Staff
"I never got a California driver's license. If I ever got stopped, I was going to tell the cop, "I'm the Clippers coach. I'm not going to be here that long.""
In addition to the basketball players themselves, the team benefits from hiring different staff members to help out with various tasks, some being essential, others can best be described as secondary. A small fraction of the essential staff members also have a specialty, which enables them to help your team in an additional way. The level of the staff member does not impact the effectiveness of the specialty.
Essential staff
Doctors help reduce the severity of player injuries. Once a player is injured, a Doctor will also help him heal more quickly, but the effect is much smaller than the initial reduction in severity. Doctors can have the following specialties:
- Taping Injuries: There is a small chance that a player's minor injury can be taped up immediately, and he will be able to return to the game at the start of the next quarter.
- Massage: Players who play too many minutes in a given week will not experience as severe a drop in game shape.
Trainers assist the coach in making the most of the team training hours, both in-game and during the week. Trainers can have the following specialties:
- Career Extension: Older players will not experience skill drops as frequently.
- Fitness: The magnitude of the Stamina drops experienced by your players is decreased.
Public Relations Managers help market the team to the fans, encouraging more people to show up to games and be willing to pay more for tickets. Public Relation Managers can have the following specialties:
- Crowd Involvement: Your team will experience a slightly stronger Home-Court Advantage for your home games.
- National Appeal: When your team is on the road, your opponents will have a slightly decreased Home-Court Advantage.
Secondary staff
Youth Trainer will focus only 18 and 19 year old players, giving them extra training on top of what they learn from the main trainer. He'll give them that all important training boost that just might make them eligible for a NT call-up (eventually!). But to really feel the change, only top level youth trainers should be hired, and those will cost you a lot though.
Sports Psychologist will help with the the players' state of mind. Sometimes, no matter the minutes, some of your most important players just can't hit their best form in the worst of times, like the playoffs, etc... This is where this guy comes in handy - he'll make sure they have their heads straight and will help keep their form up, even if the minutes are suboptimal.
Nutritionist keeps tabs on what the players eat, obviously. And let's face it, stamina drops are a drag. Having to spend valuable training weeks on keeping the stamina up is even worse! This is where proper nutrition helps - having someone plan the meals can really slow down the stamina drop rate, and high level nutritionists can even stop the decay completely! The best ones can even give it a boost!
You can employ only one staff member of each type at a time. The quality of your staff member is indicated by his Skill Level, which ranges from "minimal" to "world-renowned". A Doctor with minimal skill might tell your player with a broken leg to take two aspirin, while a level world-renowned PR Manager can rouse up enthusiasm in a graveyard, and convince the inhabitants that all the cool zombies have luxury box seats to the 0-22 Loserville Rejecteds. All teams start out with a minimal skill staff member of each type.
At any time, you can hire a new assistant from the staff market. Careful, though -- all of the other managers are looking too, and you might have to compete by bidding a higher signing bonus to get the assistant you want. When you hire a new staff member, your current one is replaced, and you will need to pay your old assistant one week's salary in severance. You can also fire your staff member (paying one week's salary in severance) and you will be assigned a minimal skill assistant of that type. Since good help is hard to find, your staff will charge a pretty penny for their services. Every week, each staff member will demand a small increase in salary, so it's in your best interest to keep an eye open for fresh staff.
There are some differences to the secondary staff from the essential ones: they don't really need to be hired at all. Also, you can get rid of them any time and since they won't be replaced by anyone, that can save your team some money. They still require a severance package, so make sure to take that into consideration when hiring.