BuzzerBeater Forums

Hello everyone!

Thanks for having me as your NT Manager for the next two seasons! Not a landslide victory, obviously - and I only won because I play the game longer than McCain. Those are the rules at the moment, and even though they are in my favor this time, I still don't like them very much, personally. So I can understand if you, McCain are a bit upset about not becoming the new NT Manager. Your former U21 Team Manager TRUF has already agreed to be part of my new small "task force" team to get Scotland moving into the right direction (up!) - and I hope very much that The Brave Highlander will also be a constant member of that team. We need to work together to get players shaped into the right direction. I have experience with a somewhat large(r) country (Germany) and with a smaller country (Korea), so I know what needs to be done - and also what CAN be done with some work, enthusiasm and about 4-6 managers that are committed.

So I hope very much that you will help me in this endeavour and get the scottish NT moving!

Looking very much forward to meeting you and working with you!

Poll:  What would motivate you most to get involved with the NT?

By the way: given our schedule and current roster of players (which will probably be a little bit different from last season, but won't change to much I fear because it lacks alternatives), we won't be winning lots of games. I may even become the NT Manager with one of the worst records for two seasons. But I don't care about that because we need to make sacrifices now (well, not much to sacrifice as we would lose most of the games anyhow) in order to be able to compete in the future. Usually I like to be NT Manager for 4 seasons because then your work shows a bit, but if TRUF proves to be the help and "best assistant NT Manager" that one can hope for, I'm sure he will continue the work we started and I'll be happy to just become an advisor after those initial two seasons. Just to make my intentions clear to everyone. And of course: it's you who decide who will be the next NT manager, could obviously also be McCain or someone else. I just very much hope to get you all involved so that the NT will profit in the long run.

Congratulations, I hope you can make some progress with NT. Apparently, you need to start by educating young people, as there are very few players in the NT pool. We need to have an understanding of how many players we can bring to NT. And also how to properly develop players, especially with a potential of 8

Thanks and yes, you are correct! Some of the 25-28y old might still be persuaded to train their players, so that’ll be mid-term strategy. Long term strategy will be to build great players from the beginning instead of saving what can be saved.

Sorry for taking my time in writing again. I had a lot to do (as in RL/ work). And it seems the player wiki that I had set up 4 years ago seems to have disappeared (probably because it wasn’t used any more). I‘ll try to get it back but chances are slim. So meanwhile I have scouted the players that might be interesting for the NT. A lot of players that wouldn’t be part of the NT even in small nations. We don’t have any Inside-Players (exxept for two guys that are getting regular skilldrops and weren‘t the best international players before, either). We do have a couple of guards, some also pretty old, some younger but not as good. And only 1-2 guys that might make the team on another micro nations NT. We don’t have a SF. Gary Gow probably won’t come back, is getting too many skilldowns. Adamson Fraser also had too many. So we‘re without players there.

One good thing that I noticed: the brave highlander has already started training a couple of high potential guys. And has a couple of talented (and with superstar+ potential) already on the u21-roster. I have nominated two 22y old guys. They are far from finished and need some serious adjustments in order to become great NT players for the next 10+ seasons. But as we could call almost all the 24-30 year old guys a „lost generation“ (or rather 3-4 lost generations), my „remedy“ is to start fresh as early as possible. Meaning that the old players are hopefully going to be out of the roster sooner rather than later. And that I‘ll let young players that receive (good and consistent!!) training play even if they wouldn’t be ready yet. But like this they‘ll be gathering experience which will later on boost their skills.

And another aspect: Gameshape is (apart from training) the most important aspect of the game. I won’t nominate players that have inconsistent minutes, they should have weekly minutes between 50-70. And players that receive training and want to be part of the roster need good GS.

So, it‘s fairly easy to get a young player on the NT roster: potential perennial allstar+ (the higher, the better), train him with a lvl 4+ trainer, give him perfect minutes, resulting in gameshape 8-9. And your player will play a lot of games (and get you some merchandise money, which is especially showing if you‘re a scottish manager!!).

