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National Team Press Release




Season 21 Preview

Tomorrow we start season 21 so let me give a quick preview of the first round of the Asia tournament.

We are the 9th highest ranked team in Asia so we are given the 3rd seed in Group C. Here is how our group stacks up.


Pool C

Seed Team Rank
1 Australia #8
2 Iran #13
3 Nippon #50
4 Indonesia #57
5 Prathet Thai #77
6 India #80
7 Việt Nam #98

Overall the group looks fairly comfortable for us to advance. There are 3 teams we should handle, 2 teams we should struggle with and 1 team (Indonesia) that will provide a good challenge.

Even better though is how our schedule is set up.


3-Sep #98 Việt Nam
10-Sep #80 India
17-Sep #77 Prathet Thai
24-Sep BYE
1-Oct #13 Iran
8-Oct #8 Australia
15-Oct #57 Indonesia

With this schedule we start off with 3 games we should be able to get through without too much trouble, though we’ll have to protect against one of them trying to get an upset with a CT. Then we have a BYE followed by two very difficult opponents. Most likely we go into the last game at 3-2 and probably already securing the second round. I expect the final game will be meaningless for both teams, but we’ll be ready if needed. If everything goes well, after the first three games we can focus on preparing for round 2.

Expectations for the first round are for us to advance to the second round with a 4-2 or 3-3 record.

Please everyone be sure to continue training your young players and keep their game shapes high.

Let me come back to you in a week or two with specific requests. I've decided to work on target skill profiles for each of the young players as well as a roadmap of how to get there. We can adapt these based on the needs and preferences of each manager. This will take a little time to put together but I think it will help us build the team better overall.

Great win against Vietnam and Sonoda was the Bushido!

Any win was good... but I'm not sure it was "great". Fairly sure Taiyo has some concerns (that he kinda expressed last night).

We should be happy to get the win, but that was a rough game. Basically our poor depth inside was exposed in that game. Coming in we were without two of our key bigs, Kouzuki (injury) and Hayakawa (Game Shape). Then Furusawa fouled out in just 17 minutes. That left us with Sonoda, Yasujiro, and Matsumoto. I love the young guys but they just aren't ready yet.

The injury to Kouzuki is very sad but on the bright side the young guys are getting better and better every season. USA seems to always manage to get a few players to a $70,000 salary by age 21 each season and at least $100,000 by 22 so surely our young guys will be ready to be major stars by next season. Very tough choice what to do with Kouzuki. If I sell him I doubt he will play again, if I keep him I am not sure what I am paying his salary for. THen again maybe next season he can just be a very good backup on my team and I can keep him around to honor his NT glory.

What are you talking about BLING...You haven't won a trophey without renting. You say IS/ID are overrated but you had a 17 IS beast on your finals team. You even had a 20 REB before it dropped to 18 before the final match. If you think high salary beast are garbabge why do you rent them for the cup and finals? I seriously doubt you can win the cup or the league with the team you have right now which means you will rent again. At least Sharman wasn't so brash. At least he admitted to winning by renting. 20 rebounding cost more than 20 IS and you had one of them on your playoff team. You talk about this great system you have but when the games get tough you rent. You even rented a triple 19(The Polish Frisbee) with crap secondaires, and to top it off..you started him. Win the cup or the league with less than a million $ roster and then we will believe in this systen of yours.
I know you will come back with the Hate the game not the player...but action speaks louder than words, and your previous post to Kyoto was BS. You rent mega rebounders and IS/ID and passers to win you trophies and then talk about how salary doesn't win BLING...WHAT???

Last edited by Yellow cake at 9/5/2012 2:20:18 AM

Wolph, I get what you're saying, and I think everyone actually gets it. But I think you're looking at extreme ends of the scale.
The reality is that we cannot see the skills of other NTs/U21 teams. In lieu of being able to see skills on other teams, all we can do is speculate... and like it or not, salary remains part of that.

If you guys all realized how overrated ID/IS are, how overrated extreme PA is, how overrated JS is...and how much all 4 of those stats are costing you week to week...you might have some bling in your case.

Come on man... your own "bling" has come with a whole lotta circumstance.
And on your points of what skills are worthy, and which aren't - I refuse to believe that there is only one path to success. What I've seen in my limited time here definitely does not bear that out.