BuzzerBeater Forums

Okita is a nice player but he isn't on the team mainly because of the quality of guard depth that we have. The guys on the team are just a little bit better.

BTW, I just noticed that Eguchi is up for sale again.

Another NT prospect for sale is Yuya Takayama (18297154). He could be good for me as Kaname Kouzuki has probably only 1 more season of elite play before he starts to decline (I will try to get a CE trainer just for him next season). Will anyone be upset with me if I never train his primaries. Again he may be capped and he has to fall into line behind those that are a higher priority like Kawagichi and the Shinkansen. But when I do some more 1 on 1 training next season he can certainly have some of that to improve those really bad secondaries.

So basically will anyone mind if I do decide to buy him that he wont get trained much and not at all in primaries. If anyone else thinks they can get him to NT standard then feel free.

Well that is an amazing plan and I would be very keen to do it, if he was my top priority. But he wont be, he will be a distant 3rd at best or maybe even 4th or worse depending on who I draft this season. I can give him 1 on 1 when I do it but that is probably it. I will still consider him and may pick him up, although this is not the time of season to get bargains and I really don't need a 3rd big man at the same sort of standard as Kaname Kouzuki and Hirofumi Sonoda. Hopefull someone willing to train his secondaries will get him.

LT,

I really love your enthusiasm and commitment to our NT teams. However, I'm not sure if Takayama is National team material. We really need some help with Bigs but he needs some work on the secondaries. If you were willing to put sometime into that then he might have a chance at some point.

Thanks guys but I have decided to not go with him. Right now I have a cost efficient team that looks good enough to survive the JBBL. I made about $3 million profit this season and having him would cose me a lot. I also will be having to train Takayoshi Kawagichi for the U21 team this season so will need to keep up a lot of pressure and passing training. I am firmly committed to the Shinkansen as my second trainee, may be a while before I draft another 18 year old superstar. As for whoever is number three, Konoe, Kawaida and Umari can plug in as needed for games when I need a win. On the other hand I have spent on the draft and while it isn't amazing who knows if I will get someone worth training. I have low standards for my draft picks, a solid all star will probably do.

Japan NT Press Release

Season 19 Winding Down

I always love Golden Week. April & May are very busy for me in my real life but this week gives a nice break, and provides some time to post an update on the teams progress.

In my last post we had just beaten Prathet Thai by a big margin to start the second round. Since then things have gone downhill quite a bit. The competition has progressively gotten much more difficult and at the same time the team’s form is getting worse each week. We’ve had a rash of injuries and some key starters have had a string of low gameshape.

Our results for the last 3 games:
New Zealand 109 - Nippon 90
Taiwan 119 – Nippon 88
Iran 105 – Nippon 79

Of these games our best chance was against New Zealand but in reality they’re players were just too good for us. The other two teams are far better than us and play at a completely different level. It’s interesting though that despite 3 consecutive losses our ranking has improved 8 spots during that time.

At this point we’ve shown that we have enough quality to be a strong mid-level team but we don’t have enough to compete with the bigger nations. However, we have a number of interesting young players that give us hope that we can get better in a few seasons. There are a couple teams ahead of us still that we should target to try to surpass, New Zealand and Malaysia. I think getting ahead of them would be a huge accomplishment for a country our size.

Our final game is against Australia. We beat them early in the season, but most likely because they were looking past us. Since that loss they have been blowing through everyone. It’s likely them against China in the Asia Finals.

After our last game I will take a look through all of the young prospects to see where they are at. I don’t think any of them are quite ready for National team playing time but it would be nice to get a few of the most promising ones onto the roster. I’ll share updates as we progress on that.

BTW, one of the biggest gameshape dissapointments for us has been Furusawa. Currently his game shape is Mediocre and his manager hasn't signed in since April 6th. I guess his team should BOT on May 21 and he'll be available on the TL.

If anyone wants the #1 Japan National Team player on there roster then start making sure you have money available (Lord Toranga, I know you want this guy). Last time he sold for $2.6M but I can't see him going for that much in the current market.