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...and now we have a 2nd worthy candidate.

Okay so here is my questions for the candidates.

1.One of the keys to the success of the Polish and Chilean NTs this season is the fact that most of their NT players were in the hands of members from the respective countries. I believe this is something we need to have happen to get over the hump. How do we accomplish this in the US?

2. What else do we need to do in order to get over the hump, and how do we achieve these things?

1. I believe with the network of people I am close to, that I can not only encourage this, but make this happen going forward. I agree that nobody is going to care for our own players like we do. Especially with so many top level coaches choosing to blow up their team and start over, what a perfect time for this!!

2. The progress that Jfarb has made with a quality group of people that care about the program, putting in the time to scout, study tactical choices from our competition etc, has helped move us in this direction. There needs to be a continuation of that. As people start to see the progress our NT team is making, and we have even more more pride in the team, you will see more of #1 happening as well.

The problem is, we've already seen good enthusiasm management from past NT managers, and unless you decide to buy the entire national team off of the transfer list, there's not much you can do with game shape management. The way to improve the team is to get more managers to know how to train players, and train them relentlessly no matter what kind of salaries they have to pay. For this to happen, we need more people to be joining the offsite forum because that's the best place to get training advice, and you haven't even joined yourself. My advice is to join the offsite forum, and participate in helping out the NT/U21, and then you will gain more respect from top managers, along with becoming a better NT manager candidate.
EDIT: I see a few people beat me to the ideas, but it would be helpful if you joined the offsite.

Last edited by moflaffle at 7/26/2011 2:32:23 PM

Do you understand the financial stress of holding onto a Medrano or Bronson? Saying you'll put more NTers on US squads is easier said than done, especially with the weird phenomenon of people paying more for US players.

Hahahaha. Atleast we can all have a little fun. The question I have is what can I do to help the US NT win the championship?

I completely agree that not many people know anything about my first question...which was, "What do you know about running a NT?". That is part of my point. If you don't know much about it, then I don't believe you are fit to be manager. There is probably only a select group of guys that have this ability, IMO, and I believe we have to make sure one of them is our next NT manager. That was the point of my original post in response to a post by Jason. I want someone who knows, not someone that "kind of" knows or wants to grow into the position.

Do you understand the financial stress of holding onto a Medrano or Bronson? Saying you'll put more NTers on US squads is easier said than done, especially with the weird phenomenon of people paying more for US players.

I do. And I never said it would be easy. However, as the NT team is more successful, and USA pride grows, you will see more and more people want to make it happen. Also, I didn't say I would "Put", I said I would push for...I would make it a priority to to encourage this. I would talk to the people I know, and encourage it, and have them encourage the top level people they know also. Whether timing is right for these teams or not, I don't know..I can't promise it would happen...but if we want control over our own players like the previous post said countries like Polland has, this has to be an area of interest for us. If we are successful at it, we will indeed be a better team for it.

The first thing you can do is join the offsite and get involved. Go sign up here:

(http://s3.zetaboards.com/BuzzerBeater_USA_NT/index/)

Then send Jfarb a bbmail so he can verify you and give you access. Would love to see you around there. After that read around the threads and see if you cant find a way. I will be helping in the scouting department this season.

This kinda goes to all candidates:
How do you see/visualize yourself working in the NT coach position?

I don't plan on doing things much different than how jfarb was running it. We have an awesome setup going with the incredible activity on the offsite forum. There are so many differing voices from all levels of experience and BB divisions, it really provides a great help when deciding on a roster/lineup/tactics/enthusiasm.

Would you adopt the same staff? How much time do you think would go into your analyzing tactics? How to do you see yourself communicating with not only the large USA fan base but international managers that own our NT players?

- I would definitely have the same staff of volunteers to do whatever they would like to do to help out the NT, whether it be domestic scouting, international scouting, helping with training, talking to other managers, etc.
- I was the international scout for jfarb last season's Worlds tournament. Every week all season I would put together a lengthy post breaking down our opponent in terms of roster, GS, prior tactics, prior lineups, and their projected lineup/tactics. I love analyzing tactics and opponents :-)
- See my last post in this thread about how I think communication with all managers of NT players is extremely important for GS and training issues. I have tons of experience doing this as the New Zealand NT manager for 6 seasons.

What are your goals as NT coach? How do you feel about all the current players? Any talents incoming that you think should be worked into the fold as well?

My goals are obviously to win the World Championship! But short of that, I just want the US to become a multi-talented team that allows us to play any offense or defense we want with successful results. This will keep our opponents off-balance and will keep our gameday options flexible. In order to do this we need to have some better big men, as I stated in my last post. Let's be honest, we were quite one-dimensional last season, but we did what we had to do with the players we were given. I would love if Bland or Maples or Moore could another couple of pops, or if Carson or Merrill or Clement could train up to become monsters in a few seasons.

Last but not least, what would you say to new managers looking to volunteer and become more active and participating in the NT and U21 NT? Any ideas on where people could start helping out?

Just get active on the USA offsite forum! That's the absolute best place to start. We always want opinions on the gameday threads, positive and negative. There's no comment that's useless there, everything is taken into consideration. If you want to do something more specific, I answer every BB-mail promptly, and I'd love to find anyone a spot with the NT crew!

Sorry for the word mixup. Thanks for the response.

Good follow up question.

@Jason, sometimes it is about who you know. Regardless of the outcome of the election I know you are going to be involved and I hope that you use your connections to still try and make this happen regardless.

Do you understand the financial stress of holding onto a Medrano or Bronson? Saying you'll put more NTers on US squads is easier said than done, especially with the weird phenomenon of people paying more for US players.

Absolutely. It's brutal. People always say, "Oh just get the NBBA teams to buy all our NT players, they have the money". Truth is, we don't. I bought a $284k Colombian NT guard halfway through last season. I just had to sell him because it just wasn't going to financially work if I still wanted to be competitive and stay in the NBBA. The salaries make it impossible for most teams to have a $250k+ guy and still compete for a title.