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I have a feeling that community involvement will spike up this season for two simple reasons that are uncontrollable.

Game time will be at 6 PM Eastern time instead of 10:30 AM. This is huge. More people can watch the game and tactics can be altered during the day. Last season, all tactics were set the night before.

This team is more exciting and versatile. There has been a Trickle vs. Rainey thread for awhile and a couple other players are interesting (Weeks and Meeks). We have the personnel to go both inside and outside.

It's hard to see our community evolve without more commitment from it. I'd love to see all the serious candidates pledge their time, win or lose, to helping the team.

One more thing, regarding Small Forwards (one of the speeches mentioned this as a lack. EDIT: it was actually clubber_lang's pot above).

Having a SF for the U21 is nearly impossible, and widely acknowledged to be so (it is false that managers are not encouraged to do this).

I just want to chime in on this as well, but first on the comments above that SF's are "undervalued" and "not encouraged". This is kind of crazy--for anyone that follows the TL at all, it's obvious that good SFs are the most overvalued asset in the game. This is true of the NT and u21 teams as well... we almost always encourage people to take well rounded training routes to increase the likelihood a player is able to be used at SF in some capacity down the road. For the NT, training a guard to get on the team at this point is frankly very difficult (with guys like Bronson and Madrid around), so making a SF is much more practical, since there are more types of players that might be appealing. In fact, we have a whole section of the offsite devoted to team training logs, and just about everyone that posts there is working on SFs.

As to the difficultly, I think it helps to put some numbers on the issue. By the start of the age 21 season, a really well trained player is likely to have gotten 30-35 pops. A well rounded SF needs at a minimum, JS, OD, IS, ID, Rb, and ideally Dr, Hnd, Pa. Even if you had an amazing 18yo prospect, with 7's in all skills, and absolutely perfect training (and perfect luck, no injuries, etc), your player is going to end up deficient (meaning a skill <13, and even 13-14 can be a liability at times) somewhere. So the question is, do you want a guy with only 11-12 in JS (which eliminates outside offenses), OD (which eliminates the 3-2 and leaves you vulnerable to outside attacks), ID/Rb (which leaves you vulnerable to those teams that still use 3 bigs), or horrific peripherals (likely meaning lots of turnovers and poor passing)? Or is it better to get a couple specialized guys (say, guards with slightly better than usual rebounding, or bigs with decent jumpers and OD) and just pick whoever fits your game plan best on a week to week basis?

I think your biggest flaw this season was that you seemed disinterested. I think you are well-qualified to run a team from an articulate and tactics stand point. However the U21 manager must also be integrated in the social aspect of the game and I don't think you were. Most of your off-site post on the forums were posted and no interaction with the community existed

I just wanted to clarify on this point. I speak to Jelme on a daily basis and at no point did I see his interest wane. I think more so it was the interest of the community and the boards. Jelme did post on the boards but only got 1-2 responses a day. I as well as others who has his AIM and MSN contacts would get multiple messages debating changes and switches right up until game time. I would not judge his drive by his posts on the offsite, he has done an amazing job so far for this program, and if we were going to impeach someone for seeming slapass on the offsite forum wouldn't it be Wozzvt?

@jfriske from Speeches thread
Training for winning at the U21 level does not inhibit the development of players for the NT. Our most effective guards were guys like Ritter, Ugona, Dennison and Bobby Joe Jeffrey. In terms of primaries, Anglin and Waller were superior to these guys. The season 12 guards had better handling, driving, and passing and were on par in terms of OD. This made them more versatile and the team more effective. Not to mention cost effective.

Giving a player big man two seasons of guard training to start his career is a smart idea if you want to make a NT PF. You shouldn't expect him to make the U21 team though. Very similar to your fictional draftee, I have a 6'9 MVP guy I bought last season, and he is receiving 2 seasons of guard training. I know he won't be on an U21 team, but he may end up being an asset for the NT.What benefit for me, my player, and the community would there be if my player was on the team? A bit of merch for me, maybe a pop in experience for my player, and zip for the community. The other major drawback is the type of player that can be made into a well rounded player like this are few and far between. You need at least MVP potential and they need decent starting skills. I doubt there are 10 players like this a season.

Although I still think the NT could benefit from guards receiving some early focused inside skill training, I agree that U21 guards make a smoother transition to dream NT guards (a great example being Bronson). But for 3/5's of the NT roster, if you're developing a well rounded player it's pretty much a given he won't make the team if the U21's focus is on winning games.

I guess I just don't see it as 'sacrificing the U21 team', I view it more that the main purpose of U21 should be cultivating the NT talent of tomorrow. I'm not against winning games, I just don't think it should be the 1st priority. Training to win U21 might not inhibit NT development (I personally think it does, for bigs) but does it enhance NT development? As far as the pro's and cons, I really do think there's more overall benefit for all parties if we switch the focus to player development, particularly for bigs/SF's:

-the benefit to the manager is that he gets a more salary efficient player. A 50k center with 12/12/12 inside and 8's everywhere else is probably a more effective club player than a 150-200k center with 16/16/16 and 4's everywhere else, especially when you consider the economic impact for D.III and lower teams who can't afford the massive salaries, and who don't actually need it to compete in their division anyway. And as training continues and that player rises to 200k, isn't the manager still getting more bang for his buck for this player, compared to the monoskilled 200k'er?

