it seems to me that in the old engine, ball handling was important for scoring (especially 3 point shooting by guards), where passing was really just for turnovers - so i theorized, passing must be more important in turnovers. however, in the old engine, i felt strongly passing was not as important as it should be, and accordingly, i did not give it nearly the priority one would expect in my guards (i focused much more on defensive abilities in my pg, and in the scoring ratings in my sg). it sounds like in the new engine, bh is still important offensively, and now that passing is important offensively, in the team sense, bh and passing are about split in importance, in terms of reducing the turnovers of the player in question.
seble didn't speak to (and i didn't ask) if passing was weighted by position, but im just about positive the answer is yes, there. its interesting that IQ is also a factor, but bh, ath, and spd are not. i thought it was also interesting that seble introduced these other effects in the new engine. at this point, i am going to go off on a tangent, that i have meant to go off on for some time now...
it sounds to me that the game has made an important shift to increased focus on team abilities. i don't mean overall rebounding rating of a team, or anything like that - but the quality of the team ends up impacting the performance of the individual. many people know i have argued that individual rebounding ratings are somewhat misleading, because the performance of the individual is skewed by the quality of his team mates. when you have a 99 ath/reb guy get 10 boards on a poor team, and 6 on a great team, you know you can't look too hard an individual ratings for clarity on the quality of a player. i think this type of view that i have on the game has often met some resistance - which is fine - it should, to some extent. but i also think its important people know that now its not just rebounding, but fouls, turnovers, heck, even shooting! for which team abilities play into the performance of an individual. those who i mentor and sitemail with frequently know the emphasis i place on team abilities - i think this revelation from seble only further strengthens my belief in that kind of view of the game.
because i've never really talked about it publicly (which is somewhat amazing to me) - largely because it took many years to formalize the way i look at the game, even though this is how ive viewed things for many years - i want to go ahead and say this. when i look at players, and discuss quality of players, i don't see or talk about ratings - not directly, well, not primarily, at least. i always talk abilities. when i ask someone what they think about a player, and they start to say well, i like his speed, dont like his bh, etc - i just stop them immediately (assuming i am trying to teach their person) - a rating in and of itself tells you nothing. saying "i like his 3 point shooting, i like his rebounding ability" - this is the best way to discuss and to view the game. there are too many ratings and the abundance or deficiency of a single rating tells you nothing about how that player will perform. its much more logical, even though we are all trained to do the opposite from the beginning, to discuss the abilities of that player - is he a good defender, good rebounder, etc... and this also lends itself to discussing abilities at the team level. even without coding in the sim for team abilities, i believe in this approach - its much easier to understand a team and how/why a team is performing the way they are, when you are looking at the abilities of the players and the team - not at individual ratings! i've always believed and advocated that the engine does not compare individual ratings - it uses intermediate aggregates, aka, abilities, to make decisions. what was not clear is the extent to which these were aggregated further into team abilities. it is still not clear to what extent that happens, but it is now clear, it seems to me, that team aggregates or team abilities play a hand in most parts of the sim. to me, that is all the more reason to push to view and analyze players and teams by their abilities, not by ratings.
for example, if you were to ask yourself, as i ask people in our first major mentoring conversation - tell me about your ideal lineup, what you are shooting for in recruiting - what do you want the players to look like, or what major options/tradeoffs do you look for - the answer sounds very different in a ratings vs abilities approach. most people will start, well, i want my pg to have good passing, and generally i want him to have pretty good ath, spd, and def, although if hes got really good ath i can have less spd or def, or if hes got great speed and def, i can take less ath, and i want my sg to have good spd and per and bh and maybe ft%, but if hes got good lp i can take a little less per, and so on and so on. its very messy and confusing.
instead, you can say things like, i really want a pg who is a strong defender and is a strong passer. i am ok with him not being a good scorer as long as my SF is, between him and my SF, i want one strong scorer. my SG i usually like to be a strong perimeter scorer, but if i get strong perimeter scoring on my PG or SF, i can take a more 2 point oriented scorer at SG. at SF i always want two of the three, strong defense, offense, or rebounding, but i don't care as much about guard skills. i need one of my 2 bigs to be strong on offense, and both to be strong on defense and on the boards.
