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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.

Hello

Why did.u Skip my comment to u.. nothing i said was. Rude?

Hello

Look, man, I get where you're coming from on the salary formula, but I think we're talking past each other on what "free" or "cheap" actually means here. Nobody is saying OD spikes a Center’s weekly paycheck. We all know the salary formula is generous to point guard position OD.

The real cost isn't salary—it's **time and potential cap space**.

Even with the 1v1 elastic boost, sinking two or four full seasons into single-position OD on a 206 cm guy eats up a massive chunk of his training life. Those are prime years where his Inside Defense, Inside Scoring, Rebounding, and Passing are completely sitting on ice. So agin not free. Plus trainer level 5 cost will 50-65k a week by then.

Bringing up a 206 cm NT prospect being trained at PG/SF actually kind of proves my point. That’s an extreme, hyper-specialized build where an NT manager is intentionally sacrificing years of team production to force-feed off-position skills. You can't really apply that to standard, efficient roster building for 95% of managers.

Also, you completely glossed over the Shot Blocking point. If a big man isn't stacking high OD, **Shot Blocking has to be the natural threat that contests and alters those mid-range and stretch attempts.** Expecting bigs to stack high OD *and* high SB on top of their core interior primaries is asking for a super-player that takes 8 seasons to build and maxes out their potential ceiling before they're even well-rounded.

And look, pointing at the Game Engine and saying *"well, that's just how 3-2 zone is coded"* doesn't address whether the design actually makes sense for game balance. Mid-range defense sits right at the high post—it's the middle ground. Forcing a mid-range contest to rely so heavily on OD creates a weird disconnect where traditional bigs with solid ID and SB get penalized for just playing like big men. My point. a lot want Od to more expensive it already is. But the fact to matter things, how thing work are kinda a disadvantage to big men

At the end of the day, forcing bigs to choose between sacrificing years of interior development or getting burned on basic mid-range space just doesn't feel like balanced game design..

Last edited by Big city at 10/12/2026 5:13:55 PM

Hello


LLM?

Do you actually follow the game to know that point guards and combo guards at certain heights get much faster, more generous evaluations than taller players?

You track that kind of positional value, right? If not, how are you analyzing player positions and missing that And in the position of Nt coach?

Hello,:


"Kindly, I’m not getting bogged down in your salary formulas or game code arguments—especially when it's clear you don't fully grasp how the game engine actually functions in practice. Honestly, no one truly does, which makes your absolute claims counter-productive.

If you actually understood the game engine, you wouldn't be sitting here complaining that **only 2 defensive tactics work out of the 6 to 7 tactics we actually have**. What sense does it make to push for banning one of the only two that actually work? You wouldn't suggest breaking that if you actually knew how the engine operates—you'd be advocating your foundation tactics so they actually function to all..

Your whole argument relies on theoretical simulator outputs while ignoring actual team management reality

You're ignoring the height speed modifier- Shorter players get natural advantages in outside training speed, while tall players take massive time penalties to grind out guard skills. That completely destroys your idea of a 'free' skill up. A high-level trainer costs a fortune, and a taller player will never train outside skills as fast as a short point guard—never!

You're wasting prime years of big men by Force-feeding high OD onto a 206+ cm big man means sacrificing crucial seasons where their actual inside primaries (Inside Defense, Rebounding, Inside Shot) should be developing.! These kinda of player are useless.he cant score?

Pointing to an extreme NT-style mega-project doesn't change the fact that the defensive meta is restricted to just a couple of viable tactics. Trying to patch that flaw by forcing big men to train guard skills is just a Band-Aid fix for a broken tactical balance—something BB Marin himself pointed out as well.