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i guarantee you we will be hearing from Hrudey within 48 hours about building an outside team in BB . . .

I think he'd much rather hear from someone who could build a *good* outside team. ;)

I think I remember reading in a separate thread how you were building your outside team. Yours was an interesting idea. Mine is sort of similar, in the aspect that I'll be training the Bigs as well, but the builds will be different.

I've got a test case going right now in Utopia. But those trainees are limited, and won't be as good as I'd like.

if you don't mind, and i hope hrudey contributes his thoughts and experience, what do you think it would take to produce a good outside team? theoretically speaking.

i am guessing such a team would exploit JR much more than we are used to. but JR in combination with what? DR? and aim for a run-and-gun? DR and HA? run-and-gun or motion? team PA? and run a low post or Princeton? and does the ratio of JR to JS matter, or, rather, how much does it matter? i would love to create a team that is looking for 3s, but i don't know how to build that into the DNA of the squad (JR 17, JS 12?)

to me, the advantages are in the math. if you could create a team that shot threes at 33%, that team would produce points at the same rate as one that shot 2-pointers at 50% -- and very few NBBA teams shoot 50%, but many of us are in the 20 - 25% range without really trying. this suggests to me 33% is an achievable goal.

It would have to be more than 33%, because they won't take exclusively 3 point shots. They'll be some long two's, some attempts at the rim, etc. So if it's 33% from 3 and 50% from 2, it'd be even. But since jump shooting teams are typically (I think) in the lower 40's for average FG%, the percentage from 3 would have to be higher.

A few seasons ago (probably like 5 or 6) I saw that Poland's NT had a PF that was shooting a couple 3's a game in league play, and hitting them in the high 30's percentage wise. That's sort of what got me thinking about this.

For the longest time, I don't think Silverbacks had a big that was over 60-70k in salary, and most of his bigs were half that. They were all specialists with only rebounding, some ID, no IS or SB. So he put his payroll towards much more expensive guards than normal.

If through training bigs, we can save on salary, and toss out some NT caliber guards...might the overall 3pt and 2pt FG% be good enough?

if you don't mind, and i hope hrudey contributes his thoughts and experience, what do you think it would take to produce a good outside team? theoretically speaking.

i am guessing such a team would exploit JR much more than we are used to. but JR in combination with what? DR? and aim for a run-and-gun? DR and HA? run-and-gun or motion? team PA? and run a low post or Princeton? and does the ratio of JR to JS matter, or, rather, how much does it matter? i would love to create a team that is looking for 3s, but i don't know how to build that into the DNA of the squad (JR 17, JS 12?)

to me, the advantages are in the math. if you could create a team that shot threes at 33%, that team would produce points at the same rate as one that shot 2-pointers at 50% -- and very few NBBA teams shoot 50%, but many of us are in the 20 - 25% range without really trying. this suggests to me 33% is an achievable goal.

I've tried both a 15 JS/15 JR guy and a 19/11 guy and neither seemed to be really effective at SG against II level defenders. The disappointing thing is even uncontested shots are missed at an alarming rate. I kind of think you need to have something like 18/16 or higher to be really effective at the NBBA level, though SM if he's lurking here would be a far better judge of that. Of course, the thing that really strikes me is that a guy that I had trouble with a lot is on the TL now that his owner demoted to III, and he's only 19/12, but he had 16 driving while Winkler and Yi were both only at 14. But if driving were more of a factor,I'd expect better from Shultz, who is 18/10 with 17 DR.

Of course, where outside shooting shines is when you can get your PF or C matched up against old-style three-skill donkeys on outside shots. Alas, the 3-2 makes that far less likely, and those players are far less common these days anyhow.

In terms of complementary offensive skills, I think driving is probably very important - especially once you start seeing 3-2s. It seems like all the offenses will still try driving layups if you have driving on your players - I know when the advanced stats were working still and I was playing pretty much exclusive Princeton, I had a lot of drives and really very few pure inside shots (and almost those from an old legacy center I had and the one of my three bigs who actually had double digits in IS).

Of course, even more important for me at least is the handling and passing everywhere. Not that it helps the offense score well, or shoot well, or even be remotely efficient. But what does seem to matter tremendously is avoiding turning the ball over - it lets me survive a significantly lower shooting percentage than if I lost extra possessions with turnovers. That's probably why SM had such a big focus on rebounding as well - more ORBs means more chances and less ORBs conceded means you have to stop them less frequently.

So back to the theoretical question, I'd love to see what a team with guards like 18/17/17/16/18/12-14 (plus decent ID and maybe RB on at least one for the SF position) plus bigs with like 12 in all the guard skills would do in an outside offense. And if those guards are ever on the TL, affordable with my bank account balance (currently about -80k) and salarywise...

I've tried both a 15 JS/15 JR guy and a 19/11 guy . . . I kind of think you need to have something like 18/16 or higher to be really effective at the NBBA level . . . he's only 19/12, but he had 16 driving while Winkler and Yi were both only at 14. But if driving were more of a factor,I'd expect better from Shultz, who is 18/10 with 17 DR

see, what i'm wondering is what if you reversed those JS / JR numbers in every case. would you have a player whose first thought was 3 pt, and used those DR skills to get himself into the corner or otherwise get a little space from 25 feet out.

i've had players with similar skills and inevitably they seemed most effective with JS from around the FT line, give or take. but what if they felt more comfortable much further outside? i like AZ idea that the salary boost would have to be compensated for with the big men, but is it possible to get a team or at least the scorers to go out on the floor and look for the 3 first?

I think you beating around the wrong bushes. Driving is important. Handling is important. At the end of the day, they still need that one or two extra bucket a game to improve the fg%. That will come from IS. You still need a deeper skilled player than strictly primaries. Run a couple guards out there with any mixture you stated of JS and JR with good driving and handling and 11 or 12 IS and you are going to have a fairly effective guard in an outside offense (more IS for a truly elite guard). Granted, those cost tons of cash, so you will have to probably train them, but the trade off is, they are equally effective in neutral and inside offenses. They just cost a lot more per week than an LI guard. The trick is to find the right mix of Bigs to make it work. You can sacrifice ID on the bigs if you run the OD up. Unfortunately, you might have to train these as well.

Last edited by Yuck at 10/21/2014 10:35:01 PM

After dispatching "bosten celtic" in tonight's Cup game, I'll move on to face "bolton celtics" next week. I had to do a double take because I thought I was somehow facing the same team two weeks in a row.

lucky you...I just got GOAT in round 2
thank you BBGods

Man, Mark Horner is listed on the TL again. Over the past few seasons, I don't think there's been a single player listed as often as he is.