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Friendly Advice on Improving Your Team

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247463.1
Date: 9/15/2013 9:25:57 PM
Overall Posts Rated:
103103
It seems I am promoting back to III and I wanted to throw out a little friendly advice on improving your team. If this comes across as arrogant or condescending it isn't my intention at all. I have been playing this game longer than most in this series and have had limited success throughout the seasons, enough to feel comfortable tossing out a few pointers to those who care about improving their team.

I see several teams making 2 very large mistakes and it is my guess that some aren't even aware of the importance of these things. Game Shape= It really matters, ALOT. If you are playing your players 90-100-even 120 minutes a week, your GS is dropping. Players with high game shape play MUCH better than if their GS is low (it isn't subtle at all, it's huge). Managing your minutes is one of the most important jobs a manager does for his team's success. Read about maximizing your GS in the rules and forums. As a basic guideline, less that 48 or more than 80 minutes a week are likely to reduce your player's GS. These aren't exact #s, go to the forums and ask around. If I get 55 to 65 minutes per week I consider that optimal.

Enthusiasm= Manage your enthusiasm. I saw a guy play Crunch Time perhaps 5 games in a row, this is bad, very bad. Read about Enthusiasm in the rules, it is important. If you know you are going to lose, or you are much better than your opponent, play Take It Easy, stock up Enth whenever possible. Don't CT when you know you are going to lose just because you 'might get lucky". It's a marathon, not a sprint. Read about Enthusiasm.

Finances. The most important aspect of BB is the financial management of your team. If this concept turns you off then you probably aren't going to be moving up to higher divisions, just that simple. Build your arena, and monitor your ticket sales. You should be tweaking your ticket prices every chance you get (only 3 times a season) to maximize profits. Don't be lazy on this part, money is how you buy and pay salary of better players, squeeze every dollar. If you are selling out everytime a certain section of your arena raise the price of that section, or if you are well below max in sections lower the price. The optimum is to sell almost every seat in each section, this way you know you aren't underpriced. Read the forums. Don't keep too many players on your roster. Keep only the players you use every week. I see teams with guys on their roster who haven't played in months. Why? You are paying their salary every week, no matter how small. Get rid of them. If you need a crappy player down the road you can buy one cheap, stop storing guys just in case, it is wasting money. At this level you should be earning money every week, if you are operating in the red in D IV something is wrong. I promoted this season and was still making about 65k per week profit, so don't claim you were making a run. If you get to D III broke and with barely enough talent to get out of IV, you are coming right back here after a beatdown in III.

Players. I see a lot of managers try for the get rich quick approach by buying cheaper old men with decent skills. Don't stock your roster with old guys. Their value drops, their skills drop, and they have virtually no resale value (why do you think you got them so cheap?) I look at players as assets, monetary assets. The value of my club is not only the cash I have, but also the resale value of my players. These two combined create a total team worth, which you want to increase overall as time goes by, not decrease. Sure you can fill your roster with a bunch of 30+ players for cheap, but in a season or two they will have dropped skills, your team will be getting worse not better, and you cant raise money to replace them because now they are so old no one wants them, or not for nearly what you paid. You start the season with your team being [X]skilled. Through training, Enthusiasm, Game shape your team should be better at the end of the season, not worse.

Last edited by buzzerbeatme at 9/15/2013 9:30:18 PM

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247463.2 in reply to 247463.1
Date: 9/15/2013 9:45:41 PM
Overall Posts Rated:
103103
Of course it is OK to have a couple of old guys on your roster. I have my trainees, my core players, and then I fill the last couple of spots with some cheaper old guys. However when I buy those old players I consider that money gone. If I spend $1 mil on a 23 year old guard, in several season of use I can still sell him for close to what I got him for, maybe 600-800k at 27 or 28. I got several years good use, but I got most of my investment back, too. He is still an asset. Old guys aren't.

Training is very important. It is too big a subject to talk about here, but don't take training lightly. Get a training plan going, don't just wing it. It is better to focus on a few guys and really train them up than to think you can slowly train the whole team. Young guys train, middle age guys play, old guys fill last needed spots. Read about training.

I notice some of you have what I call 'Jordan-itis'. All you care about is scoring. You want to look at the box score and see a bunch of points. Great, wonderful, awesome, bad plan. Buying and training nothing but the scoring skills will end up getting you nothing more than high scoring losses. Defense matters, more than offense overall (imo). If we both started with the exact same teams in every way, and you trained offensive categories for half a season and I trained defensive categories the same time, I am confident I will beat you 8 out of ten times. Defense really matters.

Secondary skills matter, a lot. Skills like passing (the most underrated, imo. All my guys can pass at least some) handling, driving and rebounding matter. Rebounding on non big men is especially helpful. The engine rewards more balanced team rebounding over 1 or 2 high skill rebounding bigs and a bunch of small men with atrocious RB. If you are buying a guard, and he has the skills you want plus say Average RB, he is so much the better, you will out rebound other teams eventually because you have SOME rb on all of your guys. Also, RB is very expensive on bigs. Look at the transfer market and the prices of similar skilled guys with the only difference being RB. At high end (like Wondrous and above) RB gets costly, be careful. If you are in the market for a new player, especially an expensive game changer, take your time, shop around, get the right guy even if it takes a little longer. Hasty purchases can set you back financially a long time.

Anyway, good luck, was a fun couple of seasons, hope to see some of you on the court soon.

This Post:
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247463.3 in reply to 247463.2
Date: 9/16/2013 12:37:46 AM
Overall Posts Rated:
88
Congrats on winning the tournament and promoting to D III! And thanks for some of the tips you gave, I'll use several of them.

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247463.4 in reply to 247463.2
Date: 6/19/2016 5:43:30 PM
Overall Posts Rated:
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I love the tips you gave. What is the best training to use in your opinion?

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247463.5 in reply to 247463.4
Date: 10/28/2016 1:56:11 PM
Overall Posts Rated:
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Thanks for advice

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247463.6 in reply to 247463.2
Date: 2/21/2017 5:34:09 PM
Overall Posts Rated:
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Very helpful, thanks for the tips.