BuzzerBeater Forums

Again, i'll answer the 2nd question first.

Currently, the cap room for most players and the available talent in canada lends itself to 8 potential being sufficient for Small Forwards, and 9 potential being sufficient for guards or bigs.

The training of a u21 player and NT player in the very first season is actually the same for the most part. Generating a lot of elastic effect on a build is critical to increasing more skills in fewer weeks of training, and by getting that setup at 18 it allows for training of secondary skills to occur at 19 (which is the NT path). I tend not to send any MVP with 10 or less inside skills to start with to the NT cause, and similarly any guard with 15 or less skills is predominantly not going to be relevant to the NT manager.

For the first question, the key there is finding the right balance. Having all multiskilled players will handicap the u21 in specific matchups, whereas having all donkey builds (players with very few secondary skills) will also handicap the u21 team in specific matchups. Each player is an independent evaluation and battle as a u21 manager, and you tailor the build not only to the team but to the owner's necessities or expectations.


7 passing and 15 ID on a big is better than a 1 passing and 17 ID, but that is 22 skill points versus 18 skill points.

If you make it say 6 PA and 15 ID versus 4 PA and 17 ID, i would say that one of each player is better than 2 of the same.

Fair enough, thanks, good luck!

Getting from 15 to 17 ID is probably a 4 to 5 week adventure depending on the sublevels of the player's ID inside of 15.

Getting a player with say 1 Pa to 2 Pa will almost always take just 1 week. Getting a player from 2 to 3 will also almost always take just 1 week. Getting a player to 4 usually will take 2, unless the sublevels are low Or the HA/DR of the player are very low. So it's almost always benificial to get those first few, which is why i think a 1 in PA is only something you see when a manager is unwilling to train his player out of position (which can happen, not everyone likes to do that when they are doing their local club winning).

The ukraine u21 manager choosing 17 ID in many situations is not wrong. Against teams at the peak of talent in europe, you will find some 18-19 IS monsters there with just the basic training on their secondaries (they mostly will pick players that start with good secondaries, or a guard skill point total north of 25. In order for the Ukraine not to get beat against those teams, a player with more than 15 ID can be quite vital to shutting down the inside threat. It's more important perhaps than a well rounded player. However, it can be quite a bit of overkill when you face other teams that are mid level or lower in europe and have players with 13 or less IS. So again, it's really just a question of what you think you need.

As far as u21 versus NT development, while it is true that the NT would not start passing training until well after age 21, not all u21 starters need 12 passing, and in some cases playing a funnel approach to one target can be detrimental if he has high passing. I think an average SF passing of 9-10 is ideal, and depending on which style of offense you have for the game, it can be the same for the SG or slightly lower. extra PA on a SG is nice in look inside and more important even in low post which slows down tactics for quality shots. Only a handful of players are going to have trained PA quite early, and most of them are 7 potential players that cannot become long term threats for their clubs because of poor starting inside skills.

He explained last season that he prefer not to use scrimmage as it gives data to your opponents (valid argument there although there are also advantages to play scrimmages)

The advantages of a scrimmage is you get to see players in action against similar talent, assuming you find the right team and the right situation in which the other side is willing to field a somewhat standard u21 setup.

The disadvantages of a scrimmage is that most people will run 1-off strategies into one another, and the end result does not necessarily benefit you as a coach because you do not effectively know if your team defensively is good against an LI or LP when you faced a princeton or outside isolation.

While i am willing to take on a scrimmage against the right team, i've not once really been offered a scrim worth taking in the 6 seasons now that i've been in charge of a u21 team. I'd have taken one as the US manager when Cletus was the canadian u21 manager if we could mutually agree to run something we could both benefit from, and i would equally be interested with the US u21 team in the same format now. Furthermore, any other u21 team that is at or better than the Canadian u21 in terms of talent that is willing to negotiate a specific playtsyle i would be open to.

Did someone say Cletus?

I've been in BB hibernation. Semi-out of it now and on the fence whether to go back to sleep or wake up and work to get back to Naismith.