BuzzerBeater Forums

Posting here as last season I got in trouble for posting in the 'Speeches' thread.

Glad to see that there are people stepping up to battle for HPP's position. Should be an interesting election

Good luck all!!

Before I say anything else, I will say that I am quite glad to see two real candidates throw their hats into the ring on day one.

With that out of the way, here are some questions to kick things off:


For: Bernardsville Fire
- Why did you not volunteer to help at all with the post-draft scouting or any other aspect of the National team?
- Why should we trust your tactical skills when you've failed to promote out of the bottom division two seasons in a row?

For: Mogul
- What do you think are the limitations to heavily relying on the CoachParrot tool?

For: All Candidates
- What do you believe is the purpose of the U21 team?
- How heavily do you value saving prospects whose owners are going to go bot? Is it worth sacrificing enthusiasm during competition?
- How will you encourage more managers to get involved in the NT?
- What skills do you most value in NT players? What sorts of role players do you think could find room on the u21 team? Given the fact that it's rare for SFs to be fully developed in time to contribute to the u21 team and any potential u21 SF will have some significant gaps, what sort of players would you play at the SF spot?

Last edited by chris902 at 03/22/2010 23:31:00

chris902 I thank you for your feedback and would be glad to answer you questions.

Why did you not volunteer to help at all with the post-draft scouting or any other aspect of the National team?

I have been in Miami on vacation the past 2 weeks so I have only used the computer when absolutely neccessary. But thats out of the way and now I'm back to being fully committed.

Why should we trust your tactical skills when you've failed to promote out of the bottom division two seasons in a row?

Actually, I hate to be a pest but I was 2nd in my division last year but choked in the playoffs. But I put together a young group of 9 players that I would bring to games. I deciced to play a push the ball offense not realizing with a young team I should be slowing it down. Same with defense. I played a full court press oping to create turnovers, but not realizing I should have slowed the game down and played more of a 2-3 zone or a 3-2 zone.

What do you believe is the purpose of the U21 team?

I believe its to show people what our country has to offer in the following years and shows what teams have solid prospects and what not.

How heavily do you value saving prospects whose owners are going to go bot? Is it worth sacrificing enthusiasm during competition?

There is value sving prospects when owners go bot. You never know, maybe they may go on and what do you know, you got a star prospect in the palm of your hands. I guess you could consider it worth sacrificing.

How will you encourage more managers to get involved in the NT?

This is part of my campaign, I want you, the people to go out and adverise to everyone just so you can get involved too. Don't worry I'll do my share to, whether it means BB-mail, forums, websites, etc.

What skills do you most value in NT players? What sorts of role players do you think could find room on the u21 team? Given the fact that it's rare for SFs to be fully developed in time to contribute to the u21 team and any potential u21 SF will have some significant gaps, what sort of players would you play at the SF spot?

Rebounding, Outside Def, Inside Def, Jump Shot, Inside Shot. Players that have a special talent at one specific thing making them solid backups behind the all-around players. I would either find a SG that has the same main qualites of a SF such as Jump Shot, Driving, Outside Def.

I hope I answered your questions. :)

-Bernardsville Fire

These are some great questions chris902, to get the discussion going. I'll take each question one at a time:

Purpose of the U21 team
I think that the purpose of playing Buzzer Beater is to have fun, and to me, the U21 team should be another part of the game that can be fun for managers (on top of one's own league team). There are many things that the U21 team can do that I think are fun. One is helping to build up the community of Canadian users, and give us all a team that we can cheer for together (regardless of who has players on the team; I myself have never had a player on the team). Another thing that is fun is winning games, and I think that the U21 team should always strive to do as well as possible in a given season. After all, it's more fun to cheer together for teams that succeed. I also think that through the U21 team, and national team programs more generally, experienced managers can reach out to trainers of young Canadian players, and potentially help them have fun with their own teams (while learning more about training, and how to develop good players). One last thing that I'd like to mention is that the best players on U21 teams, around the BB world, tend to be the best players at the National level later on. A strong U21 program can directly lead to a better National team program, and more fun for everyone that is interested in both teams.

Saving Players
I think that it is a good idea to save as many players as possible, and would actively try to do this. However, I would not sacrifice enthusiasm at any point in the season where there are meaningful games left to be played. Wow, I just wrote a short answer to something! :P

How to get more managers involved in the NT
I think there are several steps that can be helpful here. The first thing to do is to let managers know that there are national teams in Canada, and that it can be fun to follow those teams. Reaching out to owners with BB-Mails can be helpful in some cases. However, the main thing that I would personally do, to try and generate interest, would be to maintain a highly active forum presence. I would write frequently about the team in the Canada forums. I would also direct teams to the off-site forum, and attempt to build more discussion there than we've seen in the past. I liked what was happening with Rip's Prediction Contest, until Rip disappeared from the internet, and things fizzled out. I would look to start up some variant of that for the U21 team. In addition to getting more managers engaged in the forums, I would also try to generate more interest in the game chat on Mondays. I would try to point out, where possible, why the game chat can be fun, and invite everyone to participate when they can.

