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question to the group.

I have a solid 18 yr old big man (possible NTer if I focused on him and 48 minutes) I picked up in the last draft. However, I train guards. Should I drop all of what I am doing and train the 18yr old or should I continue on the path knowing the players you have make me competitive in Div III?

Personally I would sell the big man. Don't sacrifice your teams needs, for the national team, because at best it is a bitter sweet victory if you get him to U-21, but also halted your guards trainings. Sell him, get some good cash, and solidify your current roster to be a very competitive team.

The problem with training peripherals early is that u21 is such a sprint, by spending time on the (slow-to-train) guard skills, big men are going to be throughly outclassed inside. For the NT it's not as much of an issue because NT big men tend to have kind of stabilized inside, so the differences in core skills tend not to be as huge. A 12/12/12 big man on the u21 team is going to get owned. And he's going to be so far from NT level inside skills, that I'm not sure he'd really be able to catch up.

Absolutely, I totally understand that's the catch. If we focus on adding some guard skills we will be going into U21 with 12/12/12 bigs, and the competition will be stocked with 16/16/16's. I completely understand there's no getting around that. In fact it's the fundamental change I'm asking to make in how we run things. My argument though is that:

1) Maybe our big men will be able to beat their big men outside/midrange, and what seemed like an advantage for our opponents will actually be mostly a wash for us?

2) Either way, those guard skills will pay off at the NT level once our guys catch up on the inside skills around 24-25. And I do think our guys could catch up: if we have five seasons (20,21,22,23,24), good height, and we're one-position training only 3 skills (I think we ought to consider SB'ing too but that's a whole different conversation) which mostly also cross-train each other, that's 4x IS, 4x ID, 4x Rb each season while still allowing for stamina, FT, one on one, or whatever twice a year.

So even with the slow down in age, with 20 one position trains at each skill shouldn't our guys be able to go from 12 to 17-18? The advantage of running the out of position training early is that once the age effects start hitting, you're already done with guard skills and even though things are going more slowly, at least they're being trained in their natural position.

The other consideration is that any US division from NBBA to d.V could train secondaries first and then train primaries for as long as their team's success allows, while the same can't be said about training secondaries last because at that point there's a very limited number of teams who can even afford the player. So a system that encourages training secondaries last limits the number of players who will ever see secondary training.

Just for the record I want to state that I completely understand asking managers to train big men in this way carries a high risk of costing our team U21 victories. My position is that the risk (or more pessimistically, the trade-off) is worth the reward to the US community, through the benefits to both the NT and the managers who own these players.

Vote for DanOB963! I won the championship my first year and out coach many people i play.

If you run 12/12/12 bigs, you will get crushed. You become reliant on outside attacking offense and opponents will key on it. Our IS on our bigs to start last season was 12, 14, 14, 11, and 11. You can sorta see the result.

question to the group.

I have a solid 18 yr old big man (possible NTer if I focused on him and 48 minutes) I picked up in the last draft. However, I train guards. Should I drop all of what I am doing and train the 18yr old or should I continue on the path knowing the players you have make me competitive in Div III?

Well, in line with what I've been suggesting in this thread that we start encouraging managers to do, here's my advice:

1)Consider what your long term plans are for your guard trainees: are you counting on them to carry you to the NBBA eventually and be the focus of your team so you want them 100k+, or is your goal just to get two solid D.II starters and promote out of D.III?

2) If you would be satisfied with them being just D.II players, decide whether you will be able to get them to that level in two seasons?

3) If you think you can get them there, consider training two of your guards plus the new 18yr old big man in one-position guard skills for the next two seasons, then switching to big man training at season three. That might allow you to get the guards you need to accomplish your goals and also set you up to train a unique big man who can grow with your team and maybe help you push over the hump into the NBBA.

There's a lot of if's in there but I think it's important for people to at least be thinking about this sort of approach. If you don't think training your big man fits into your team right now, just go ahead and sell him. More money is never a bad thing.

Last edited by J-Slo at 10/7/2010 7:15:55 PM

I'm saying that starting a 20 year against the top 6(or 7, I left out Venezuela) teams should cause a loss. Straight up. This is just ONE player getting ~400 minutes of playing time for possibly one experience popup. I really don't see the difference in awful experience and inept experience being worth it. I doubt that the results for season 13 would have been different if I had played all 20 year olds in Season 12 (and magically made Worlds). The only game that was close enough to possibly make a difference in was the Chile game.

