Hi, it's hard to answer these questions perfectly without seeing your players' exact skills but here's a shot:
1) You have plenty enough talent (based on your players' salaries) to win your way out of D5 and compete in D4. It looks like your strength is probably midrange/outside scoring and your weakness is outside defense and rebounding.
2) You should pick up a couple 18 or 19 year old players with potential around star to train for the near future. I'd suggest getting some guards since you already have a few trainable guys (King Alvarado, Ray Rico, Antti Pellinen) who I suspect would benefit from Pressure training to raise their outside defense. Get some young PG/SG types with potential and set up a nice training system. Don't overpay for potential! Star potential lasts through a few seasons of two position training, and by then you'll probably want new trainees anyway for one reason or another.
3) On offense it looks like you should be either a push the ball type team (you have some good-shooting SG/SF types I find that tactic gets the SF a good number of shots) or motion/run and gun (if your shooters have average/respectable+ JR to hit a good% of 3pters). On defense, full court press will do you fine in D5 -- you seem to be getting enough steals to justify it. Against stiffer competition you'll probably want to switch to mainly 3-2 or man to man depending on the opponent. In my opinion, full court press is not a good default tactic in the current engine.
4) If you have the money to buy someone, you could use a big man. They're typically easier to buy and it would round out your team. It's not a pressing need since it looks like you're going to win your league rather easily, so take some time, follow the market, and get a good deal on someone. I'd probably look for someone with inside skills around proficient/prominent who wouldn't cost a ton (to buy or in per-week salary) but would be useful to you in D4 and maybe even in D3 as a backup.
5) I find that a 12 player roster is a good number for managing player gameshape. If you get 3 new trainees and one big man you'll be at 12. If you buy fewer trainees or can't afford a useful C, fill out your roster with low-salary scrubs to play in your scrimmages.
6) Learn the enthusiasm system! Playing a couple games Take It Easy can
really improve your team's performance in the following games. While you're in a winning position, experiment to learn about the game -- try different effort levels, or players in different positions, or different tactics.
7) Can't say anything about selling the players you have because I can't see their skills, and even judging them based on performance is hard because lots of them have suffered in gameshape.
8) If you set an Access Key (preferences menu), you can tell your account name and access key to people and they can look at your roster (including player skills) and some other team information like economy, etc. If you make an access key and tell it to me I'd look at your current players and comment on how useful I think they are. The access key can't be used to actually change your team in any way -- it is NOT your password.
Ambler as in Ambler PA? I've been there a few times
Last edited by Peluin at 02/12/2010 02:29:28