Does anyone have any insight on how 'Player Distribution' affects a player's touches?  For example, say 'John Smith' has his 'Player Distribtuion' set to '10' on a scale of '100'.  I understand this means that he will be targeted on approximately 10% of the offensive plays, pending defensive set up.  But, does this also mean that his overall offensive 'touches' also approximates 100% (or does it have no relation)?

The reason I ask is the following: I have a guy who is a phenominally talented Athletic and Defensive player.  However, he has HORRIBLE BH, P, PER, & LP.  Playing a M2M defense, I would like to put him at SG if I am facing a great SG.  If I set his 'Player Distribution' to 0, will it mean he will almost never touch the ball (Motion offense) when running offense.  In other words, I am trying to take advantage of his defense, while minimalizing the number of times he touches and turns over the ball.

Any thoughts based on experience?  Thanks!

That's good thinking and I think you have the right idea on what to do.  I don't personally like to use 0, but 1 instead.  I figure it should make almost no difference, but I'm a little paranoid about what weird things might happen with a 0.  But either way, he will almost never take any shots.  I do believe he will still "touch the ball" a good bit no matter what you do, though, and he'll have his share of TOs (e.g. "throws the pass out of bounds").  The question is whether his lockdown defense on the opposing SG is worth it, and I suspect the answer is sometimes yes.

One clarification, 10 distro doesn't exactly mean he'll be targeted on 10% of your plays.  The values are all relative to what else is on the court.  Most of the time you'll have much less than 100 total distro on the court, so his expected % will be 10 out of whatever that total is.  So if your starters are say, 20-20-10-5-5, then you could expect your guy set at 10 to take about 1/6 shots in that lineup.  And then the odds would change every time someone subs in/out.  Note that your total distro can sum to 100, but doesn't have to.

Thanks spasticity.  I was afraid that the # of touches was more determined by the position played, and offensive set, as opposed to the Player Distribution.  Not really sure what the +/- is yet on valuing DEF over BH/P in the SG position...I figure poor BH/P skills would be punished more by pressing teams.

Also, thanks for the clarification on the distro percentage works.  I knew it worked the way you described, but it was good that you confirmed.

Just a few comments to piggyback on spas good comments.

I never set a player to 0. It does not necessarily mean he will get the least shots.  If you d set it at 0 it just means the engine makes all the decisions on that player. I set the guys I want the least disto on 1. Unless you have alot of guys on 1, he is going to get the least distro possible.

I use a scale that totals out between 45 & 60 thru the course of the year as I adjust people up & down thru the course of the season based on performance

Don't get hung up on whether your players took more or less shots than you think they should based on distro settings. Distro does not take into consideration shots outside of your offensive structure. Such things as fastbreak  points, turnoversand  "O" rebs.

Shot disto is not equal for guards and bigs. It is the nature of basketball that guards control the "rock".  If you have a stud guard and a stud big and you want them to score about the same, generally speaking you must set the distro higher for the big. Example the guard at 8 and the big at 10 to 12.

thats not true. i have several players set to 0 and they get 0 touches. it only determines what to do with the engine on that player if everyone is set to 0.

Posted by unlikelyhero on 10/20/2012 11:03:00 PM (view original):
thats not true. i have several players set to 0 and they get 0 touches. it only determines what to do with the engine on that player if everyone is set to 0.

I am co-signing that. Last season I set a couple of bad shooters to 0 and they got no touches. I could see how people could get it confused because of what the rulebook says, but , as unlikelyhero said, the computer will take over only if everyone is set to zero.

The above two posts are true.