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Decision time! What do you think: shold I CT my next cup game, since my opponent will TIE against bad teams, but against the non-bot cup team he faced he normaled even though he could have TIEed? I feel confident he'll normal me. Looking at the salaries of his players, I definitely can't TIE and would probably lose on normal without Faina, maybe even with him. I also know I can build up my enthusiasm again in league games and I'm so much better than any other team in this league that I can almost certainly beat them regardless of enthusiasm, although Avenel Falcons and Erie Razors are both doing a good job of managing their enthusiasm. So it's not like I absolutely NEED the enthusiasm for league play. I remember you had a pretty good cup run last year before getting an unlucky draw this year, so any advice?

Also, McNeill had 1 foul in 36 minutes of play heading into the fourth quarter of a blowout. He was playing at PG for training. He picks up 5 freaking fouls, the last with 6 freaking seconds left to go, and doesn't get 48+ minutes for maximum training. I know it's not a major difference, especially compared to the reduced training speed for being 22 years old, but still, very frustrating. Now I know what you must have felt like with Pringle sometimes.

LOOOL I saw McNeill had 6 fouls and it said 48 minutes in the box score, oh wells.
I would CT, I had the same problem as you except my game right after was the War Eagles and an Allstar Break and I just normal'd that game. I rather go for the 50K and go further into the Cup, because...well free 50K does help for when you promote this year. Its not like anyone can beat you.

And a pretty solid cup win. Not dominant, to be sure, but solid enough to make me wonder if I could possibly have won it without CT'ing. Considering it knocked my enthusiasm from 12 all the way to 5 (!) and I'm playing a D.II team, I figure I'm out of the cup next round, so I'll have plenty of time to build the enthusiasm back up. In other news, Smiley popped in OD and also randomly in rebounding (mixed blessing there in slightly higher salary), Iriarte popped in OD, but no pop for McNeill which, due to his age, is not a huge surprise.

McNeill isn't popping, because of his to his height, i'm guessing you trained Pressure, 22 is still pretty young...Berard popped 5 times in 6 weeks pretty good c:

Last edited by Lemony at 12/9/2011 4:14:50 PM

Well, the nice thing about having Zhizhi back: not only do I get a great passer to play PG for me now that Iriarte seems to have found himself a job at PF, but I get to play Smiley at SG for single-position outside shooting training without compromising my lineup. My only question: if I want to make Smiley a true PG, which I do, then I have to do a lot of passing training. And what's the point in having three players with really high passing? But I really love the idea of having him be the PG of my future, not the SG, especially since that's where I plan on playing Faina due to his inept ID, so McNeill can slide to SF and not have his mediocre ID exposed by D.IV and D.III PFs. In that case though, where does Iriarte fit? Backup PG? Then what to do about Zhizhi? And who will play PF, and how can I afford a decent one, especially while still expanding the arena, which is too small for D.IV in the long run? These are all long-term questions that I'll have to answer when Iriarte can no longer get by at the power forward position. But for now, Smiley has popped 8 times (granted only five of those pops are in guard skills-1 JS, 2OD, 1DR, 1PA, with the other three being IS, ID, REB) and should pop soon in HA, JS, and JR, maybe DR too. So he looks to continue progressing quite nicely. I'm not saying U21 just yet, but he'll be a very good player for my team for a while.

In other news, ho-hum, Smiley played 48 minutes at SG, the outside offense and defense ratings took a hit, but still another 58 point victory (I know, I'm slacking from the normal 65.7 average, but it was without the two top wing scorers Faina and Aldridge and also due to 2 3-pointers in the last 30 seconds). There's just no excitement. I'm looking forward to D.IV, where I expect to be able to hold my own but am equally sure that I won't immediately contend for a title. But even if everything went wrong and the more experienced D.IV teams exposed my guards' lack of perimeter defense and my forwards' lack of inside defense, while simultaneously shutting down my center by playing hack-a-Catapang (0 for 313 FT attempts at last count, and even worse now), even if wins were nearly impossible to come by, I could at least take pleasure in knowing that the wins I did get actually meant something. And I don't expect it to be that bad. But even if it were, it would still be more exciting than this.

