BuzzerBeater Forums

Great to see new players in BB!

Manual and Bubbles videos are great start. First, I would say that start doing things that you find fun so if you want to compete from the start, get few cheap players and try to win games. If you like training players, buy couple trainees and focus on that. So following instructions are just to optimize but not the most fun way to start playing.

But if I would start a new team and try to build for future, I would minimize all your costs to collect as much money as you can and invest to your arena. You don't have to worry about minimum salary during first 1,5 seasons (24 weeks) so I would try to build a 10-12 player team with really low salaries (2-10k salary each) and take advantage from those 24 weeks. During that time, invest your money to build arena (20550 is optimal with 14-16k bleacher, 4-6k lower tier, 500k courtside and 50 VIP) and continue building your arena every time you get any money to spare until you reach 20 550. There are also other team infrastructure to invest, but you can worry about this later. After your arena is ready, you can start investing to your players, but this will take few seasons.

After your interim season ends, buy 3-6 trainees who are 18 yo with potential perennial all star to MVP and don't pay more than 1-50k per player. There will be more competition during offseason, but there will be also a lot more options available so you can find this kind of cheap players with a bit lower potential. Then invest to trainer and youth trainer (both level 4 and I would encourage you to buy these coaches already 1-2 weeks before offseason) and start training those players for U21 NT. After 24 weeks expire, you can start buying players to get to the salary floor, but this is again place to minimize costs and buy only bargains.

Also, is it worth training 2 positions at the same time? I see that most people suggest training only 1 position at the beginning. Why?

There are few training that are 2 positions as default (Jump shot, 1on1, rebounding) but other trainings are for 1 position as a default. Basically the training speed is about 75% if you train 2 position instead of 1 so only reason is training speed.

Last edited by Lappa at 9/2/2025 7:53:15 AM

Thanks a lot for the detailed answers, everyone. Really helpful to see the different perspectives.

I think I'll definitely make the arena my main focus, especially since it looks like I might be promoting to Division II already - I just won my first league game against the other conference leader so things are looking good. From what you all said, it seems like having a strong arena base is the one long-term investment that always pays off, and I don't want to fall behind there.

On the draft side, I actually started with 24 scouting points right when I signed up. Given that there are also some bots in my division, I'm tempted to use them this season and see if I can find a hidden gem. Even if my draft position isn't ideal, at least I'd be able to learn the scouting system and maybe get lucky. And like Gaillimh mentioned (328427.3), if nothing good comes out of the draft, I can always go for one of those "back draft" players on the transfer list at the start of next season.

I can only confirm what has already been said that the arena should be your main focus when distributing expenses. In particular, it’s has been recommended to max out the courtside seats (500) and luxury boxes (50) fairly quickly, as they don’t suffer as much of a drop in attendance during bad stretches and losses compared to the bleachers and lower tier seats.

Regarding your situation with the draft points: yes, you could use them right now, and since there are currently only four other managers in the league (three of whom have a better W-L record than you), you’d be in a good position to pick up a solid talent. The only potential issue is if new managers from Romania sign up during this season (4 weeks) and take over some of the bot teams—then your chances might decline.

The alternative would be to hold on to the draft points, especially if you’re confident you’ll get promoted later this season. After promotion, you’ll face much tougher opponents, and as a new manager moving up right away, it can be very difficult to keep up with the stronger teams. In that case, you might end up relegated again, but you could then use both this season’s and next season’s draft points together in the following draft, when your position might allow you to select better players.

Personally, I’d hold on to the draft points for now, see how the season develops, and keep an eye on your opponents in the other conference. Toward the end of the season, if not too many new managers have joined and your win-loss record remains slightly worse than some of the other human managers, then it could make sense to spend them.

That’s just my opinion, though I'm biased, as I had a similar situation back when I started and I actually kept my draft points and landed 2 top talents in the following draft in a higher division, who went to play for the U21 NT and win the consolation tournament.

I’d like to hear what others think about this though.

Last edited by LennuK. at 9/5/2025 2:01:51 AM