BuzzerBeater Forums

Another season begins this week, so lets do a preseason rank of the current teams:

1# Georgia PowerRiders Salary: $162,779 Average Salary: $16,278
Last season they were 9 secs and 1 point away from being crowned champions, so maybe this year they can get over the hump. Led by last season's scoring leader Donát Gubán, this team has enough talent to score at any position, anywhere on the court, and put up alot of points, but can they play enough defense to back it up?

#2 IXLOS Sabers Salary: $137,745 Average Salary: $10,596
Relegated from D.III, the Sabers come in with possibly the strongest starting 5 in the league, but with not much depth to speak of. Wu Shuoxiang was the floor general and scoring leader of this team last year, but will the entire starting five be able to carry this team back to D.III?

#3 The Blood Suckers Salary: $130,182 Average Salary: $10,849
The Georgia PowerRiders ended their season last year, and the with two straight seasons ending in the conference championship, this team needs to add perhaps one more piece to get to the championship. The rivalry between this team and the PowerRiders is intense, and one of these two teams will most likely be representing the Big 8 in the championship. MVP runner-up Zhao Xiuguang will most likely capture the award this year if they can get to the championship.

#4 Bull Knights Salary: $117,115 Average Salary: $9,009
Losing to the eventual champions in the conference finals last year should mean that this year, this team should at least make it to the finals. But with a slew of new talented teams joining the Great 8 this season as well as a number of much improved teams in the Great 8, that means that the Bull Knights, led by Mustapha Hajri, will by no means easily make it to the championship. They will have to once again rely on some quality bench play this year in order to compete with teams that have a much better starting five.

#5 B.I.GBallers Salary: $134,571 Average Salary: $9,612
This team is very talented across the board and has a very real possibility to fight its way into the championship. They have proven that they can play with the best teams in their league, but with a veteran team, led by a suprisingly talented Urmas Nael, the window may be close to closing on any hopes of a promotion to D.III.

#6 Big Big Gulps Salary: $136,222 Average Salary: $10,479
#7 swish dawg Salary: $121,185 Average Salary: $8,079
#8 Sheboygan Red Skins Salary: $117,221 Average Salary: $7,814
#9 Pick #1 Salary: $129,557 Average Salary: $10,796
#10 Darlington Falcons Salary: $85,498 Average Salary: $5,029
#11 Ten Jaguars Salary: $80,978 Average Salary: $5,398
#12 DreamTeam 3 Salary: $124,167 Average Salary: $4,776
#13 Texas Demon Slayers Salary: $47,101 Average Salary: $3,925
#14 Rat Brigade Salary: $64,772 Average Salary: $2,591
#15 Phi Slamma Boicey Salary: $45,538 Average Salary: $2,168
#16 Saint Paul Murderers Salary: $46,161 Average Salary: $2,198

first person you have to play starting season26 good luck

Hey guys.

I've just signed up for this game today, so I'll obviously be the teams whipping boys.

It looks like I'll have a lot of reading of all the help guides to figure out how to play this game!

Cheers for the welcome. Am working my way through the nooby guide and will take a look at that site a bit later on. It certainly looks like I need to invest some time in this to get good.

I presume D4 is quite strong and I've zero chance of surviving?!

Thanks for the nod on the preseason ranking i did before the season everybody. Snce i'm getting so much positive feedback, what ive decided to do is do a pregame evaluation for what I think is the most interesting game during that week, along with an explanation for my choice and the keys to victory (KTV) for each team, as well as a mid-season revised ranking.

@Mix, once again, thanks for the comments, and i agree with you on the reliability of preseason ranks. With all of these new teams joining, the ranks will obviously change over the course of the season. Also i haven't been on the offsite, but ill check it out.

