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the oldest userbase (notice our country id # is 1

We're not the only Season 1 nation, and NTs did not start until Season 3.

Yes, but, you know, having the founder of the game, and most of the BB's i think qualifies us as the oldest userbase.

If you have any questions geared towards me, address them here.

Okay, I'll bite. Here's your chance to answer some of my doubts.

I think it's safe to say you've proven to be a bit of a polarizing figure. At the same time, you call for a USA NT that is more open to conversation outside of those from within an inner circle. To me, there seems to be some disjoint between your words and your actions.

You mentioned your time back in III.12 last season. I don't think you gained too many supporters from your time there, and you stated in your speech in this forum that you decided to be the league's heel because a PL member suggested it. What this seemed to show was a blatant disrespect for those below DII, and you even stated that you were amused by dropping down.

At the same time, you seem to indicate that you would reject assistance and/or input from those tied to the current "regime." While you state that this is due to a history of underachieving at the current level, it still goes against the message of inclusion and openness.

Basically, what it boils down to is this: your game management and tactical decision-making aren't really in question. But how can we believe you when you say that you'll reach out to users in lower divisions and look for more input from users in the country when you have shown a greater history of being influenced to become the enemy of your league and being so quick to antagonize anyone who has provided input with past NT decisions?

Yes, but, you know, having the founder of the game, and most of the BB's i think qualifies us as the oldest userbase.

Yes, but, you know, having the founder of the game, and most of the BB's i think qualifies us as the oldest userbase.

Yes, we are indeed the oldest userbase - with Charles being user #1, that's indisputable.

Charles happening to be born American doesn't mean we magically have the best players.

Well, for starters, I'd reach out to you. I respect your skills, even as I was tryng to bait you into CT'ing me in the regular season (and burning enthusiasm for future matches... it didn't work)

There is a league mate in III.12 that also said they would help me, someone you might find unlikely, and someone who's offer I have graciously accepted.

I would also reach out to a surprising number of old adversaries, and obviously people that I am friends with going back to before my buzzer beater days.


Look, this is what it comes down to.

The last 6 seasons have encompassed close to 2 years. Let's say between Juice and his cohorts they have averaged 90 minutes a day of involvement with the national team.


That's 1000 hours. If you were getting paid for that that might be worth $45,000.

Meanwhile, I think maybe i spent 20 hours all in on my match simulator, 30 hours on my player evaluation tool that i might have to scrap with the new match engine, and maybe 10 hours over the last two years screwing around watching nt caliber players of different countries and trying to figure out things.

So I can understand why someone would be upset at someone who has spent maybe 6% of the time they have on buzzerbeater activities that arent directly related to their own team.


With that said I realize that while I personally am not putting in 300 hours into my term (150 would be more realistic), I still need to get a reasonable piece of time in terms of scouting from other people, and general thoughts on player development (my admitted relative weakness).

But as far as tactics, why would i listen to tactical advice from the regime that has underachieved?

But to say that I don't have friends, or dont have peple I would reach out to is misleading. And come on, you have to admit that me heckling brazil's manager in broken portugese after we smoke them would be hilarious. I am looking forward to learning italian if need be!

Thanks for the quick and thoughtful response.

We keep hearing from you that you have tactical advantages, or that you'd be able to do something inherently different than Juice did, that would prevent us from having the indignity of missing the semis at worlds. But every time someone asks for more information, you don't give anything concrete -- almost to the point that it feels as if you're bending over backwards to not get nailed down to anything specific.

Yet, in this post: (122310.67) you state in pretty blunt terms that you don't think that any NT manager should have 2 terms.

So, my question is this: if you don't believe that having more than 1 term is appropriate for an NT manager (and thus, presumably, aren't planning to run again), why are you being so evasive and general on your replies to specific questions? If you're not going to run again in 2 seasons anyway, why not go ahead and be specific and give the voters a clear opportunity to decide between you and wozzvt and myself? There doesn't seem to be a lot of benefit to staying vague unless you're trying to avoid saying something that you can get nailed down to in a re-election campaign.

Azariah,
I have answered every question you have thrown at me. What have I evaded? I would like to know.

I have answered your detailed questions very specifically
I threw 3 questions back at the field in the debate thread. Wozz answered one of them. Care to answer one of the others?

I guess I wasn't very satisfied with your responses to my question posed in (122310.145). I respect your decision not to critique Juice's performance, but then when you answered the U21 portion in (122310.147), I felt you kinda just threw around some probabilities and made up numbers to support your contention that you were analyzing things statistically. In your follow-up (122310.151), you then trotted out some statistical terms and generalized numbers, again not providing much in the way of support for the numbers you came up with.

Even allowing that you feel the research you've done and would be bringing to the NT job provides you with a competitive advantage that you don't want to have endangered, why not provide some actual hard numbers behind at least one a posteri analysis, to give the voters a clearer idea of what "regime change" might mean for the US NT?

ETA: And as far as the three questions, I missed them in my marathon reading sessions where I was skimming through for things I needed to answer. My answer to all three will have to be, I'm not certain. I would expect, from logic and the way that you phrased the questions, that there are statistically significant decreases in FT shooting on the road, on a TIE, and to OR chance when you shoot more 3s. That said, I would also expect that those effects are fairly small.

Last edited by Azariah at 12/19/2009 11:54:08 PM

I guess I wasn't very satisfied with your responses to my question posed in (122310.145). I respect your decision not to critique Juice's performance, but then when you answered the U21 portion in (122310.147), I felt you kinda just threw around some probabilities and made up numbers to support your contention that you were analyzing things statistically. In your follow-up (122310.151), you then trotted out some statistical terms and generalized numbers, again not providing much in the way of support for the numbers you came up with.

Even allowing that you feel the research you've done and would be bringing to the NT job provides you with a competitive advantage that you don't want to have endangered, why not provide some actual hard numbers behind at least one a posteri analysis, to give the voters a clearer idea of what "regime change" might mean for the US NT?

ETA: And as far as the three questions, I missed them in my marathon reading sessions where I was skimming through for things I needed to answer. My answer to all three will have to be, I'm not certain. I would expect, from logic and the way that you phrased the questions, that there are statistically significant decreases in FT shooting on the road, on a TIE, and to OR chance when you shoot more 3s. That said, I would also expect that those effects are fairly small.

well, sorry that you weren't satisifed with post 151.

I think most people could put two and two together, specifically people that had a good basis in statistics.

it should have been implied that if i think we are 20% to win a game, we are something like a 11-12 point underdog under those circumstances. If we were 70% to win a game, we might be a 7 point favorite on average. How do I get to those numbers? Well you would look at past matchups, expected shooting percentages, and try to mean-adjust for any outliers (injuries, an unexpectedly horrifying freethrow shooting performance from a prominent ft shooter in strong form going 3-15).


once you make those adjustments, you will have a reasonable idea of what kind of favorite or underdog you should be, and then make the adjustment to the decision tree.

Am i going to go too deeply into detail about the cases you mentioned? No. I dont know 100% the circumstnaces around argentina's enthusiasm, but i would hope most voters see how i think about games, and would get truly detailed analysis from me shortly after the start of really big games.

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as for your bottom paragraph, well, you should know those answers. if you don't know them, you should really ask around asap and find out, or you know, read a few posts down from my question.