Yep which is why the question was asked and I echoed it. The problem is by playing all 21's do we disinterest the US group? It's possible. Previous coaches have sacrificed wins for positioning and who is to say by the same positioning 20's could of been played.

I also want to say that just because a 20 year old is on the roster, doesn't guarantee they play. Timing and circumstance do come into play. I also helped with a U21 team a couple of years ago and I remember how difficult it was for them to prepare for the next round because they were disengaged with the next class. The easiest (may not be the best) way to engage a manager is to play their players and keep the big picture in mind.

It's funny if you think about it. When you play this game long enough - it seems the big picture is all your really playing for. If you can win, go for it and push it, but don't forget to train someone so you can stay on top.

If you can't win, train, train, train and win where you can.

I just don't understand why the U21 needs to be used to groom players for the NT. Being on the U21 is not a prerequisite for being on the NT. You can explain the benefits to managers of training PF/C in the fashion you suggest, sure. Some may choose to do that on their own anyway, and it seems as though some already have.

But there is still going to be a couple of managers with great trainees who don't want to go along with your plan, and they train up a post player to 15/15/15 before he turns 21. Would you still play your 12/12/12 guy over the superior triple-15+ just because he was trained the way you wanted him to be trained?

It looks like we have an election, with a few credible candidates. One question each to jfriske, Jelme and Bobos (I'll ask some questions to the others as well, but for now these are the ones that come to mind).

3) Bobos: while I admire you as a manager, I worry about the fact that you have not been very involved with the NTs in the past. How will you handle advising possible trainees for the future U21 generations?

I worry about my lack of involvement as well. Seeing the evolution of the NT/U21 teams from Brian, to you, to Jelme and JP to Wozz has allowed me to understand the commitment needed to push the team forward.

I think it's important to understand and ask questions from the group that has been there before. I would continue to seek advice from you all.

That said, I would encourage the manager to load the player into the NT database for tracking. I have seen over the years this is the most effective location to see where the player is compared to the rest of the US. This would also establish a baseline talking point between myself and the manager. It is really important for both myself and the manager to be realistic about the player in comparison to the managers team.

I would try to be as honest as possible. Knowing it's not always possible, I would encourage the manager to stay with the defined template of GS management (more than 48 for training, but less than 80) Then, based on position, I would identify the training rotation for the defined position based on the standards that have been established before me. After 13 seasons of BB, it's important to provide the wheel and not try to recreate the wheel.

The most important element of this will be the follow up. I can't just rely on the initial BB-mail, rather I must continue conversation with the managers. I would also like to utilize the USA forum as much as possible to try and include the US in open convo as much as our schedules allow.



Last edited by Bobos Playhouse at 10/7/2010 9:12:34 PM

The second portion of this sentence is incredibly true though and I am very uncomfortable with it. I generally tell people if the advice for U21 team is vastly different than advice I would give to help their team. I really want me or the new manager to do a better job of this. It would involve more time (probably some volunteers), but more information on their team, economy, and position needs to be gathered before doling out advice.

I think the key is really finding those managers who want to have a player make the U21 team. If I was three spots worse in my league I would've got my first draft choice who is probably worth several million, that's probably better than winning the league last year from a long term standpoint. It certainly isn't what I'd prefer however. This game is composed user defined goals. Developing the first draft pick you get, or building a roster around your favorite player, or anything else.

If a player's motivation is in having a player make the U21 team, it is basically the only way you will have a one to one match between what's best for the user and for the U21 team.

Besides that, if you want to have it match you really need to focus on the benefit of that little flag. Those players whose potential will have them cap around when they turn 22 who when trained to be as good as they can be will hit the transfer market with a little flag worth potentially millions. With better training across the board and so many high skilled players on the market for cheap it might actually be one of the better money making methods for a club. You'd just have to be kind of open about the 18 year olds so people could know if a particular player was comparatively good enough to make the team with ideal training/health.

Beyond that you just kind of question, 'you know this won't necessarily be the "optimal" thing for your club?' If the player sees enough positives to it, they might still like the idea. I think you really want to foster open discussion about the players, in these forums, where these players get noticed as they develop. If a user sees their player talked about as the fifth best point guard and not quite good enough to make the team when that player is 19, they might think "@#$% that, I'll buy a lvl 7 trainer and then we'll see who makes the team" and have that personal motivation towards getting them on the U21 team. The whole chip on the shoulder thing.