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I don't think we have used it enough to say one way or another. With that being said, I think it is definitely worth paying more attention to.

1. SGs do have a place in LI, but not in the manor I'm describing them. SGs is the least valuable position in BB. Does it have value? Absolutely. But would I play Yi, or a Yi type SG in a LI tactic? No because his lack of passing will harm the offense more than his great shooting will help it. Now, with that said I'm going to clear up my stance of SGs. Do I want our top guard prospects, ones that have a legitimate chance of the NT, to be built into SGs? No. I'm only going to recommend a manager turn his 18 into a SG if the prospect is around 6/7/7/4/4/4. and skills of the nature. That player is not going to be a U21 candidate if they take the time to train the passing up to a respectable level. And by that time a good season of prime training time has vanished. That player will be on the U21 radar though if they pump JS/JR/OD with some secondary 1v1 weeks. That prospect by age 21 will be 15/14/14/10/10/5, and a damn good player.

As for the 2nd part of your question, I'm not necessarily looking to move away from LI, but at the same time I am not content with telling people to train their players as if we'll be running LI. That eliminates options, and I like choosing from options. It allows me to choose the best team, instead of hoping this LI team that is waiting for me is good enough to win.

Also it is a known BB fact that 3p% is drastically decreased when running a LI offense, so playing a true SG, no matter how good, in LI is a waste of their talents, and harmful to the team. Put Irizarri in a RnG, or Princeton, and he's probably our highest scorer.

I'm great at building teams. I like SGs, and PFs, but if we have none that are talented, I'm not going to be biased and pick them if they don't fit in the team plan.

2. Hamel is my ideal PF. He was 11/6/5/8/8/5 15/14/7. You could nitpick with the 7 rebounding, but you'd be wrong. He was a stud. You take that build and run, no matter your ideal build.

3. At this point, I'm not going to interfere much with the season 27 guys, because the player is 20 y/o now, and following a predetermined training plan, so I'm not going to come in and tell them that what they've been doing is wrong, and to now follow my plan. If they've been told to go with a LI PG, I can really tell them to cancel that and go with scoring PG. If I see a prospect that I feel can go another route, I will contact the manager, find out what they're doing, and if it's different than the view I share, I'll see how they feel about my plan. If they decline, there is not much more that I can do.

Just glancing at the current age 20 crop, I can already see we're going to be an inside oriented team. Devin Farnworth may go down as the best PF the U21 has ever seen, Bob Chavarria is an incredibly advanced PG with great ID, and the next seven highest players, sorted by TSP, are all guards with great inside secondaries. That team has an identity, and it's an inside oriented one. It would be moronic if I tried and changed it now.

And as I woke up this morning I received a pm from a manager who said last season their PG made the U21 after being drafted with 3 passing. I've never heard of such a feat, as you hear about those that don't train passing, more than those that did. I'd just like to amend my answer and say if you have 4 passing and train it up, the elastic effect will be large enough for passing to pop quicker than thought, and that training passing is never a "waste". Last seasons guard crops were incredibly weak so who knows if that player is a candidate in most other years, but I apologize for the certainty in which I posted.

1. I do not intend to move away from the LI rather then gove us multiple options and be diversed. Also, at a club level I can see these pure SGs helping even more than the U21/NT so it'll be a benefit to managers. I've been pushing for diversity for several seasons now and everyone seems to finally be coming on. I feel SGs can have a place in a LI offense too. I know lot is to be said about low shooting percentage, but by training passing when the SG is 21 and getting it up by usin the elastic effect a SG could have 12 passing at the end of the season which would help a lot. It also gives that option for kick outs and when you need those desperation threes which we hate seeing now because nobody can shoot them.

2. Hamels was a great PF that played fairly well. I was not a fan of his rebounding but he benefited the team in other ways. I would definitely mention to those training PFs that any build could make it and be effective but I would advise to get more rebounding. I've posted earlier my ideal PF for the U21 to see what I would like.


3. I won't have much say in this. Once again Oriolekid and I have similar answers, but in all honesty there isn't much that can be done for next season. My goal as manager would be to work on those 18 and 19yos to begin building the diverse player sets that we need.

Inside iso can definitely be an option to test. When I mentioned it early it was to test it and see how the shot distributions are. Some teams are better suited than others but we don't know how the GE will react till we try it. If it does not work how we like then we don't use it. But it could also turn out to be a great option for the future.

