BuzzerBeater Forums

1. Being the head scout, you will have to work closely with me (or fire me, remove me, whatever!) as well as the rest of the staff/USA U21 community. While not being explicitly stated, many managers want to be involved in the decision making when it comes to tactics and rostering even if the Head Coach does not agree. How do you plan on dealing with these expectations?

If someone presents a persuasive argument that goes against my plans, I'm always willing to be convinced. I've made plenty of mistakes in my BB career and am more than happy to be given the opportunity to avoid my next one!

That said, at the end of the day, somebody has to make decisions and take responsibility for the results. I expect to take the blame if things go wrong, so I will reserve the final decision-making for myself.

2. There are many other duties that are involved with being a U21/NT coach outside of setting a lineup. There are database duties that only the Head Coach can do, and the job itself is a six month commitment. It does require a level of maturity and dedication that will require you to go a bit above and beyond. USA managers quite literally are putting a year of their lives in training time in your hands. Do you understand the scope/responsibilities that are required of you?

There's a reason why I never ran in the past!

I'm aware of the level of commitment involved and wanted to wait until I was sure that I had the time and energy available to dedicate to the task. I'm there now, and plan to lean on the advice of those who have been there before me.

3. How do you make an omelette?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-Wr401Bio4

@Candidates - Where would you balance your preference of lineups/tactical decisions with input from special interests like the Offsite or the Unofficial Discord (aka 'Medium Dark' Cabal)? Particularly in games of consequence.


I've got a similar response here to what I said above: I am always open to input from qualified sources, and I believe that I still have plenty to learn about the best way to play this game, but I believe that the responsibility for the team ultimately lies with the coach, and as Spiderman didn't say, "With great responsibility, come great power."

If the pitchforks will be coming for me when things go wrong, I'll want to be the one who makes the final decisions.

Here's one for ya. What is more easily achieved, a strong defensive build or a strong offensive build. And which is more valuable in a u21 setting.

The way that skills and elasticity relate certainly make it easier to build a strong offensive player. In terms of individual players, the value of each is dependent on the strengths of the rest of the roster, but scarcity generally equates to value in this scenario.

@Candidates - With the advent of the Youth Trainer skill point targets will increase. How do you approach standardizing the addition of the secondary staff? The cost can be signficant, especially to the lower division managers. The benefits are also not well known as the data appears to still be accumulating.

I haven't seen enough actual data to make firm recommendations on the matter, but I would ask anybody who is rostering a top prospect to strongly consider picking up the best YT that they can maintain. Once we have a few seasons of real data to look at, it will be easier to make factual arguments. In the meantime, it boils down to not wanting to take the risk of stunting the growth of top prospects during their most efficient training seasons.

My question for orko: if you are elected will you use discord more often to communicate with everyone or some other medium?

I would definitely use the Discord more than I have in the past. While I vastly prefer a discussion platform that includes the option for threaded discussions, I also believe that you go where the audience is. It would be absurdly inefficient and egotistical for me to try and force everyone onto a discussion board when there's an established communication infrastructure already in place.

Everyone: Can you give examples of USA U21 or NT players that you have trained in the past. If you have not trained any, what qualifies you to guide a long term training program for dozens of players.

U21: Chris Prater, Eli Gay, Aubrey Bliss, Gerald Carrasco

NT: Aubrey Bliss

And I am currently working on Nelson Melendez for the U21 and Kim Fortin for the NT.

So would you say you're partly biased to run because you have an upcoming potential U21 player?

Late Edit: To all candidates: How will you choose your roster? We had a couple instances were players made the roster but got sold and were kept in pitiful GS until the games didn’t matter. How will you combat these situations? Will you take an American owned player and manager over an American player but foreign owned even if he isn’t as good? By as good I’m talking a 1-3TSP difference. You can choose what SPs one has over the other to answer this.

Obviously, the first step would be narrowing options based on skills. Once that is done, I would heavily favor players from managers who have shown good communication during the development of their player, as well as those who have demonstrated an understanding of GS management.

I would not assume that a US manager would be more likely to maintain GS and/or follow training suggestions than a foreign manager. I strongly believe that most people can be counted on to do what they believe is in their best interest, so I would base my decisions on what I know of what those managers want to accomplish. There are likely a good percentage of people who would do it for 'Merica, because that's what they value, but I wouldn't assume it as a default.

So would you say you're partly biased to run because you have an upcoming potential U21 player?

Definitely not!

In fact, I've made it a point in the past to not try and promote my players over other candidates, even when I thought they were superior to others in consideration. I am more likely to leave my player off of the roster in favor of an equally skilled option than I am to push to get him on the team.

If I think Melendez is a better option than others, then I'll put him on the team, but my ego isn't particularly tied into his spot on the roster.

Question to candidates:

JS/JR/OD/HA/DR/PA/IS/ID/REB/SB/ST/FT/EXP
So basically all the skills.
Point guard
Shooting guard
Small forward
Power forward
Center

Please give us your “preference” of order of importance, for the skills at each position.
Scenario 1:
PtB
Scenario 2:
LP
Scenario 3:
Motion

And then. Please explain any differences if any between man and zone for your positions when it comes to defense

I'll answer this question a little more generally than I think you intend. If you want more specific information, feel free to BB-Mail me or @ me on the Discord.

In all tactics, I'd put OD as the most important skill for PG/SG/SF. PA is important at both guard spots (critical at PG), and an important data point in deciding between SF prospects.

I rank ID as the second most important skill for a SF generalist, with specific builds favoring IS/JS in some scenarios.

All of the big man skills are important, but how they are ranked is role-dependent. I favor more PA on C's and more OD and JS on PF's.

Question to candidates:

What is your take on training U21 players that have HOF potential compared to Superstar potential? Do you have the players train the same or do you force more primary training on the superstar guy to benefit the U21 team more?

A lot of U21 teams have donkey bigs with high primaries and 1’s everywhere else. How do you feel about this? How might you exploit that?

What is your take on outside offenses? What skills do you look at for outside offenses compared to inside offenses? What would be your ideal outside offense lineup?

In your own opinion, how do you think the Game Engine works in regards to tactics? Specifically, I want to hear how you think a LI works compared to a RnG? For example, does the GE value passing as much as DR? Is JR useful in LI? Does IS matter in a RnG? What do you think?

Like I said, I believe that you can really only count on people to do what they believe is in their best interest. I will do my best to advise each manager on how they can best help the U21 team, but will defer to the goals that they set. If I can convince someone with unrealistic or wasteful goals to either change their plans or sell for profit, that's great, but I won't try to force someone into any kind of training, as I don't believe that would lead to a player that I could count on, regardless. If someone with a HoF potential player is interested in training the, with the NT in mind, I'll give them my honest assessment of what I think their best path is, while also, if it is plausible, offering a compromise path that might benefit the U21 along the way. Something like this is what led to Aubrey Bliss making the U21 as a SF on his way to training as a NT PF.

Donkey bigs can have an important role on U21 squads, and are usually necessary in order to be able to field a full roster from the pool of available players.

Outside offenses are important, but are generally harder to run successfully because of the global emphasis that is put on OD.

I believe that specific evaluations of tactics are best saved for a less public forum.