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My #1 philosophy for all bench guys would also be that they MUST be able to defend their position! I'll happily sacrifice quite a bit of offensive power on them - it's not their job to score, but their defence must be at least within 2-3 levels of my starters for me to be happy having them on the court.

Completely agree, mate. I'm of the opinion the bench should be able to come in and defend (firstly) and score (secondly, but not as important). They simply come on and defend their positions while my starters take some deep breaths, a swig on their water bottle and hear some advice from the coach. Simplz...

@ Tough...good luck mate.

I also agree with the defense philosophy. Great ability differences between starters and bench guys, especially when it comes to defence, that leads to simply a defeat.

I can put several suggestions forward, so-called main principles of bench strategy from my point of view :)

1. Reserve PG should have enough OD along with HA (in order to avoid critical turnovers).
2. Reserve SG should have at least enough OD.
3. Having 2 seperate SF may be another option (One of them is inside oriented, the other is outside oriented. One can decide whom to play considering rival SF skills).
4. Reserve PF should have at least enough ID.
5. Reserve C should have enough ID/SB along with RB (in order to avoid 2nd chance points, very important)

And i completely agree to one opinion mentioned above, that having well balanced backup player with very reasonable wage, almost every skill between 8-10, provides great benefit for unexpected situations like injury or early bath fouling out.

Last edited by Sir Fifty at 1/6/2015 5:18:18 PM

I get to talk more often with tough because of the US offsite chat during games (which is less crowded and more individual conversation oriented than the 40 man scrum known as USA chat).

I think the problem tough has with his scrubs specifically are that they are legitimately scrubs. The sub 15% shooting in most games of importance isn't just a sign that he is a bench player, it's a sign that his JS was probably in and around 2-3 (talking in specific about his player lofton.

The guys on my bench in D.IV are not drastically different than the guys that my previously owned team had in D.III

Bench Guy 1:

7/1/6/6/6/7 5/6/7/7 3/1 with a 3.5k salary. Purchased for under 5k on the TL. I can use him about anywhere.

Bench Guy 2:

3/5/5/4/7/5 8/6/7/4 3/8 with a 3.5k salary. Purchased for under 5k on the TL. I can use him primarily at PF and C, but if needed could also play SF in given offensive/defensive schemes as a bench player.

Bench Guy 3:

7/8/6/9/6/5 3/6/3/6 6/6 with a 3.0k salary. Purchased for under 6k on the TL. Primarily a SG/SF depending on what scheme i run, and starts the scrim games.


Lets call bench guy 3 the Guard sub, and Bench guy 2 the big sub. I think your problem is you lack about 800-900 salary in comparison, and with regards to specific builds, you probably asked lofton, who appeared to be a 3/3/7/6/5/6 2/4/6/x type of build to play against the top team in your division who probably had double digits in most guard attributes and considerable salary as well. Not only can he never really get a good opportunity to take a decent shot against what was likely a 13+ OD rating, but he also probably was close to doubled in JS vs his OD rating. A bench guy with 7 JS and 7 OD may only fair a point spread of +4 to +7 better, but if you upgrade each position by +4 you aren't looking at a 1 point loss.

TL:DR - I think you need to spend about 15k on the backend of your bench for situations like you ran into this season as far as TL costs go, and probably 10-12k combined on their salaried costs. I like having an 11 man roster, with 5 starters, a guard and a big for backup, and mostly the 3-5k variety players to round it out.