats on the great start, bro.

Hi, w_alloy!
Glad to see you making use of the league forum. You've definitely got a good team this year. I wouldn't sell yourself short. What you may lack in star power, you more than make up for in depth and the way you maintain game shape. You'll be a force to reckon with come the playoffs.

Tuesday's game was epic for you - taking on the team with the biggest point differential in the conference and ranked #2... on the road. You started strong and, even though WHV came back in the middle, you had a big push at the end of the 3rd, and staved off a late comeback. That sounds like quality to me. ;-)

And, good luck in interconference play. We'll have to see how we stack up against the Big 8. Last season they owned the Great 8. Let's reverse that this ssn.

Who did you possibly have on Anthony Lucas, and what kind of OD does he have--48 minutes for Lucas, 4-39 from the field, 3-20 from distance, only 1 assist? That's unbelievable, and it can't possibly have been Smith guarding him; no way does a 19yo have enough OD to shut down a player of Lucas's caliber, even if you single-position trained it every week.

Well, it was Smith. But he's a got really good defense and I'm riding maximum enthusiasm. So that kicks up my effective defense.

My guess is that the absence of both Conanan and Silva plus my boosted defense took away a lot of Lucas's passing options, forcing him take a lot of bad shots. You can see this in how he took nearly twice as many shots in this game as usual. The only other good option your team had was Sharpe who was matched up against my back-up at SF.

But Lucas is a great player (especially for 20yo) and in a balanced lineup he'll really let loose.

I mean, I'm sure he's got good defense, but 11/9 JS/JR + 10DR +13 PA can't get him better looks than that, against a second-year player? I'm still a little surprised, although your explanation is probably the right one.

I'm going all-out to get Lucas on the U21 team, as you can see I'm sacrificing team success for Lucas's benefit. So hopefully in a U21 lineup he'll do better, and hopefully also when I sell Conanan I'll get enough to build a team around him.

Credit Smith though, holding Lucas to 10% shooting is a remarkable feat for any player, enthusiasm notwithstanding.

If you ever do sell Connan in the future, he might end up on my team. I'll need another guard when I do rotation training again -- esspecailly if I make DII, but I have another need to fill -- backup PF, possably a new Center, so it just depends.

Last edited by A-Dub at 6/11/2012 6:04:28 PM

Well, you're right. I would've expected more out of Lucas. The 8OD 7ID 4BLK on Smith would usually have a very hard time taking on a beast like Lucas. It's almost like when the Pistons invented "Jordan Rules" to be able to play against the Bulls. But without his Pippen or his Rodman, the rules worked.

Anyway... I looked at the advanced stats from the offsite and the play-by-play trying to figure out what happened in the game. And a big part of Lucas drying up was that he only got free for 13% of his shots. I think this is a factor of 1) R-n-G being a fast-paced offense (which lowers the threshold for deciding to take a shot), 2) the lack of good passing options, and 3) that a blowout will often make percentages worse for the losing team, since they take more and more desperate risks (worse shots) and more 3's (which are already lower percentage shots). I also wonder if the game engine switched tactics for you to outside isolation at some point. That's almost what the box score looks like.

Anyway, I hope Lucas gets on the U21 team. It would be cool to be able to say I know and am in the same league as the trainer of a USA U21 player. I think he has a great shot. The sacrifices in competitiveness look like they'll pay off.

@ Magus: I'm selling Conanan at the end of this season. If you want him I can put him up earlier, but right now he's good for splitting minutes with Lucas at PG. But next season when Lucas's salary gets somewhere from $40-50K and Conanan's goes up too, I won't be able to afford both of them.

@Simon: those stats are very interesting. I'm a little surprised Lucas only got free for 13% of his shots, but that does explain a lot. Because you're right, normally Lucas should do much better. I understand why his shooting percentages were down, but 10% just seemed kind of low regardless of the circumstances. We'll just have to move past it and at least be grateful he got his 48+ for training.

I used to run patient, but then switched to RnG last season when I was playing Lucas and Conanan together. I should switch my default tactics back to patient, I guess.