BuzzerBeater Forums

I completely agree with what Oriolekid said about our lack of scouting recently. Both of us have had other things going on outside of buzzerbeater. I know in the past he has said he has finals and schoolwork to do, and I had college classes to worry about as well as workin 30 hours a week during that same time. That doesn't show our lack of commitment to this team though. If I was certain that I had that qualifications to be your U21 manager I wouldn't be running. So I think asking a question about the last time we have been part of the scouting team is irrelevant.

Oriolekid and myself have been part of the offsite for several seasons now. I joined season 14, and I'm not sure about Oriolekid. We have done our fair share of work for the NT/U21 whether it is scouting or helpin with game planning or even other things. I don't want to say E.B.W. isn't a great candidate because I think he is and this season we have 3 great candidates for U21 manager which rarely happens. I just think everyone needs to get away from always having a short term memory of who has done what on the offsite.

Is it possible to run an outside offense next season?

No it's not. We do not have the kind of guards to successfully do it. In fact, we have only one legit SG for an outside offense but we would need more. That one guard is at 15/12 for JS/JR where the rest have lower JS/JR and were trained more for inside offenses. We can try outside offenses against weaker opponents but we won't fool anyone. Inside offense will be our only real threat to opponents.

Now this I do not like. We can obviously run neutral offenses but we will then see more jumpshots than we would like from our guards who aren't great. During my time as U21 coach I will be working to eliminate our lack of ability to run multiple things. We need to be able to have the depth in our player base to be able to do more things and have flexibility and thy will help the NT too later on down the line..

Is it possible? Sure.

Will it happen? Unlikely

The guard group is pretty weak this season. There are no shooters at all that will make this team, and that's a shame. The team will still be fine this season though. There are a lot of good bigs this season, and a lot more depth than I can remember us having. Also the SF crop as a whole is great. Their are 4 SFs who in any other season would have been the best SF on the team.

What would your ideal build for an outside guard be? I've got a couple of very trainable guards who could be those shooters in a couple seasons' time, but just what exactly are you looking for?

For an outside guard at the U21 level I would look for 14/14 in JS/JR ideally. However that could be changed a little. I don't think it's entirely impossible to have guards similar to what Jonathan Yi was at 21 with 14/15 to start the season, but training seems to have slowed down a bit according to popular belief (I'm not even sure it really has). As a baseline though, I would aim for AT LEAST 13/13 to start the season when they turn 21. Overall, for guard skills, I would look for something like this from a pure SG to start the season-14/13/14/13/13/9.

Some of those could be changed a little based on how training has gone. If you add more JR ( like Yi or others have had) then you may lower the passing a bit. I do believe you could create a great SG for the U21 with low passing as long as passing is then trained when they are 21. At this time too, it could be an even more ideal time to train passing because the elastic effect will help your players pop quicker at every 1.5 weeks.

Last edited by Isaiah at 12/26/2013 1:48:53 PM

Question to all candidates:

I've been hearing a lot of talk about having true guards and true Power Forwards, and I would like to know a little bit of what are you ideal "True PF" Start build and U21 build. I'd like to know because I may have a player or 2 who may meet those requirements

The vote really comes down to, for me, Smallfry and Oriolekid. You guys were both really active on the offsite during my first go round in this game, you've been committed to the NT for quite a while, and I dig a little outside of the box thinking.

How will your tenure be different than fewmit's and previous managers? Keeping in mind that most of what previous managers have done has been wildly successful.

When you look at the scope of the NT program, what needs to be changed tactically and in training to have sustained long term succes at the world level? What part can you play in that improvement as the U21 manager?

I'll answer this one thoroughly.
Typically, an 18 y/o will be on the map at the time he is drafted is if he has around 50 TSP(total skill points). Are prospects with less than that still viable U21 candidates? Absolutely. This season the top 8 bigs, going by the databases PF rating system, have an average TSP of 78.25, with a split of 34/44 GSP/BSP So let's say we have 38 pops to work with.

My perfect PF would be 8/3/5/7/9/5 13/13/11/6. That's 80 TSP, and a 37/43 split. 32k salary. 2 pops high, but you don't need 8 JS to start, and this is assuming SB, passing, and JR are 3, 5, and 6. For me, this is almost a lock assuming potential is at least SS.

The things you should know about a PF. JR is very overrated, and tedious to train. Often times you won't be facing a PF with OD higher than 5, so the difference between 7/3 and 7/5 is negligible. Driving is very effective and cheap(try free), and handling is also free for a PF. So you can even skimp on IS and go 10/14/13 if you wanted, but the PFs JS, and driving will make them score like a much more expensive PF. Plus having a big that doesn't turn the ball over is a huge plus.

For the most part it is the same. The scouting network and database is amazing, so that does not need to be changed. The offsite game planning threads will be made, and ideas will be shared.

What I want my mark to be is having my scouts identify the HOF players with workable skills, and I want to personally mentor them into building a PF, or a SG, or a LI PG, or an Outside oriented SF. The difference between the USA's NT and the NT powers of the worldm like Poland and Czech Republic, are those insanely talented specialty players. Do yourself a favor and look at the players that are on sale for Poland, Portugal, and China rosters.

Do we have any players that are even close to that build? No we don't. We have guards who have some IS, and bigs that have one or two guard skills they don't suck at. We have Nemesio Xermade, Robby Serano, Frank Tanner, and Tobe McCullough, who are 31, 27, 31, and 29. They won't be awesome forever. We need more players like them.

And that starts at the U21 level. There is not a single reason why the U21, and NTs should not be the best in the World. I think I can help both of those teams get to that point.

America, (colorful expletive) Yeah!

I have to disagree with Oriolekid somewhat. For a PF build youll need decent JR to start because at the U21 level you will want to have at least 6JR. Once it dips below 4 you start to see iffy shooting but you also dont want to waste time training it so ideally they will start with 6. Also, I would look for more JS. You could easily train him 1v1 forwards and itll train both JS and IS. As an overall build I would look for something like this: 9/6/4/7/9/5/12/14/12/8.

That build requires good starting skills but for a player to truely by a PF at the U21 level they will need to start with good JS/JR/DR already.