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However, from reading this debate, Jason, you have come off as narcissistic and defensive. You have made several personal attacks on other BB-users whether they were taking part in the election or not.

I must say I disagree with this statement. He has been the only one out of Namssor and himself that has had his ability to manage/build community/etc... questioned. Therefore he had to answer questions that were directed towards him. Did some answers seem fairly harsh? Maybe, but some of the things directed at him were as well.

I have read every post in this thread. I have sifted through everything and I agree about some things you said as well. In fact I could see where some things I said probably cluttered the thread. Guilty. I admit it. However I am disappointed in how you are coming across right now. I know you aren't trying to but the vibe I get is a "holier than thou" one. I understand you are frustrated, but placing yourself above others with your post is not the way to handle it. Again I understand this is not what you are trying to do, but that is what I believe it's coming off as.

Now as for your questions...they are good ones. I wish Namssor was here to answer as well. He hasn't had to answer any questions that were questioning his abilities unfortunately, but I would have liked to have heard his take on these.

I think both candidates would be great for the NT, however for slightly different reasons maybe. Many have asked questions about how Jason will grow the community....well the same way Namssor would. Neither have to do much work in this regard because we have a very large group already formed that work every day to do this. The community is set up and the ground work is laid. Neither candidate will do any harm to that work as they both understand the importance. To me there is no wrong choice between the two. Namssor has great experience with the USNT and abroad. He has been playing at a high level...yet he has been here since season 2 and never won the NBBA...closest being the semi finals. In the beginning it was easier to get there, and recently he made it back. He is a great manager of his club team nonetheless, but there are some red flags at the highest level IMO. Jason on the other hand remains to be seen. This upcoming season will be telling and the next few as well. He has had a meteoric rise and he must be doing something right or his team, regardless of payroll, has dominated the leagues he has been a part of. Maybe he does actually have something fresh ideologically? Remains to be seen of course. I do know that nobody is on BB more than Jason. Period. And that makes me feel comfortable that great amounts of time will be put into the team as well if he won. I love things about both candidates and both are qualified...but they are not the same. No matter who is chosen the team will be in good hands I just hate to see only one person having to answer for personal attacks on their own abilities and not the other.

I am not writing this to show where any allegiance lies, but I did feel the need to post in response as I felt your post was a little off base in some ways. Again I respect what you have done with the U21 team and I also feel you are asking great questions in your post. I just think you expressed yourself in a condescending way.

I hope you are joking... Let's just focus on the debate...

Also, you should be proud of the success you've had. But be careful comparing your teams success to others. You're assuming they're playing the game for the same reasons you are. Oriole is training one of the best 20 year old bigs we have in the pipeline, and, potential permitting, could make the U21 team next season.

Sure he may have come across a bit rude, but he did have a valid point. I'll try to make it clearer:

Namssor has been active on the offsite, especially in the tactics debate threads and opponent scouting. He has seen what has and has not worked in the past. He understands nuances that you may not be familiar with yet. Being a member of the offsite won't help you with your club team. But you're not running for manager of your club team. Being a member of the offsite will absolutely help with learning about the nuances of the NT. If we play a blank lineup, Namssor has a feel for what the GE will do with certain players. It may be beneficial to set some positions and leave others blank. The learning curve will be steeper. Fortunately, that's what the first round of America's is for. Good luck.

1. I do know how it works...I do not trust it completely....Unpredictablilty are my concerns. I used it in this game (35641608). This was a huge upset for my team in the cup, and the blank lineup worked flawlessly. It managed my players minutes, kept them fresh, substitutions were good. I didn't agree with its choices for starting PG and SF, but it was okay, and it wasn't something that was scary, or messed up.