I must admit that there are some perks about playing in a bot league, one of which is that I can play whatever lineup I want, and that's mildly entertaining. I've toyed with the thought of playing Catapang at PG against the Falcons, just because I can. But still, even the fun of that wears off. It does make it easy to train Smiley. And also hopefully in a mostly bot league I can pick up another decent draftee along the way to either train with Smiley or sell for cash to pave my entrance into D.IV--I know Erie Razors does scouting and the Falcons might do some too, but there's usually more than one good prospect anyway. You might say that there's rarely more than 1 elite prospect, which is true, but I did get Smiley from them, didn't I?

Anyhow, there's still BB work to be done, fine-tuning the roster as I alluded to in the first paragraph of this late-night semi-rant. There's also IRL life to be lived. This is just a game, after all. But it's a great one and even the tediousness of working my way to the top in some ways enhances my enjoyment. The things most worth doing never come quickly or easily, and the same is true here. So, starting point league V.101, final destination NBBA (with Len Smiley hopefully leading the charge)!

Well you should be happy. I tried a CT in back-to-back cup games. It didn't matter much because I still lost by 30 (which was pretty humiliating considering he was playing a fair amount of backups and trainees and TIEd to boot) but it also dropped my enthusiasm to 4, which will hinder my ability to lay the 70 point beatdowns on bot teams for a week or two.

Smiley failed to get a pop this week from single-position JR training. Very disappointing week as no one popped. Hoping for better results moving forward.

All-stars! Due to a very effective LI offense which resulted in no single player taking more than 9 3-point attempts on the year, no Tornadoes players made the 3-pt competition. However, we have a whopping 8 of 10 all-stars, including:

Starting point guard Len Smiley. Go rookie!
Backup swingman SG Jose Himadas.
Starting SF Rafael Faina. Missed significant time with injuries, but such a deadly offensive weapon when healthy that the fans voted him in anyway.
Backup SF Antonio Astudillo. Filled in very capably when Faina was out and was very efficient on the year.
Starting PF Angelo Iriarte. He was actually the backup on the depth chart, but because of blowouts where McNeill would sit the whole 4th quarter he played as many if not more minutes than the nominal starter. And BOY was he effective, averaging 9.2 rebounds, 7.4 assists, and 13.5 ppg on .598% from the field in just under 26 minutes per game. Can't argue with that production.
Backup PF Rich McNeill. Some would say a poor man's Faina, but still a very capable offensive weapon and a better defender and passer. Iriarte outshone him but he still performed very well.
Starting C Simon Zoric. Zoric started over the more talented Catapang due to his better passing/FT shooting and also to keep Catapang's minutes low. Hence his stats were better, giving him the starting job.
Backup C Lorenzo Catapang. 11 IS+13 ID = ∞ domination in an almost entirely bot league.

Also, Li Zhizhi was 3rd in voting among PGs, despite missing time with injuries and backing up Smiley all season. Damian Aldridge, the backup SG, was 4th among SGs. So all my starters and backups appeared in the voting, and 8 of them were all-stars. Is this some kind of record?

With an eye toward the future, the Kittanning Tornadoes have acquired rookie Brazilian guard Leandro Palma (23815630) for $25000. Although not blessed with awesome potential like fellow rookie Len Smiley, Palma has great height for training purposes at 5'11" and solid outside skills, specifically in JR, OD, and DR. As you might expect from a rookie, he has a lot of improvement and it's a shame that he missed half a season of training. Still, with his height and consistent single-position training, he should be a contributor for many seasons either backing up or starting alongside Smiley in the backcourt. He does rebound the ball very well for a guard, something Smiley doesn't do, but otherwise his inside skills are mostly lacking. Still, players like him are not easy to come by and he was well worth the money.

I look at the game at halftime, see Choy Soo Jung injured, my team's first injury of the season and Pringle with 4 fouls...I knew I shouldn't have scrimmaged you...

I just got back and looked at the game and I see my new trainee Palma with 3 fouls and Faina (who needs 48 minutes this game, having played none in my league game) with 4 fouls and a horrible offensive performance, and I too think...I knew I shouldn't have scrimmaged you...You're going to completely destroy my training for the week if either or both of them were to actually foul out, of course.

It's also kind of perversely funny that my team was the first this season to injure one of your players. Of course it's not any of the other teams in your league, nor any of the other teams you scrimmaged, but it would be me. Evidently the GE has decided that last year's rivalry means there there needs to be bad blood and excessive physicality between the teams or something. Either that or it's my charming demeanor carrying over to my players on the court...

Never again, will I scrimmage you.