About the game today: if we lose by -70, I‘d cosider that a small victory. Poland is one of the best nations with great players. A lot of losing this season. And also during the next 5-6 seasons. After that, I can promise you, if we get the training coordinated, the NT will start winning again and might even surprise one of the bigger nations (even though that won‘t happen on a regular basis).

Thanks for reading and taking my advice into consideration!

Alexis, as I see it, the candidate review was held after the enthusiasm update. Apparently the team is now low in enthusiasm? If so, this is an unfortunate case. But you can safely experiment. And yet good luck in your endeavors

Alexis, as I see it, the candidate review was held after the enthusiasm update. Apparently the team is now low in enthusiasm? If so, this is an unfortunate case. But you can safely experiment. And yet good luck in your endeavors

Nope, it was done before the update. Enthusiasm is at 5 at the moment. But that won't help us, even enthusiasm 15 wouldn't help us beat Poland. I did late "interviews" but in time. Enthusiasm update will reset after 6pm server time. So I was in time and had everything planned. No worries.

Well, not much to say as a game recap: Scotland 54 - 125 Poland (59532)

Aim was a margin about -70. Final score shows: -71. So - a narrow defeat considering what our (or at least my) goal was.

I got the GDP right. I set the 3-2 defense intentionally in order to intercept their passes to their frontcourt players and to prevent the polish team from raining 3 pointers on us (if we had chosen a 2-3 defense instead). M2M wouldn't work with the roster (even though I still might have to play that from time to time).

The first few minutes were quite even, we were tied after 4 minutes at 6-6. Then the rout began. Not much more to say about that. The boxscore speaks for itself. We did have 15 assists. Not bad, considering we held Poland to 25. 35 rebounds was to be expected with a 3-2 zone defense - and no players with decent rebounding skills. Conclusion: we'll have to find frontcourt players. And not just some players with IS 14, ID 13 and Reb 13. But REAL inside players. Or lacking those, some that do have those skills and are going to get training in both secondary skills (e.g. passing) and then their primary skills (ID 17+, IS 17+, Reb 16+. Blocking is also very much appreciated but will have to be weighted with the potential and the build because it'll use up capspace.

Thanks for reading. I'll be sending out BB mails in the upcoming week.

Well, not too bad. I was hoping to keep the final score at less than -50. Which we definitely managed. -33 is almost too good to be true. I was pretty sure that they‘d play fast pace but wasn’t too sure if they‘d go with LI. I guess so far my predictions were ok. I‘ll probably get some wrong sooner or later but for now that‘s what we can hope to do.

Peter Lyle had his „real“ debut because of good training and perfect GS - not too bad considering the opponent. I did contact a couple of managers regarding their players and am quite pleased with the responses so far (one manager is willing to take on 1-2 new scottish trainees as soon as he‘s got the financial resources, which hopefully won’t be long). So if you‘re thinking of parting with a potential NT prospect, don‘t hesitate to contact me! I will continue contacting managers and definitely hope that I‘ll get responses there, too. Even though I know not all of them will answer or might not care about what I write. But one can hope, right?

Back to the game: obviously, apart from Lyle, still a couple of old(er) guys doing all the work. That needs to change because they won’t be there forever and the two bigmen we‘ve got have great GS but unfortunately declining skills. David Doles should be part of the roster (even though his skills will decline as well). But right now, his manager seems to have lost interest in the game and might even go bot. So if you’re looking for an experienced NT bigmen in about 3-4 weeks, keep your eyes open. If he really doesn’t log in before that, I‘ll have to call him in order to save him. His starting price will be 500k.

And again back to the game. The first 1.5 quarters were great, we were a lot closer than I would have thought. After that, we couldn’t keep up any more - but at least the last quarter was strong again, even if it was against Finland‘s subs. But it is the first quarter we‘ve won so far. So let‘s get a couple of more this seasons and maybe we‘ll even get a win out of it.

Have a great week everyone. Keep GS high, train your players if they aren’t already too old. And we‘ll keep this team moving into the right direction!!

Last edited by LA-Wendell Alexis at 04/12/2021 16:23:18