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Thanks for your help, guys!

26) I'd rank your guys Antuma, Furman, Leal; they all got pretty mediocre stats so a ranking by potential seems in order. I'd train them on IS and ID and when Furman and Leal are starting to look good, add 1v1 forwards and some passing and OD to your training for Antuma.

I guess I still have to learn a lot, because for now I see them completely differently. I assumed:
1. Antuma's secondary skills are non-existent, which means I'll always train him as C, meaning his salary is always going to be blown out of proportion. A year from now he'll have tremendous ID, sensational IS, and atrocious everything else, on a $8k salary. Is that a functional player?
2. In one year Furman will be a beast inside with amazing all-round secondary skills and thus manageable salary, actually heading for what others described to me as the perfect PF. Thus far, I haven't seen another player with those skills (or an 18yo with those skills -12) on the transfer market.
3. Both of you value Leal poorly, and I got him pretty much for free, so surely he's the case that I misunderstand the most. From the forum threads which provide potential formulae I figured he still has a lot of room to grow, beautifully fits my training scheme, and will always remain a cheap piece of my rotation. A year from now his inside skills should match and begin to dominate the secondary ones. At that point I'd hope to upgrade him from scrimmage center to league game center (since you told me the engine doesn't mind the size and that's the position where I can hide the poor JR) or alternatively sell him for some big bucks, way before he reaches his potential. I'd think he's way better than Antuma. But I guess I'm very wrong...

3. Both of you value Leal poorly, and I got him pretty much for free, so surely he's the case that I misunderstand the most. From the forum threads which provide potential formulae I figured he still has a lot of room to grow, beautifully fits my training scheme, and will always remain a cheap piece of my rotation. A year from now his inside skills should match and begin to dominate the secondary ones. At that point I'd hope to upgrade him from scrimmage center to league game center (since you told me the engine doesn't mind the size and that's the position where I can hide the poor JR) or alternatively sell him for some big bucks, way before he reaches his potential. I'd think he's way better than Antuma. But I guess I'm very wrong...

I'd agree more with you, but this is a discussion that's been heated on the forums in the past. A *well-trained* star potential player can be an important part of a team as it starts out and as it moves up the league structure. I've got key backup/spot starter guys even now who are star potential guys and who I am not ashamed at all to start when necessary, but they're guys that I've either trained specifically for what they do or purchased with the skills I needed. I think turning Leal into a big man is a very clever move, and he's got the makeup to be one of those guys who clearly outperforms his salary.

Of course opinions vary, and I'm just giving you my take on things. As you see, others will see things differently, and I must say I started out the same way. I bought a couple of Star potential players for scraps, and sold them a season later for 50-100k. That's a fine way to get to learn how to train properly on a tiny investment, and even earn some money while you're at it.

The problem I had with that, is that after 2 season I was already looking at promotion, and I was just acquiring new trainees. I then had to play my 18-year olds during league games I had to win, and that wasn't easy to combine. Now if I would have had trainees with higher potential, they'd be able to contribute at that point so I could still compete at a high level and train my guys. Even if I had kept the Star potential players, they'd soon be capped out and then I'd need new trainees in a competitive environment. Even though Star potential players can be trained into well rounded, salary efficient role players, I think after a couple of seasons you'll wish you'd be training a guy who will become your franchise player instead of a great backup.

So even though Antuma has bad secondaries, you can train him for a long time, and with his solid primaries he'll be able to contribute to your team in league matches soon enough. He can be your trainee for important matches you need to win. Also, for bigs, it's pretty easy to get decent secondary skills because you can train 1v1 and Jumpshot for forwards, meaning you can train secondaries from the PF position, which is natural for your bigs so they don't underperformance because of out of position training. That way, you'll have 3 of the 6 secondaries trained easily. Furthermore, these (DR, HA, JS) are skill that train very fast, so it won't take long for him to have decent secondaries. Of course, it's not perfect if he still has bad OD, PA and JR, but at least he's not a bone headed salary monster.

Furman is a great trainee too and I must say at 2nd look I think he's equal or maybe better, at least not much worse than Antuma for training purposes. You can train him for a while too, but I think after 2 seasons you'll be itching to buy a great trainee (superstar potential or better with good starting skills), and then Leal will be the first to go, before he's become a good rotation player.

But as I said, this is just my view, and maybe you and others feel differently. I'm just sharing my experience and you can take it for what it is :) Good luck!

Thanks guys! Your opinions are priceless, I'm still learning so much every day!

Well for one, when we talk about total skill points we don't count Stamina and Free throws

28) Could you explain why?

29) Also, somebody mentioned some skills are strictly quicker to learn than others - could you point me to some concrete numbers? I searched the entire forum like crazy. The thread Training Speed Analysis only has some vague guesses from 2009. The only semi-interesting post I could find was this one strongly supporting my Leal>Antuma philosophy: http://www.buzzerbeater.com/community/forum/read.aspx?thread=227464&m=8

28) Because those skills aren't affected by height or age, and they are trained by team training, which is a lot different than the regular training you give trainees. Also FT and ST are generally not really trained early on at all, except for maybe during the allstar week or the end of the season when teams only play twice a week. They are generally valued a lot less than the other skill points, so putting them in the same overall number (TSP) doesn't really give a fair comparison.

29) (229484.1), the Training Simulator is a nice tool which is updated pretty regularly by Rhyminsimon, in the tab "Coefficients" there are interesting stats about training, like age and height factor, skill elasticity and training speed. There you can see that if you train 1v1, you get a lot of skill points for your training. DR, HA and JS are the main beneficiaries from that training, and they are trained by other training forms too (like JS, Inside scoring). That's why they train fast, and a skill like OD which is only trained by Pressure goes slower.

Re 28) - the part where you say they're not trained early only makes their significance bigger in my eyes, so I'm guessing "generally valued a lot less than the other skill points" (by the game engine, I assume?) was the main message you were trying to convey :)

Re 29) - thanks, exactly what I was looking for! Not sure for now how to import my roster (or whether to put it in manually?), but will try to figure it out this weekend!

1) Antuma's secondaries are probably worse than anticipated and a capped-out player with those secondaries isn't tremendously valuable (though he could still be a good player). You may want to consider training his secondaries some. Even getting a little training to round out this season and in any "easy" weeks in the next few seasons could prove beneficial.

Getting major outside training is purely discretionary, though. I'd probably only do that if I had sentimental reasons.

2) Yeah, solid PF. Certainly doesn't mesh perfectly with Antuma if you did want to train secondaries a little. Pressure fits well, I guess.

3) Yeah, it's the potential that limits him. I assume you can get a better trainee with higher potential "pretty much for free" around the draft. I would have started Antuma in your scrimmage today instead of Leal.

Many of you advocate the one-on-one training. If I go for it (and for other 2-position schemes), doesn't it mean I should have six trainees instead of three?

If you do get 6 trainees, then at least 3 of those trainees will miss out during the weeks you 1-position train.

I meant the case of training double positions forever. Or do they pop faster if you alternate between various types of training?