-the benefit to the community is more players with great secondaries who can provide something unique on the NT level. Training primaries for 5 seasons (20-24) for big men should still get primary skills high enough to compete at that level. Doesn't a player who ends up being an asset to the NT benefit the community more than a player who plays one season at U21 and then is never heard from, because he became too expensive to train? A NT player can help his country for 5-10 seasons vs. just one. And if our NT players are balanced salary efficient 200k+ players who are very effective at the club level, doesn't that help get them in stable club situations where GS might be better managed?

I mean, don't you think your PF trainee plan is ultimately going to contribute more to both your own team, and the US community? He's going to give the US a special NT player eventually, he's going to let your team grow into his salary more comfortably, and he's going to provide 5-10 seasons of NT merchandise revenue someday, all while probably being a more effective club player.

I guess my point is that ultimately, I think it's better for both the managers and the US community to train players the way you are currently training your own player, and so the U21 team should be focused on encouraging that.

And additionally, I think it's possible that a U21 team with guards mostly similar to what we usually produce now and big men with only 12's inside but 8-10's secondaries could provide enough match-up problems to at least compete in U21 games. At the very least it's never really been tried.

I was under the impression that top U21 teams were splitting the offensive/defensive duties of 2s and 3s, allowing for those players to only require either the offensive or defensive interior skills at high level. Similar situation for 4s but they seem somewhat more translatable to a 3 in inside tactics anyways.


Most of the issues with U21 are tied to over-valueing potential and to the split between what is better for an individual team and for the U21 team. Those are rather related as well.

Imagine a player with an unlimited potential. If you were going to single position train that player for 4 years, until 22, and then keep him for the rest of his career without any further training, would you really develop a player with such a focus on primaries? Even if salary was not a consideration would you develop the player in the 'U21 way' in trying to improve your team? If the goal is purely performance, my players wouldn't look much like U21 players after that time-span.


If you look at the crop of rookie star and all-star players, with skill-sums above 55 or 60, with good stamina and free throws; those players should match up very well between what is best for being sold, or kept (capped), after four years of focused training and for reaching a performance peak in that fourth year. These aren't future NT players who are sacrificing long term potential, or unsustainable players who the owning team cannot afford to keep.

At the 1 and 5 spots you'd need higher potential, but for the meat of the roster those players are where you should find the best performance, by getting higher initial skill-sums from a much larger crop of players and help develop the community by having the recommendations for those users' players better match between needs of U21 and their own teams.

Add the few 60+ skill-sum MVP/Hall-of-Famers each year who can have absurdly high primaries and that's where you can still have that crazy jump shot rating that is such a logarithmic loss for the entire team to have, because of shot usage breakdowns, if its viewed as being the best for performance.

Didn't want to post this in the speech thread because it said only one post per candidate, but I decided to run too and here is the continuation of my general speech/plan:

1) Get the most promising new trainees started training on something right now, so we don't waste this season.
2) Spend the next couple weeks hashing out the sorts of hypothetical players the NT would dream of: Smedlock's LI small forward, centers with ~10 JS/JR/Passing, world level guards with 12 IS or good rebounding, etc. Whatever people think would help most at the top level of competition.
3) Post to the US community these different prototypical players we want to see on the US NT someday.
4) Post a rough training plan and training projections for where we want these players to be at 20yr old.
5) Explain to the US community that this is the new way you get a player on U21. U21 will be about rewarding managers who are on track and helping create these players. Monoskill monsters won't be getting on the U21 team much anymore, because the U21 team's focus is no longer on winning games for its own sake, it's about developing NT talent.
6) Explain how this training can be better for the managers themselves too.

-It's a long term payoff; three seasons before these new sorts of player would be 21yr and on the team.

-Guard training would probably not be as radical a change as big man training, because guards already seem to transition pretty well from good U21 players to good NT players (ie Bronson). I think it might be nice to say: train him like before, but see if you can also get one of IS, ID, Rb up to 9 by 21yrs too, even if it costs a few pops in other stuff. If the community thinks that sort of thing isn't worth the payoff though, it's not something we need to do. My goal would be to set the benchmarks based on community consensus of what might be useful at the NT level.

-Most of the 20-21yr old players in the pipeline now would probably remain likely U21 players because the new multi-skilled 21yr olds are not on the horizon yet.

Beyond this sort of radical change in what the U21 is about, a lot of the community outreach stuff would be similar. We'd try to reach out to teams with good trainees, point them to the posts and discussions about the kinds of players we're hoping to develop and then try to find managers who think they can see a way to fit developing one of those players into their club's training plan. We might be able to tie it into the mentor program and have mentors help explain why the training is more beneficial to the owners club (and, mentors can make sure such training really IS more beneficial.)

We could do something like a fake news post each week highlighting a different young player's development, etc to keep interest up.

Anyway that's my spiel, there's a ton to more to address I'm sure so ask me anything on the debate thread or I will post things as they occur to me. Thanks!

Have we learned nothing from Herm Edwards? You play to win the game. I'm fine with encouraging managers to train well-rounded players, but they shouldn't be given spots on the U21 team just for following along and doing exactly what they're told.

The best players who give the team the best chance to win need to be the ones who play. Not those who may be NT worthy 3-4 seasons later.

Yeah, I realize it's a fundamentally different way to approach things, it just seems to me personally like there's more value overall doing it this way. And even though it's not likely, I also don't think it's certain that a team with similar guards and differently balanced bigs can't do equally well in U21 as the current system, especially if we are catching opponents off-guard.

I respect that reasonable people will disagree though. If people aren't persuaded they're going to vote accordingly I'm sure but I think it's healthy to have the debate at least.

Last edited by J-Slo at 10/7/2010 1:55:08 PM