I used it in this game also, PL Playoff game, (35731502). Everything worked perfect into the 4th quarter. About 3 minutes into the 4th quarter I built a 23 point lead. Despite playing Low Post offense, the game moved my dominant big man to SG, and that started a 9-0 run by my opponent. Late in the game, my PG was put in at PF or Center. My lead was cut all the way to 6 before we regained control again. Was this more because of the PL game engine? I don't know. In game 2 of my championship series in Season 15, my opponent used blank lineup against me. The game started, and continued throughout using guards at big man spots, and big men in the guard spots. It was an ugly game, but his team whomped us in that game. So even though it was completely unconventional, largely messed up, I guess the bottom line is it worked.

2. With anything communication is key. I would definitely want to work with the U21 coach for that transition. Having not been part of the program, I don't know the ins and outs at this point...but I always assumed the the two work together on things like that.

3. A lot of DII teams are chomping at the bit to get a piece of USA Elite. I believe they are very underestimating him. I watch all of my games, every minute. I can honestly say, no game is as grueling to watch as the ones with USA Elite. His team just forces you to do things, that do not make sene for the tactic you are playing. Clearly he has done a masterful job of training OD/ID, lots of IS, Driving and Handling, and a decent amount of passing. Everyone of his players can play all 5 positions on the court because of this. I believe because of the great balance of OD and ID that everyone of his players have, it makes them challenging to score against because on every play, your team has to get past players that have both OD and ID. Its makes their defense double effective. His cup loss was to an NBBA team. he only lost by 18 but he Tied, and the NBBA team Normalled him. I think that is pretty respectable. I think the one area that USA will struggle with is that most of his really good balanced players are getting old enough that the pops are going to really slow down, and his young trainees are way to raw to compete in DII. I am interested to see how he transitions to DII and what he does to build on what he has already done.

To be continued

Last edited by Jason at 7/29/2011 4:14:33 AM

1. One of the biggest obstacles we face in developing quality NT players is how expensive they are. One area of concern the new training presents is that the random factor could make it more difficult to keep costs down by specifically training the ratings the trianing, and only the ratings they are training. For instance, right now, if we train OD, we know that it sub trains Driving, Handling, and Inside defense to a lessser extent. Well, as we have discussed, high level NT players are very expensive. Its diffiucult to have one of these players, and have a solid roster to compete in league play as well. So if a team owner is focusing on defense, already concerned about the rising salary of that player, an in addition to the OD pop they aer going after, they get a Jump Range pop...it could be very costly.

Judging by how the salary formula works, I do not agree with this. If a Center pops in Jump Range it will have literally 0 impact on the salary and vice versa for guards. Similarly, the salary formula is calculated based on sublevels so little green arrows do not matter.

In my example, I assumed it was obvious I was speaking of a guard. And In fact, if you are wanting an OD pop, and do not want anymore JR pops, this new training system will impact the players salary. And like you said, this is the case, whether you get a pop or not. Its not matter of just the arrows, its the sub levels. So if the mystery random bonus traning happens to be JR of a guy who is already high in JR, that would add more expense to his salary even if he didnt actually pop in JR. And in this example, if you werent wanting any more JR pops for that guy, but the mystery random training was for JR that week (which is totally out of our control) then it will affect the players salary.

The question was "how would you allocate them to best suit OUR team's needs?" I'm concerned that you answered with a player that best suits YOUR team's needs.

Actually I did....I read it as YOUR not OUR.....My bad :-(

Last edited by Jason at 7/29/2011 1:19:45 AM

Also, you should be proud of the success you've had. But be careful comparing your teams success to others. You're assuming they're playing the game for the same reasons you are. Oriole is training one of the best 20 year old bigs we have in the pipeline, and, potential permitting, could make the U21 team next season.

Sure he may have come across a bit rude, but he did have a valid point. I'll try to make it clearer:

Namssor has been active on the offsite, especially in the tactics debate threads and opponent scouting. He has seen what has and has not worked in the past. He understands nuances that you may not be familiar with yet. Being a member of the offsite won't help you with your club team. But you're not running for manager of your club team. Being a member of the offsite will absolutely help with learning about the nuances of the NT. If we play a blank lineup, Namssor has a feel for what the GE will do with certain players. It may be beneficial to set some positions and leave others blank. The learning curve will be steeper. Fortunately, that's what the first round of America's is for. Good luck.

