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Not sure he speaks french ;) (sylvincent asks if there will be scrimmages)

Furyak, how is the training of 19-20yo going? This season you didn't have any say in developing your players so no worries about the result (and I think it's better to go to the consolation directly instead of fighting for a worlds spot, unless the 20yo are really good).

However don't forget that there's a perverse effect of not having the size of the US for example, it's that there are only ~10 players being seriously trained per generation. That means only those with MVP+ potential get training (with a few exceptions), and the priority for their owner is not the u21, but the nt (and their team on the long term, not 3 years ahead).
That's why you rarely (if ever) see u21 bigs with 50+ ISP. The only time we do is when a chinese farming team trains him and that happens once in a blue moon. Priority for a high potential player is secondaries at first for most trainers (as it should be), so you're only left with players with lower potential that could really get a pure U21 training, but most owners don't focus on these.

So in the end you have a u21 with really well balanced players, that can compete when used properly (see Cletus), but that can also have big discrepencies between seasons (again, see Cletus!). It's a hit or miss.
Looking forward for "your" generation though :) Good luck next season!

I can recognize certain phrases or words (i took French in HS and College for a few years), but not a native speaker and would not want to offend anyone with a bad attempt :).

My policy has always been to limit scrimmages with the talent that is of age to play well in it, because it gives each other manager and staff a chance to evaluate the talent that we have. So unless i need to compare talent here to talent in other nations, there isn't that much for us to gain. If there is a scrimmage that looks appealing, i'll take it, but i don't intend to scrim just to play a game per say.

With regards to MVP-HOF, i tend to lean towards not being as bent on getting them to develop their primaries as i am with Superstar and PAS. I won't speak for RiP, but i would think that his general feeling is that most of those players, with the exception of the middle height (small forward sized) players, is that they will not be a part of successful NT run outside of backup roles. So i then can look at the active base of both nations. The US, like many larger regions, has a lot of farm/trader teams that beef it's numbers. I think the active base there is much closer to 350-400 users, compared to about 75-90 Canadians. So i never really anticipate having the same amount of guys with huge big skills or guard skills for that matter. We did however have competent guards this season, thanks to one owner who was really good at developing both a 20 and 21 year old.

Our top two bigs did have decent secondaries, and it did work ok for us when we ran patient once this season (the inverted patient, and not the traditional), but unfortunately you have to be within 3ish BSP to be competitive. Peru's top big was almost a full 10 BSP ahead, with their second and third option 7 and 6 ahead while their two 6 potential bigs were about even with ours by the time the season concluded (given they capped out early on). More importantly, Peru had a decisive inside defense and perimeter defense advantage (average 16 OD across PG/SG/SF and average 15 across the bigs used). We didn't have a big above 15 ID on the team (won't disclose where each player is at beyond that, don't want to make it hard for those owners to be league competitive with their talent), and our one player that paced there as a 20 year old has fallen off since being dealt in gameshape so was quite unusable by seasons end. Peru in terms of it's user base is smaller, but have bought into using 6-8 potential players to make millions to fund their competitive teams, so that buy-in is what i am trying to bring into play here.

My generation is only as good as Canada can produce, we'll see what happens :)

Last edited by FurY at 01/23/2019 21:06:34

A couple of updates since it's been a while.

1) We had two preliminary games against teams well below our standard of play. As to be expected, we ran both games with an up tempo offense, and did not see too many problems in both cases.

2) We lost our game this morning to Romania. We didn't have a callup in my opinion that changes this outcome, though i would like to have some depth it just doesn't exist. The best big i could call upon is owned by someone who refuses to manage gameshape, so for now we'll continue to trudge on with what we have. More specifically, they set fire to their enthusiasm in this game by Crunch Timing. I remain confident that we can get 4 or 5 wins in this stage of the consolation and make it to the bracket rounds without issue, but the same in my opinion probably can't be said for Romania with likely less than 4 enthusiasm left in the tank.

3) We have 4 games that feature matchups with teams that cannot beat us in the next 5 weeks baring injuries or massive gameshape issues. I anticipate that at worst we will be 6-2 and in decent shape for the top 32. I'll evaluate whether we should really spend anything on the game against Hungary following the match next monday.

FurYak

More updates!

1) Beat Moldova by quite a large margin as expected, with a few of our 2nd and 3rd best callup options to save some cards for later to win with. Wins like this against opponents not managing gameshape are important in the consolation to keeping yourself well ahead of the competition.

2) Beat Hungary because of two pretty significant factors. The first was i used a completely different tactic than i had used up until this point in the u21, and one that i rarely use in general as i don't find it to be particularly good against most defensive schemes. The second and perhaps more meaningful development was that Hungary's top two bigs were not in proper gameshape. I feel one probably could've been a better option than their backup big, but the other was clearly a no-go. So a bad loss to a CT from Romania, and a good win against a good team with a bit of a gameshape issue at a convenient time, means we are right where we expected to be at this point.

While nothing is ever set in stone, this all but secure the next stage of the consolation, so a good chance for Canada to make some noise this season!

We finished the Consolation pool play ranked 9th amongst the active teams. Our reward is the Makedonija U21 squad. Our goal is to advance, not to win this tournament. In order to advance, we will try our best with the squad available, so please those of you with players on the team make sure to have gameshape managed effectively this week.

If Chile and Costa Rica lose, we will be the last Americas team left in the tournament. I believe we can get to the last 8 if we play smart, and top 4 if we get some decent fortune and see both of these teams lose early. We are the 11th best squad in this tournament in terms of talent, so finishing above that would be my goal no matter what.

Next season the America's championship will play in Canada, congrats FurYak!

Thanks to the managers for good gameshape. Haven't had to ride anyone most of the season about it, which is nice.

Should have a good toss-up style fight versus Denmark next week, and then the #1 seed in the consolation tournament thereafter should we get some good performances out of our players on monday.

We out

We ran Normal and PTB and single guessed given their fast pace. They CT'd because i assume they were holding out some hope their regional opponents would all be out after this round.

Oh well, i don't think we had a particularly long run ahead of us in the consolation, so we'll take the home court in the americas and move on to scouting. Thanks for the gameshape management and hard work this season.

Good luck to you.

Didn't get a chance to do much with my players and my own team, but in the end i've about lost interest outside of the u21, so with no team to run for 2 seasons anywhere else i've put my guys up and you can find some homes for them. I'll check mails once every few weeks otherwise.

FurYak