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I have used 3 different capping calculations and they all say he shouldn't be capped but 1 more pop in IS or ID and he could be. Considering unknown sublevels that means he is just unlucky and capped at the utter bottom of superstar potential. Really annoying.

Thanks everyone for your opinions.

Those stats from the bbtraining website are very interesting, I always thought IS trained a lot faster than that, at somewhere like half the speed of driving, not 1/5. So if you were unlucky after 10 weeks of 1on1F you could have 2 DR pops 2 HA pops and no JS or IS. That is a lot worse than I expected. I have read that as you approach the cap training slows down before you hit the wall, so maybe if he was training at half speed he may still be making progress if all those skills were at very low sublevels.

Great win over Macau leaves us in 4th spot in our pool. I think that means we move on to the next stage. Great news for our NT and a bit of a contrast from last season. Naturally I credit the coach with much of this improvement. Well done!

We really rely on Yusuke Furusawa, without him I don't think we could have done half as well.

Japan NT Advances on Easy Victory Over Macau

With a comfortable 30 point victory over lightweight Macau, the Japanese National Team finishes round 1 with a 4-2 record and advances to Round 2. The competition will get much tougher this next round and yet we still push for greater success. We have already achieved our original goal for the season so now we set knew goals. For round 2 we will set a basic goal of 2 wins with a stretch goal of getting to at least 3rd place which would secure a spot in the World Championships Repechage, also know as second chance qualifier.

Let's take a look at our second round competition:
4/9 - #79 Prathet Thai
4/16 - #54 New Zealand
4/23 - #23 Taiwan
4/30 - #9 Iran
5/7 - #34 Australia

Don't be fooled by some of the lower rankings. Any team that has advanced will be tough competition for us. Also, we will need to get some key players back. The last few weeks our starting SG has been unable to play for us due to low game shape. Looks like his team has finished its cup runs and he should start recovering this week. Also, both Fuji and Kouzuki have been out with injuries. If we can get these guys back to top form quick then it will help our chances.

I still have 3 empty roster spots on the team. Whenever U21 is done maybe I can call up a couple of the young guys. I know there are some great prospects on the way and it would be grood to get an early look at them and reward their owners for their efforts. I will look to Wolph to make suggestions on the best options for call up.

still have 3 empty roster spots on the team. Whenever U21 is done maybe I can call up a couple of the young guys.

Or you could pick up Umari right now and have another proven winner in good game shape right away. He has been trained almost every week this season and has had several pops.

You would think so, but who? The NT can always do what a lot do and just play PGs and Cs but 2 of our top 4 big men are injured. Lucky that our star Yusuke Furusawa and the brilliant Hirofumi Sonoda are in proficient GS. We have brilliant PGs like Rikkio Eguchi, Takatoshi Tagawa and 4 others on the team. 6 PGs in total but just 2 SGs. Obviously some of those PGs could be combo goards. Also when in shape Hideki Ochi and Masatomo Saiki are very solid, but not really up to the standard of lots of other NTs. Umari is far, far, far from it. Where are the hall of fame and all time great players?

On the NT we have:
1 hall of famer
4 MVP
4 Superstar
5 perennial allstar
1 allstar

That is not a lot of high potential players. There are a lot perennial allstar players and Umari has been trained all but 1 week this season. Whn I asked the NT manager last season about him he said Umari would need several pops to make the team, well he has had several although I have tried to not pop JR or OD because of fear of him capping although this has been bad for Takayoshi Kawagichi my U21 guy as that is exactly what he needs. Hard to balance things sometimes.

So on the one hand I look at Umari and think, not close to NT level. But then I look at the guys on the team (and have seen several for sale) and think he is in the same ballpark. So I don't know what to think.

One good thing on the U21 team are a few guys who are the future of the team including 2 hall of fame players and 5 MVPs. We are heading in the right direction.

National Team Press Release


Japan NT Starts 2nd Round Off With Blowout Victory

In the first game of second round our boys overcame a 3 point halftime deficit to Prathet Thai by outscoring their opponent by 31 points in the second half to a blowout 112-84 victory. With this win the team is now 5-2 in competitive games this season. Over the course of the season the team has risen from their initial 73rd ranking to now being 49th in the world. Five wins is also the most wins since the team went 6-2 in season 14, coached by Wolph. Prior to that you have to go back to season 11 when they were 7-3.

Thailand is by far the easiest opponent we will have in round 2. From here it gets much more challenging. Next up is 54th ranked New Zealand. At best we are even strength with them but in reality they look to have better players and more depth. So, I’ll have to work some magic with the team to try to get a win. Luckily, it looks like we should be getting Ochi back to good form and can put him back in the starting line-up. That will be a big help.

Once again Furusawa led the way for the team against Prathet Thai with 23 points and 11 rebounds. Top assists went to Tagawa with 7, and Eguchi contributed 3 steals on the defensive side. Overall we out shot them 53% to 41% and out rebounded them by 14.

Here’s the lineup I used for this game:

Point Guard
Tagawa
Hara
Fujii

Shooting Guard
Eguchi
Ochi
Hara

Small Forward
Oishi
Suenami
Ueda

Power Forward
Furusawa
Shibukji

Center
Sonoda
Shibukji

Injured
Hayakawa
Kouzuki