BuzzerBeater Forums

My apologies for my rapid and sloppy reading of your level. I was really responding to your (now I see too modest) statement about "having no clue about basketball". I agree with your assessment about the tone of many responders / comments. If the question is sincere, we should treat it with respect.

A friend of mine once said to me that if you are playing a game correctly, you win. I don't know if that is true, but that is the easy measure of what I mean by "success".

"Infinite ways" : here is a short, off-the-top-of-my-head list of different things I have seen other teams do that helped bring about success:
-- one team did nothing but sell players to raise revenue. had a small stadium.
-- i've seen teams with tremendous front lines, but eventually they suffered for lack of guards. and i have seen the opposite.
-- colossally skilled players, very expensive. alternatively, in my league, the best teams have very deep benches, 8 players, all with relatively modest salaries.
-- coaches training their top player, others their top players, still others buying other people's training.
-- for a while, at a certain stage, i thought 19-year old players tremendously undervalued by the market. others only want 18 year olds.
I guess i am remarking on the wide range of choices / decisions / possibilities -- or more accurately, one must prioritize how one proceeds -- deciding on the relative merit of training versus building a stadium versus going far in the Cup tournament versus playing TIE while mastering the schedule and evaluating what other teams may be doing. At the very highest levels, I imagine the margins for improvement are quite small -- that the best teams are but one or two or five points apart, and i imagine that developing team free throws that may squeeze out .5 more FTs per game may make a significant difference because all teams have a good defense, good shooters, and a deep bench. Getting there means understanding this game in a very deep fashion, and i suppose i think there are a lot of different ways of getting to understand this game.
indeed, "infinite ways".

No apology necessary. Nothing modest about what I said. I am a newbie who doesn't understand the game, so I go by newbie threads to learn, and when I am told those threads are crap, but no one wants to come up with a decent alternative, it is astonishing.

Also I'm in a small country so there is nothing to be proud of being in Div III, trust me. There wouldn't be any skill in being in II either.

Your measure of success is an interesting one. I think I'd prefer a measure which is easily quanitifiable, and one which everyone has the same understanding of. Different people are going to have a different appreciation of what playing correctly means, and I guess under that measure everyone is a self declared success, and therefore the success has no value.

Your discussion of ways to succeed really boils down to different use of resources. This game does not offer infinite ways. You have only one way - build resource and spend it well. The more resources you have and the better you utilise them, the more successful you will be. Simple.

Last edited by CorruptCop at 4/29/2010 7:27:09 AM

I think he is trying to say there are a whole ton of ways to build resources.

I'll try to give my take on a few of the questions you have raised. It is only my opinion, but from your comments, I think you will appreciate these.

1) The newbie thread position skill list is adequate, simply not all-encompassing. In real basketball, every position uses every skill at some point in the game and the designers say (perhaps not often enough) that they have structured the game engine to show this. So no skill is worthless.

2) The question of which skills a SF should possess depends on the style of offense you wish to play. You DO need to make a choice here. This is where your lack of familiarity with real basketball hurts you, I think. Most of us that have followed basketball all our lives understand what it is needed to run the five different offenses. You need to select an offense, then buy/train players who can run that offense.

Defense is harder to advise on because it depends on what your opponents are playing. This is the reason you don't get solid answers on the SF question. What I mean is that a SF with high skills in OD will be less than useful if you are in a league where the top teams all have inside player offenses. He will defend well on the outside, but the other teams will overpower him inside.

Those are some of the reasons no one has a definitive list of exactly what you should train at each position. The basic skills are the list you see, what you do after that is up to you. And you do need to make choices to fufill your tactical choices.

3) As to success, there is only one real measure--win!

Other goals are more specific. Mine is to decide if this game is really worth playing. I played seasons 3-5, got promoted from IV to III and was on track to be promoted to II when simply stopped playing. Why? It was too easy for me. No challenge. Plus, too much of the game is unrealistic. I could write more about that part, but it would not answer your questions.

I hope that helps.

Oh yes, and watch more basketball on TV if you can. It will help you immensely.

(118426.7) - maybe you could use this one, this was the opion of three german NT and the guy who make it in this forum - you could also read it at the page linked in the signature but i believe the english part in the swedish forum is better then our german text ;) Even if it was a bit more detailed.

Cheers. Really nice post.

I've taken to watching ESPN in the hope of catching NBA and College basketball, however it seems every time I go to ESPN America they have Ice Hockey or Baseball on!

I have no problems with Ice Hockey, it is a rather cool sport, but baseball...ugh.

Basketball is quite rare to see, which is a surprise to me as I've heard Basketball stars command the biggest salaries and sponsorship deals out of the popular American Sports. Of course I am happy to be corrected on this.

I must confess I was very disappointed in you.

All is forgiven! That is a brilliant link. I see it even contains your own opinion of what to look for in each position.

If you were a lady and next to me I would kiss you (if you would let me!).

Many thanks.

I've taken to watching ESPN in the hope of catching NBA and College basketball, however it seems every time I go to ESPN America they have Ice Hockey or Baseball on!

Meanwhile I live in NYC and cant watch a single hockey game w/o paying for it on NHL.com. All the NBA playoff games aren't on ESPN as the regular networks hold the rights to them.

Last edited by FatCurry at 4/29/2010 10:44:01 AM

Similar situation with football here, or soccer as you might call it.

We have to subscribe to specialist channels whereas many overseas countries can watch the EPL for free.

It's the way of the world alas.

I think passing is very important for a SF seeing they are the link between the big men and guards.