BuzzerBeater Forums

Hi.

I signed up yesterday in BB. I also play other manager games like Hattrick so I am not a complete beginner to this type of games.
So far I am reading the manual, watching Bubbles BuzzerBeater Youtube videos and reading the forum to learn more about the game.

What do you think should be my short term strategy considering that we are pretty late in the season - would it be worth to try and buy some 18 year olds and start training or should I wait and buy them at the start of next season?
If I buy them now they might've lost some training weeks and they would age from 18 to 19 in about a month. On the other hand at the start of the season the prices probably go up, right?

Also, is it worth training 2 positions at the same time? I see that most people suggest training only 1 position at the beginning. Why?

Last edited by Firo at 9/1/2025 9:12:28 AM

Actually reading the manual and watching Bubbles already is a good start :) .

The issue with drafting is that it will likely be a bit late in the season to get enough draft points to find enough minimum 4 balls skills AND potential players to make it worth spending the money.

To even get 20 draft points in 4 weeks before season end would cost $120000 for instance. 20 draft points is the minimum to really be worth spending and not rolling over into next season (which you can do, the draft and scouting page tells you this).

This would be 10 points for a combine so you know which draftees are 18 or 19, what height they are, and get hints on where their better skills are (from given position), and 10 more on getting a group demonstration from the 1 and 2 ball rated players. Your scouts are FAR from perfect and it would be surprising if at least a couple of those 1 and 2 gray ball rated players aren't really 4 or 5 ball rated.

Less than 4 balls in draft rating and the TSP of the player is likely too low to be worth the training minutes you will have to give them every week in games, less than 4 balls potential soft-caps them at career peak to a low enough TSP that it would likely not be worth you long-term concentrating on a single player or two just to end up with a player/players that might not even sniff at at a national cap. For example, if you look at the Romania national team EVERY player is hall of fame potential, and 5 ball potential usually means they are at least MVP potential.

There will also be a glut of 18 or 19 year old players available in the season break after the drafts. Players not good enough for a RBBA or other top level league team to invest minutes in might still be plenty good enough for you and available for reasonable fees.

A bonus of drafting is that the players you draft will all be Romanian too if that is important to you.

A big disadvantage in your case is that you are likely to have a low draft position as you currently have the =4th best record in the division so would be picking 12th or 13th. In short even if you scouted good players for the draft then there is no guarantee a bot team won't pick them before you can!

If you buy now, I'd see if you can get 2 or 3 MVP or better potential 18 years old players with enough TSP to start for your team for less than what the draft points will cost you. The ones worth having aren't likely to be Romanian though.

You might consider a 19 year old if their TSP is significantly higher (like 8 or 10 points more) and/or they have super-high potential (hall of famer or all-time great) not available on the transfer list (or not at the right price anyway!) at 18. The advantage of doing this by transfer market rather than draft is the skills have been revealed and you can decide if sheer ability or potential or both of a player outranks the extra year older those players are.

Training is maybe THE key part of Buzzerbeater.

Some basic training tips without giving everything away include:-

The shorter a player, the quicker they train guard skills and the slower they train forward skills. The taller a player the opposite applies.

Every year older a player is they lose a few % in how quick they improve through training.

One position training trains less players for a higher improvement in what is being trained for those few players, two positions more players for a smaller improvement each, and so on to team where everybody who gets minutes gets trained but the improvement is pretty small for each individual player.

Make sure any player you care about especially those you are specifically training get enough game minutes like the training page in the manual tells you!

A youth coach gives training a boost but ONLY to 18 & 19 year old players.

Hope this helps and don't forget to invest in the arena!

My advice to new managers is always - don't spend a lot of money early

If you intend to play the game for any length of time, the arena is the most important investment you can make. And it will take several seasons to completely build it out (20550 capacity)

I wouldn't worry about the draft.Unless you intend to field a fully home grown team, it's usually a waste of money

After the draft, there is what I call the "back draft". After the new season starts, there will be a bunch of 18 year old players on the TL. You can draft serviceable players for less than 10000. And it's better to learn how training works with cheap players rather than expensive ones

Concentrate on PAS or SS players to start with. You can't afford a fully developed MVP or HOF player early on. Better to have 5 players earning 20k than one player earning 100k

Decide if you want to train guards or big men. Try to find players with similar stats so you can focus on training a few key stats. Avoid players with low stamina

Great to see new players in BB!

