These are some great questions chris902, to get the discussion going. I'll take each question one at a time:
Purpose of the U21 team
I think that the purpose of playing Buzzer Beater is to have fun, and to me, the U21 team should be another part of the game that can be fun for managers (on top of one's own league team). There are many things that the U21 team can do that I think are fun. One is helping to build up the community of Canadian users, and give us all a team that we can cheer for together (regardless of who has players on the team; I myself have never had a player on the team). Another thing that is fun is winning games, and I think that the U21 team should always strive to do as well as possible in a given season. After all, it's more fun to cheer together for teams that succeed. I also think that through the U21 team, and national team programs more generally, experienced managers can reach out to trainers of young Canadian players, and potentially help them have fun with their own teams (while learning more about training, and how to develop good players). One last thing that I'd like to mention is that the best players on U21 teams, around the BB world, tend to be the best players at the National level later on. A strong U21 program can directly lead to a better National team program, and more fun for everyone that is interested in both teams.
Saving Players
I think that it is a good idea to save as many players as possible, and would actively try to do this. However, I would not sacrifice enthusiasm at any point in the season where there are meaningful games left to be played. Wow, I just wrote a short answer to something! :P
How to get more managers involved in the NT
I think there are several steps that can be helpful here. The first thing to do is to let managers know that there are national teams in Canada, and that it can be fun to follow those teams. Reaching out to owners with BB-Mails can be helpful in some cases. However, the main thing that I would personally do, to try and generate interest, would be to maintain a highly active forum presence. I would write frequently about the team in the Canada forums. I would also direct teams to the off-site forum, and attempt to build more discussion there than we've seen in the past. I liked what was happening with Rip's Prediction Contest, until Rip disappeared from the internet, and things fizzled out. I would look to start up some variant of that for the U21 team. In addition to getting more managers engaged in the forums, I would also try to generate more interest in the game chat on Mondays. I would try to point out, where possible, why the game chat can be fun, and invite everyone to participate when they can.
Skills for U21 Players
This is a very interesting topic, and I probably should devote a larger space to addressing it. For now, I'll say that I think that defense is very important at every position, and that players with sub-par defense would have a tough time making the team. The main "role player" types that I think could be useful are defensive specialists, with decent ball movement skills. This type of player can be very succesful, if the team runs an offense that doesn't focus shots through their position. For the SF position, I think that it is possible to develop fairly decent true SFs by age 21, and think that the upcoming team has some good candidates that are solid SFs. It is my preference to play these players. However, I'm flexible at SF, and think that you can have success with other types of players there. I do like it, though, if any player at SF has at least some rebounding, some OD, and some ID; the player doesn't have to be a world beater in these areas, but I do like it if the player is at least somewhat well rounded.
I'll finish up in another post, as the character limit is coming. :P
~TM
Last edited by The Mogul at 3/23/2010 12:42:35 AM