I totally understand that. And Oriolekid and I had a BBmail exchange this morning...we are cool

Here is the thing....I don't have specific experience as NT coach, but that doesnt mean I wouldn't be great at it. I don't have time on the Forum that a lot of people do, but it doesnt mean I won't thrive on it. All i can do is speak of what I have accomplished in this game, and what I know I am capable of. I have no doubt that Namssor is qualified....everyone keeps making a big deal of his time on the site, and how important it is. Clearly, there is a lot about this job, that can be learned from the site. At the same time, when it comes to being involved with the community, and bringing people together...He's had 70 posts since January of 2009. Barely over 2 a month. So all i can, do is speak to this belief that that the forum is so important, (I believe it is) is to show all of the things i have done in other community settings, and with my team, and promise to bring that same intensity to the NT program.

Last edited by Jason at 7/29/2011 2:20:58 AM

ok, no problem there. Thanks for clearing it up. That confusion might also have contributed to Rambo's narcissistic comment earlier.

Here is the thing....I don't have specific experience as NT coach, but that doesnt mean I wouldn't be great at it. I don't have time on the Forum that a lot of people do, but it doesnt mean I won't thrive on it. All i can do is speak of what I have accomplished in this game, and what I know I am capable of. I have no doubt that Namssor is qualified....everyone keeps making a big deal of his time on the site, and how important it is. Clearly, there is a lot about this job, that can be learned from the site. At the same time, when it comes to being involved with the community, and bringing people together...He's had 70 posts since January of 2009. Barely over 2 a month. So all i can, do is speak to this belief that that the forum is so important, (I believe it is) is to show all of the things i have done in other community settings, and with my team, and promise to bring that same intensity to the NT program.

I completely agree with all of that. I don't think any reasonable person could argue that you would not be a great choice for NT manager. I don't doubt for a minute that you will thrive in the NT community, whether you win this election or not. Just trying to convey the point that was made earlier.

From what's being said here it seems that the consensus from all the candidates is that a main obsticle to success is the lack of a 18/18/18ish big man. And that such a big man is not likely to be trained in the near future since foreign owners don't want to train the prospects, and USA I.1 is too competative for an owner to take on the financial risk and train such a player.

So, let's say that, without a big dollop of luck, such big men will not be a reality for the team anytime soon. My question to the candidates is,
1) What are the ideal G / SF prototypes to cover/compliment for our existing frontcourt deficiancies?
2) If such players don't exist now, how would you encourage their training by U21 grads or others so that they exist a few seasons down the line?

1. i think the real is asnwer is to improve the deficiencies, not just compliment them. I am not sure any type of G/SF is going to make our big man problems go away,or make it so its not a concern anymore. So the real issue , is to address the bigs.

2. I think the program is moving in this direction. The more community we have involved, and more success we have, the more you will see people wanting to be a part of this. And in some cases, make sacrifices. There are guys who have been playing this game since nearly the beginning. Some of them are getting tired, or burned out, and looking for a new challenge. That is why we see so many top level coaches do massive rebuilding projects. Perhaps some of them would be rejuvinated not by tearing down and dropping down to dIII or even DV, but maybe we could get 1, or 2, of them to commit to training these players for our future team. Or maybe some of them could buy the expensive players and keep training them into the machines we need them to be. I know this sounds easier said than done, but it only takes 1 or 2. I would start a committee for this purpose. If we talk to enough guys, and get their attention before they get too deep into their own rebuilding plans, maybe we could accomplish this. Again, 4 or 5 of these would be great, but it only takes one or two to make a real impact!

Last edited by Jason at 7/29/2011 4:17:58 AM

I think I have a Guard that has potential to be on the U21 team and possibly the NT in a few season. I am looking for some help training him and all that good stuff. So if you would like to give nme week by week advice with this just bbmail me