So without further ado, ill do the first pregame review of the season, which since we are halfway through the week, will just be for the Tuesday game:

Week 2 (01/7/2014):
Big Big Gulps vs The Blood Suckers

After finishing the last three seasons with the number 6th seed, Big Big Gulps are of to a hot start, albeit it was against some pretty poor teams. The Blood Suckers have lost to the two toughest teams in the BIG 8, but begin a three game home stand tonight and a win tonight against a 2nd seeded BBG team would definitely help in filling the stands during that stretch. Neither team is playing a formidable opponent in the cup this week, so this might be a game where we see one of the teams use something other than TIE, since it will have attendance implications moving forward.
KTV for TBS: Play an outside zone defense to stop BBG's outside attack. BBG have been effective moving their players around to different positions, so playing man and trying to lock down a one of their scoring threats with either Zhao Xiuguang or Tim Barnes might result in one of BBG's top players, especially Vsevolod Averchenkov, being guarded by a young or ill-equipped player.TBS does not have the advantage inside, so TBS's three outside starters will need to put up big numbers if they want to walk out with a win.
KTV for BBG: Run a uptempo offense. It seems that BBG has the better roster,despite the injury to Görkem Ferzan, which will leave a glaring hole that TBS will want to take advantage of. Generally an uptempo offense will allow for the better team to make more buckets, and with a balanced attack like they have, that should be sufficient to pull out a victory. BBG's PF and C should be able to shut down any inside game, so keeping Xiuguang, Barnes, and Torres from draining three's all day will result in a win this week.

Final Score: TBS- 83, BBG- 97
I believe TBS will play either NORMAL or CT, but even with that I dont think they have enough overall talent to contend in this matchup.

Hey dback, welcome to BB. As a newbie, i definitely suggest going through not only the tutorials and rules, but also some of the discussion boards in order to see what other, more experienced players are doing.

Just a couple of tidbits from what I remember/regret from when I started:

1) Clear out any junk you have in your roster. fire any old players that dont have any reasonably good skill and any young players with a potential of 6th man or lower. This will not only allow you to focus on training your future stars, but also decrease the amount of salary you have to pay. ( The salary floor doesn't apply to you in your first season) Remember, money is king in this game.

2) Acquire a decent trainer, and train only your young players. At the beginning, an advanced trainer will be all you need, as higher level trainers are expensive to not only hire, but also keep. And keep in mind that the older a player gets, the less he win respond to training, and training a player beyond the age of 26 or 27 is a waste of precious training time. And most importantly make sure your trainees get at least 48 mins of training time each week.

3) Acquire your future stars, either through the draft or free agency. The lower your record during the season, the better pick you will have during the draft, and a season like this season, where you might end up getting a top 3 pick, might land your stud. However some claim that the draft is too unpredictable, and there is no guarantee that your #1 pick wont be the future waterboy. Personally, I prefer to get my trainees through the transfer list. It might be more expensive, but at least you know exactly what your getting, and you don't need to tank in order to get a good trainee. But I'll let you decide what you wish to do.

4) Bring in talent where you need it. The most amount of players you can train effectively each week is 3-6, so you will need to fill gaps in your roster through other methods beside training. Older players are not only relatively cheap to acquire past the age of 32, but they can make an immediate impact and bring experience to your team. Be careful not too load up on veteran players however, as this will cause you to be really good quicker, but you will either drop off into terribleness when they get old or bankrupt your team trying to bring in more players. You need only to compliment your core talent.

5) Get through the growing pains. you will lose a lot this season, and probably next season too. but gradually building your roster through smart training and tranfers when necessary is the best way to have success in the future. Be careful with your money and your players.

I hope I can help in anyway, other than telling you how ill beat you in our upcoming matchups :) Good luck

Many thanks, very helpful! You guys are all so nice and welcoming :-)

I've played a similar game to this for 6+ RL years in Hattrick and it looks quite similar. Be patience, and train, train train! There's just so many thing to read, its all a bit overwhelming on where to start. One thing I won't be doing is spending any cash until I do a lot more reseach.

Quick nooby question. I have an 18year old Allstar and a 21 year old perennial allstar. You mentioned age is a key factor in the training, would it be better to focus on the younger buy less potential chap, or should I try work on the slightly older one?

It would be wise to save your money until you know how to properly spend it. I made the mistake buying a bunch of players 5 seasons ago, and im still wishing i had learned more beforehand.

As far as your trainees go, I would focus on training both of them. the 21 yo will progress slower than the 18 yo, but you can still make him into a decent player. Personally I would focus on training their outside defense (pressure) most of this season, as that one becomes quite hard to train as the player ages, and make them into your future starting guards. But train both of them and try to find one more trainee over the next few seasons. A great way to see how training works is the Training Simulator. you can find it in the English forum under the Help Programs tab. Play around with it some, and you will learn alot.