you can convey much more about what you want with the ability sense, i think most people don't have a clear idea what kind of tradeoffs they want, how many strong defenders they need, how many strong scorers they need, how many strong rebounders they need, and how the priorities go - because its too confusing to talk about, and too confusing to think about, when you are sifting through all the ratings. of course, people will need to discuss and build an understanding of what ratings go into an ability, but its much easier to convey ideas about building a team and planning for recruiting, and all that good stuff, with abilities. people will often say to me, i am nervous about this guy because he doesn't have that much speed. well, why does that matter? is it going to hold him back on offense, on defense, what? a lot of times they look at it and go well, he has great ath/def and im playing m2m, so i guess that 70 spd in d1 is fine, and hes not really a core scorer, so you know what, actually his strengths really outweigh that 70 spd, which won't particularly hurt him. basically, its hard to see the forest through the trees, and i think when you focus on ratings, its too much looking at the trees, not enough at the forest. for example, one very simple, easy to apply rule with abilities is, every player you need must have 2 clear strengths in their core abilities (for guards, off, def, guard skills, for bigs, off, def, reb, small forwards are kind of weird as they have 4 possible core skills but reb and guard skills are only half way core skills). any player with just 1 clear strength, by and large, doesn't cut it. and many people get guys with 0 clear strengths because they look well roudned, but in reality, those players are just awful. its very difficult for me to say in ratings, a concise metric one can use to evaluate if a player is strong enough, when trying to compete at a high level.
on a team level, you can also look at the abilities of your players, and quickly determine if you have the right balance. this is way more difficult with rating speak. quick example, if you just get 2 clear strengths per player, and focus on lining them up right, you can build a great team without really having any stars. you get 2 offensive strengths, 2 reb strengths, 2 guard skill strengths, and 4 defensive strengths. any team with 4/5 defenders strong is going to be good defensively, and defense is the one area not really subject to diminishing returns. if you have 2 clear strong scorers, guys who are leading scorer types, you more than likely have enough offense to go around. if your bigs are both strong rebounders, you are in good shape on the boards, even if the rest of your team sucks. and if your guards have strong guard skills, you really don't need it anywhere else. thats 10 strengths, 2 per player. its a very simple way to describe how to build a very effective team. teams competing at the highest level should get a stud or two, and be able to bring that 12 up to 11 or 12, without too much difficulty. but whats interesting is, there's just that much value on going from 5 solid players, with 2 strengths each, to 5 super stars, with 3 each. you can't score that much more effectively with 5 studs than with 2, if the 2 get to score a lot, and presumably there are some offensive role players in the mix. you can't defend that much better with 5 strong defenders than 4 (although i definitely like my 11th strength to be the 5th mans defense). going from 2 strong rebounding bigs to strong rebounding at all 5 positions is a boost, but its not that big of a boost, not nearly as important as going from 1 strong rebounder to 2, is. same goes for guard skills.
anyway ill stop rambling now, but i think coaches who are struggling to get their team to really perform, who feel they are recruiting talent but struggle to make the most of it, could REALLY benefit from trying an abilities-based analysis of your team. does every player meet the 2 strength standard? when you count your strengths of your starters, is it nice and balanced, or are you shooting yourself in the foot by having too many scorers and not enough defenders or rebounders? also, when you have to settle for a guy, and you get a pf without great rebounding, knowing the game works on team abilities, if you have the rebounding at sf and sg, you know you can make up for it (you still have to be decent at PF, at least). but you know if you don't have any other good rebounding, you are pretty screwed. i think the game just makes a LOT more sense when you break it down into abilities, instead of ratings. it takes getting used to - the way you look at every single player changes, at least, thats how people i mentor describe it to me, when they start trying to use the new approach. it really seems to help in getting the proper team setup, too. it just provides clarity - its not really anything, but a framework to talk about the team and the players and the setup in more logical terms, instead of getting lost in the nonsense that is individual ratings.