I guess I should make an appearance on this thread since I was the spender of the 9.5 million. I don’t think I’ll add to the constant who can/can’t compete argument (I swear, I think a thread on butterflies would de-evolve into this).
I had been saving money all year with the intent of purchasing an elite guard (the occasional small arena upgrade notwithstanding). Other's in my division have switched to training guards and some of mine have started to become overmatched.
Nearing the end of the season and feeling that I would not be able to compete against the top teams of my division, I decided that I would sell my great center Jared Spurlock
(790680). I have done well training and have other players that can easily make up for his absence from my rotation. Taking advantage of the late season feeding frenzy, I managed to sell him for 5.2 million to my apparent parent team (they bought my 1st great center Stacey Cash) Stella Rossa Japigna. This nearly doubled the money I had saved throughout the season.
Then, while searching the TL, a heavenly light shines down and the Angels begin to sing as I spot Alejandro Depetris
(2619496). He has been the 1st player all season that I’ve recognized as good enough to compete with the top teams in my division.
Almost immediately after spotting him, I put my starting SG Quim Belmiro
(3074340) on the TL. Belmiro is a very good player, but he just isn’t good enough to match-up with the top teams like the Bulls or KDB. Of course, he could still easily handle Salisbury (sorry, that’s my mandatory Juice cheapshot).
This basically commits me to pursuing and purchasing Depetris no matter what. At this point I could and would have spent over 14 million for him. As excellently stated earlier in the thread by GM-oeuftete, this player would be more valuable to me than to nearly everyone else in Buzzerbeater. No one else all season would’ve been a good enough upgrade to compete in my league.
I eventually had to outbid what appeared to be the entire country of Chile who wanted to keep their NT player home. This would appear to be what lead to the price being so high. I do think, however, that the 9.5 million precedent will be easily overtaken early next season and my purchase will be considered standard for a player with the skills like Depetris. Feel free to disagree with me on this point; I have no actual evidence to back this up. It is merely a gut feeling
Do I think that this move will allow me to win the NBBA? Probably not. The other teams in my division have extremely skilled teams (my opponents in the playoffs each reached the round of 16 in the BB3 tournament). Home court advantage and excellent tacticians will be difficult to overcome as well.
This move is as much for the long term as for the short term. With the training slowed this year, I believe that it will be 2-3 seasons until the high potential players (over allstar caliber) will make a huge impact. In my opinion it makes little sense to train 21-22 y/o allstar guards much beyond the multi-prominent level. The slowed training on older players will not make it cost effective. Again, no actual evidence/gut feeling.
All of the above thought processes lead to the 9.5 million purchase price. It was interesting reading what was already here about and would like to hear more of what the rest of you thought of my decision.
This was quite fun, I haven’t written anything like this for a while. If anyone is interested, I might eventually write a franchise manual if I get time.
Edit - This was written before the recent changes. Most of the above is pretty much crap right now.
Last edited by Losk0 at 7/28/2008 11:49:09 PM