Skills for U21 Players
This is a very interesting topic, and I probably should devote a larger space to addressing it. For now, I'll say that I think that defense is very important at every position, and that players with sub-par defense would have a tough time making the team. The main "role player" types that I think could be useful are defensive specialists, with decent ball movement skills. This type of player can be very succesful, if the team runs an offense that doesn't focus shots through their position. For the SF position, I think that it is possible to develop fairly decent true SFs by age 21, and think that the upcoming team has some good candidates that are solid SFs. It is my preference to play these players. However, I'm flexible at SF, and think that you can have success with other types of players there. I do like it, though, if any player at SF has at least some rebounding, some OD, and some ID; the player doesn't have to be a world beater in these areas, but I do like it if the player is at least somewhat well rounded.

I'll finish up in another post, as the character limit is coming. :P

~TM

Last edited by The Mogul at 03/23/2010 00:42:35

CoachParrot
I think that the main use of CoachParrot is to project the team ratings for an upcoming game. It can be helpful to get an idea of the team ratings that will be produced from a certain level of enthusiasm, game shape, player skills, likely minutes played, and tactics. By having a good grasp of what team ratings will be produced by Canada, in a given week, it can be easier to get a rough feel for an upcoming match (for example, how close will the game likely be, what overall team strengths and weaknesses should be main factors, etc.). However, team ratings are only one tool to understanding what happens on the court, and I would never base a lineup solely on Coachparrot date. Some limitations of team ratings include, for example:

-Positions are not weighed equally. C and PG have the biggest impact, and SF has a reduced impact. However, a SF can still be the most important player in a given game.
-Driving skill has no impact on team ratings (or minimal impact), but probably does something helpful.
-Guard skills for big men have very little impact on team ratings, but can be crucial factors in a game (for example, a PF with excellent jump shot matched up against a PF with terrible OD).
etc.

Last edited by The Mogul at 03/23/2010 00:43:00

I will not wade into the debate too much but I will make these next two posts.

I have been in Miami on vacation the past 2 weeks so I have only used the computer when absolutely neccessary. But thats out of the way and now I'm back to being fully committed.

I presume you have been in BB for more than one season, please correct me if I am wrong? Since I have been the U21 manager, I do not remember you volunteering for anything. Whether it was draft scouting this season, last season or any other season. I also do not remember ever seeing a post from you on the off-site forum.

In any case, there is still a lot of draft scouting left to do. Drop by the thread and check out what divisions are left. The faster we get it done, the better.

Some great replies.

I will say that at the moment you would be my preferred candidate, whether others step in or not. In terms of assistance that you provided during my term, there was no one equal. In the end, you were sort of like my official assistant and in many cases I could easily say that you ran the team for me... Your tactical advice was always outstanding and I really respect what you have done with your club team in such a short time.

Also, you know the player pool since I have shared all the scouting lists with you. So you have an advantage there. Although, if it was someone different it would probably not take them long to get up to speed.

So, good luck in your campaign. I could be convinced to vote for someone else, but it would take a lot of convincing. ;-)

One closing thought that the candidates can chew on... We will have home court advantage this season but it is not a fantastic pool of players to draw from. I would actually say this is a bit of a set-back for our U21, given the fantastic squads we have had the last two seasons.

So... I don't know what to make of that. I guess there is reason for optimism, since with home court you can often pull incredible upsets. But I do not think I would get my hopes too high.

Thanks for answer Bernard, but would you mind providing more specifics?

For example:
- I still want to know why we should believe in the tactical acumen of someone who failed to promote out of the bottom division. What tactical changes would to make from how you run your team (i.e. the same offense all season and almost always the same defense, same player rotation) and how you would run the U21 team.
- What specific one dimension role players would you consider to be of value? (pure shooter? Inside scoring SF? defensive stopper? What exact skill combination would you look for in such role players?
- How exactly would you advertise the U21 team to managers?


I guess more than anything else I still remain curious as to why you want to run the U21 team. You have not signed up for the offsite forum, have not commented on anything related to the NT program and do not seem to have any specific ideas for improvement. I am open minded here, so convince me.

Question for everyone:

Do you have any players who you think may be U21 prospects and who might be in consideration during the next two seasons? If so, who are they? Would the fact that they're on your club team change your decision making process when it comes to placing them on the team?