Manual and Bubbles videos are great start. First, I would say that start doing things that you find fun so if you want to compete from the start, get few cheap players and try to win games. If you like training players, buy couple trainees and focus on that. So following instructions are just to optimize but not the most fun way to start playing.

But if I would start a new team and try to build for future, I would minimize all your costs to collect as much money as you can and invest to your arena. You don't have to worry about minimum salary during first 1,5 seasons (24 weeks) so I would try to build a 10-12 player team with really low salaries (2-10k salary each) and take advantage from those 24 weeks. During that time, invest your money to build arena (20550 is optimal with 14-16k bleacher, 4-6k lower tier, 500k courtside and 50 VIP) and continue building your arena every time you get any money to spare until you reach 20 550. There are also other team infrastructure to invest, but you can worry about this later. After your arena is ready, you can start investing to your players, but this will take few seasons.

After your interim season ends, buy 3-6 trainees who are 18 yo with potential perennial all star to MVP and don't pay more than 1-50k per player. There will be more competition during offseason, but there will be also a lot more options available so you can find this kind of cheap players with a bit lower potential. Then invest to trainer and youth trainer (both level 4 and I would encourage you to buy these coaches already 1-2 weeks before offseason) and start training those players for U21 NT. After 24 weeks expire, you can start buying players to get to the salary floor, but this is again place to minimize costs and buy only bargains.

Also, is it worth training 2 positions at the same time? I see that most people suggest training only 1 position at the beginning. Why?

There are few training that are 2 positions as default (Jump shot, 1on1, rebounding) but other trainings are for 1 position as a default. Basically the training speed is about 75% if you train 2 position instead of 1 so only reason is training speed.

Last edited by Lappa at 9/2/2025 7:53:15 AM

Thanks a lot for the detailed answers, everyone. Really helpful to see the different perspectives.

I think I'll definitely make the arena my main focus, especially since it looks like I might be promoting to Division II already - I just won my first league game against the other conference leader so things are looking good. From what you all said, it seems like having a strong arena base is the one long-term investment that always pays off, and I don't want to fall behind there.

On the draft side, I actually started with 24 scouting points right when I signed up. Given that there are also some bots in my division, I'm tempted to use them this season and see if I can find a hidden gem. Even if my draft position isn't ideal, at least I'd be able to learn the scouting system and maybe get lucky. And like Gaillimh mentioned (328427.3), if nothing good comes out of the draft, I can always go for one of those "back draft" players on the transfer list at the start of next season.

I can only confirm what has already been said that the arena should be your main focus when distributing expenses. In particular, it’s has been recommended to max out the courtside seats (500) and luxury boxes (50) fairly quickly, as they don’t suffer as much of a drop in attendance during bad stretches and losses compared to the bleachers and lower tier seats.

Regarding your situation with the draft points: yes, you could use them right now, and since there are currently only four other managers in the league (three of whom have a better W-L record than you), you’d be in a good position to pick up a solid talent. The only potential issue is if new managers from Romania sign up during this season (4 weeks) and take over some of the bot teams—then your chances might decline.

The alternative would be to hold on to the draft points, especially if you’re confident you’ll get promoted later this season. After promotion, you’ll face much tougher opponents, and as a new manager moving up right away, it can be very difficult to keep up with the stronger teams. In that case, you might end up relegated again, but you could then use both this season’s and next season’s draft points together in the following draft, when your position might allow you to select better players.

Personally, I’d hold on to the draft points for now, see how the season develops, and keep an eye on your opponents in the other conference. Toward the end of the season, if not too many new managers have joined and your win-loss record remains slightly worse than some of the other human managers, then it could make sense to spend them.

That’s just my opinion, though I'm biased, as I had a similar situation back when I started and I actually kept my draft points and landed 2 top talents in the following draft in a higher division, who went to play for the U21 NT and win the consolation tournament.

I’d like to hear what others think about this though.

Last edited by LennuK. at 9/5/2025 2:01:51 AM