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Really depends. If he doesnt have MVP+ potential, it can be worthwhile to train SB. If he does have high potential, you could consider rebounding, but personally I'd only train it above 7 if he has HoF+ potential.

I personally don't think you should train SB on a guard, and you definitely don't need to train Rebounding.

I dont agree with you.
Fact is, there is no proper answer to the question about SB or RB, but this game is about matchups. You can win it by RB matchup as well. Once your PG will collect 7 REBs more than your opponent´s PG than you have hell of an advantage over him! You can win your game by having IS20 but would you advice to train it? Question is how other skills are trained, what potential your player is etc. As everything there are many ways to succes, some are cheaper, some are faster it is up to you which way you chose.
The same applies to blocks, but here there is so much undiscovered. It looks like blocks force opponent to look for player with lower blocks to go over him. Once you fill up your roster with blocks what is going to happen? Do we know? What skills are going to be crippled once you chose to train SB? Is it worth it? Where is the balance?

Once you fill up your roster with blocks what is going to happen?

At a time, I had SB 7-10 on my PG-SF and SB 17-19 on PF and C. From my view, the opponent will go for the "weaker" ID in the paint.
As an example:
PF with ID 18 and SB 19
C with ID 16 and SB 17.

Playing a 3-2 zone should even out the amount of defense actions between PF and C through a season. But this never happened. The C had an average of 15 defense actions per game, the PF only 8-10. The C was also the one who had more blocks every season. It's clear because he defended more shots. Breaking down to a percentage, both guys blocked around 35-40% of their defended shots.

Later I let an even weaker C play besides the PF.
C with ID 13 and SB 15.
The same happened. It got even worse. The average defended shots of the PF dropped to 6 per game. And the C had to defend in some games more than 20 shot attempts. The good thing is, he ended up twice as the world leader in Blocks at the end of the season and once as the runner up.

In Utopia I have two identical defenders on PF and C (Both ID=SB and both with the same skills). And now it works almost even. In some games the PF has to take more defense actions, in others the C. But over a longer period it is more or less the same.

Taking this into account. it looks like two even skilled defenders are the best solution. But I like it if one of them is slightly weaker in ID. You can use him as a trap. If you know that his ID is enough to play at the needed level and his SB will stop almost every shot attempt, you can "guide" the opposing offense towards this big. But you have to be sure, that your guy isn't a fouler. But that's the first rule for every defense specialist.

What I suspect, but couldn't get enough numbers is that too high ID+SB will force the opponent to take more mid range shots (jumpers). And if your players lack OD you can get hurt by it. This is something I noticed in Utopia last season. My two bigs had to defend a lot of mid and even long range (3ptrs) shots. And here they started fouling...

Last edited by Nachtmahr at 3/27/2017 9:36:53 AM

So that is what I suppose - SBs navigates your opponent to a player with lower SB skill, right? (or worse defender lets say). But once you had that good bigs how it ended up at outside? Werent guards the weakest link for opponents offense?

I had this game:
PG: ID13 SB6
SG: ID16 SB8
SF: ID17 SB11
PF: ID17 SB14
C: ID18 SB13

opponent played Look inside, I have correctly guessed his Look inside.

His PG: 9/9 inside shots
His SG: 9/14 inside shots
His SF: 4/4 inside shots (IS19)
His PF: 3/5 inside shots (IS20)
His C: 3/6 inside shots (IS19+?)

I bet his PG/SG were about IS18 too.. Correct focus guessed could have something to do, but werent the blocks at bigs the problem why he forced to take inside shots over guards?

Last edited by LA-zajino at 3/27/2017 10:03:02 AM

So that is what I suppose - SBs navigates your opponent to a player with lower SB skill, right? (or worse defender lets say).

Yep.

But once you had that good bigs how it ended up at outside? Werent guards the weakest link for opponents offense?

Part of. There were more jumpers (mid range area between paint and 3-point line) and the opposing guard took more 3ptrs. Even in LI. But thanks to the 3-2 and its bonus on OD it was manageable. Until a point where my OD was just not high enough to stop the shots.

I bet his PG/SG were about IS18 too.. Correct focus guessed could have something to do, but werent the blocks at bigs the problem why he forced to take inside shots over guards?

What defense did you play? 3-2 or m2m?
If you played m2m, than most of the shots from his PG-SF were defended by your PG-SF. The biggest gap in offense-defense is on PG and SG. His SF took only 4 shots and these were high % ones. The rest was to low to take and they played around your SF. And as you posted, his PG and SG took most of the inside shots. That would indicate a mismatch.

So guards should have high SB to avoid those crazy high IS guards. How about ID & no SB guys and SB & no ID guys? Is it enough to have SB to distract opponents players and let them focus on other guys? Is ID enough to stop IS? This would be cheap in salary trap..

I played m2m. Biggest missmatch at pg/sg obviously.

How about ID & no SB guys and SB & no ID guys? Is it enough to have SB to distract opponents players and let them focus on other guys?

If you go this way, you will end up with a bad defense. The guy with ID>>Sb will defend a lot of actions (because of the high ID) but fail to block the shots (beacause of the low SB). And the player with SB>>ID will defend only a small amount of shots (his ID is too low so he is too bad to actually defend the shots) but the shots he defends, he will block (because than he is strong).

Is ID enough to stop IS?

If ID is higher than IS, it could be enough to influence the player before the shot. So you don't defend the shot by itself, but the whole process before it is taken.

I should've explained better. I wouldn't train RB or SB on my guards, but he can if he wants to. While you are right about the matchups and rebounds, I'm not willing to take the salary or cap space hit (for RB). Just my 2 cents.

RB is a good skill for every player, trust me.

That's good info, thanks!