A guard very well could make the team with low passing if they are trainin it when they are 21. Also, I could see such a thing happening for pure SGs because of the elastic effect. I'm just going to throw this out there now what I would expect training wise for a SG. Train OD and JR first because they are the slowest later on. The second season start mixing in 1v1 with the OD and JR. When they are 20 begin catching up the JS and more 1v1 to where it makes it an option to use in an outside offense. When they are 21, spend the whole season on passing since the elasi effect will be in fill effect and he will pop ever 1 to 2 weeks. His passing will be caught up, which at this point he has become a candidate to be trained for a NT SG as well. This is also the point you can begin specialize him a bit.

Reading through here I saw someone ask why you'd want the 3 different offenses blah blah blah

and the response was to stay LI focused, but have the ability to vary blah blah blah

and it was said, something along the lines of: Unless some mid-tier country can knock out our best lineup because of predictions... blah blah blah


My question is:

How much experimenting have you guys done with the predictions? Do you know what the measured difference in effect is?
Whats the effect of 1 guess right and no guess vs opponent 2 no guesses, and etc for every combination?


I did do quite a bit of experimenting with it in my scrimmages, and in the games where I guessed right and they guessed wrong, it was a MONSTROUS difference from what I expected the outcome to be, so I see it as a possibility a mid-tier team, could pull an upset vs our best lineup (contingent we guess as well and miss)...

but against real competition where the wins are more scarce anyways... The guessing would be very determinant in outcomes, do you agree?

Another question: It seems like we are wasting time trying to train these true SGs and true PFs, and their roster spots are wasted anyways, if we are going to run offenses that do not make the best use out of them.

How do you plan to make the best use out of the players?
If the players available are not able to be more successful in offense due to tactics vs a player with lesser TSP, would the lesser player then be on the U21 due to their compatibility with the offense?
How does this benefit our team?
How does this hurt our team?



ALSO: I would like to hear from all the candidates if possible. Not just the 3 people speaking the most. But rest assured, I am still very interested in those 3 people's answers and opinions and philosophies as well!

It really all depends on what you feel the mismatch as. I know it seems weird but inside iso works best for guards and SFs where as outside iso works best for bigs. That may sound funny but its because of the mismatch. Rarely will you find in BB that a big man has a huge
Advantage down low and same with the guards on the putside. So you run. The isos to take advantage of their secondaries, but working opposite to what you think. Yes DR is important for the bigs, but more so if you run the outside iso because then then they will need to make the dribble move to get the shot. So in today's world of guards being loaded for the inside, it can be to their advantage to get isolated down low against other guards with bad ID. Then if they can't make the play they pass it out or get it to a big man.

If you have a guard with more IS than any of your big men, yes, in theory that would work just fine. But I think both isolations are essentially the same, just that it looks for the best inside shooter or best outside shooter depending on which flavor you select - or if your best inside scorer is also your best outside scorer, it might be identical. It may also not be, of course - I've only run the isolations like five or six times total and gone against them a few more. But either way, if you get the ball on an iso to your big man with a lot of IS but low handling or driving, he'll never get the ball down low - because the offense isn't designed to find him down low, it's designed to get him the ball and get out of the way.

I have not had much experience with the GDP other than scrimmages which I used a very weak team. I know Magiker is testing this with the NT over the next couple of weeks so it'll be interesting to see the outcomes. I know it will also be something to test in the first few scrimmages to start the season as well.

I do think this can become a huge factor in games and can really change some things up. If it is a huge factor, we will have to continue keeping teams on their toes so they aren't guessing as much. One way to do that obviously goes back to the fridge rent skillsets needed to run multiple offenses, which then doesn't mean we are wasting our time training these different players.

I have been saying it for several seasons now that we need to get out of this full LI mindset and now the GDP finally has helped do this. There are several ways to have a good team that doesn't consist of just PGs and Cs.

One way to utilize these other players is through neutral offenses like PTB where players tend to take the appropriate shot based on their skillset. However, there will always be those players that aren't totally equipped for an offense but can still contribute. Just because you run a LI doesn't mean you shouldn't have a SG, especially now, because we may utilize him then in an outside offense, when some other player may not be best. We will have those players that work good in every offense, but it is those special SGs and PFs that will make us successful using those other offenses.

As manager would you focus on developing specialist players (LI Big, Outside SG) or hybrid players that can play more than one offense.

Both. Considering that both can be very helpful in their own ways, I could see myself focusing on both types. The thing that a lot of people seem to forget is that the roster can have 18 people on it and as long as most of them are reliable managers with good game shape management then we can have plenty of different players on the roster so that they can be utilized depending on what offense we decide to run.