Hello
I think there’s a misconception here about Outside Defense (OD) being 'free' or cheap on Power Forwards and Centers. That’s just not true. OD is actually much slower and more costly to train on big men compared to guards, so investing heavily in it takes significant time away from training core big-man skills.
Why would a big man need high OD in the first place? This is where the core debate lies: where does Inside Defense (ID) end and Outside Defense (OD) begin on the floor?
For example, if an opponent has a stretch 4 hitting midrange shots, teams often switch to a 3-2 zone. But midrange shots should fundamentally fall under Inside Defense, not Outside Defense. If the game engine treats midrange defense as OD for big men, that's where the design disconnect is.
Big men shouldn't need more than around 8 OD to be effective. A big man's bread and butter is, and always should be, Inside Defense—not chasing players on the perimeter.
Let go further;
If a big man lacks Outside Defense (OD), what is his alternative to stop stretch players? He has to rely on Shot Blocking (SB) to contest and deter those mid-range or perimeter shots.( huge argument right now)
Pushing for both OD and SB to be made more expensive makes no sense to me /These skills are already extremely expensive. Because big men train primary skills so slowly compared to guards, spending training cycles on secondary attributes carries a massive opportunity cost
1.Training Speed & Efficiency: Big men gain OD and SB at a far slower rate. Every week spent training these skills is a week lost on core attributes.
2.Offensive Sacrifice: Investing heavily in OD or high SB directly drains training time away from vital offensive skills like Inside Scoring, Jump Shot, Passing, or Handling.
3.Team Economics: Forcing big men to spend precious training weeks on expensive perimeter tools hurts the entire team's offensive development without offering a fair defensive return.
I actually agree with you—there has to be a real balance here. But right now, expecting big men to stack high Outside Defense on top of everything else is asking to have your cake and eat it too with some views,
If a big man lacks high OD, his natural tool to deter perimeter and mid-range shots has to be Shot Blocking (SB). You can't expect bigs to build elite OD and SB just to cover basic mid-range space without creating massive imbalance in player builds.