I have a dilema on my hands. For the last 2 season I have started Houston at AG and Fortune at SF with Furlong backing them up. This season I am starting to wonder about that, might it be time to give Furlong the starting SG spot. Just curious as to what others opinions are on the subject and way.

James Hall	Jr.	PG	33	83	22	44	7	1	81	79	72	45	68	40	B	575
Lee Black	So.	PG	36	83	1	36	3	19	83	81	74	61	85	80	B-	642
Bobby Houston	Sr.	SG	56	77	9	54	5	26	94	68	38	79	85	86	B-	677
James Furlong	Jr.	SG	82	69	22	78	4	7	64	60	50	56	84	47	C+	623
Antoine Cozart	Fr.	SG	57	64	10	44	2	17	66	66	31	72	79	60	C	568
Timothy Fortune	Sr.	SF	60	63	52	62	35	9	63	52	41	52	82	47	B-	618
Richard Steinmetz	So.	SF	76	51	36	65	23	10	76	47	35	40	68	33	C+	560
Lawrence Griffin	Jr.	PF	61	36	74	51	56	85	23	30	21	58	83	16	B-	594
Lester Lane	So.	PF	53	24	70	47	71	85	6	20	15	62	81	50	B	584
Donald Montez	Jr.	C	69	24	89	68	94	90	2	8	2	45	72	77	C	640
Laurence Morejon	Fr.	C	44	16	81	25	70	79	1	19	24	57	53	24	D-	493
Jerry Welch	Fr.	C	14	22	29	33	42	28	2	15	13	32	68	58	D+	356

Here is what I am thinking
PG: Black, Hall, Houston
SG: Houston, Furlong, Cozart
SF: Fortune, Steinmetz, Furlong
PF: Griffin, Lane, Morejon
C: Montez, Lane, Morejon

All FF except Griffin and Montez at GT.

Thanks in advance for you sugestions.

My two cents...

PG: Hall and Black are practically identical players.  I'd probably start Black just because he is younger and it'll help his development to get more minutes.

SG: Houston is better offensively and Furlong is better defensively.  If the opponent has a big scorer at SG, start Furlong to keep him in check, otherwise start Houston.  Whoever doesn't start is the backup at SG.

SF: Steinmetz is as good as Fortune.  Fortune has the edge in REB and SPD, but it is made up for by Steinmetz's advantages in ATH and PER.  Plus, it will raise Steinmetz's WE more quickly if he is starting, which will aid his development.  Just like with the PG, if two players are close I'll almost always start the younger player.  You could also make this opponent-dependent - if the opposing SF is more of a perimeter player, start Fortune because he's faster and should be able to get out more quickly to challenge perimeter shots.  If the opposing SF is more of an inside threat, start Steinmetz because of his better ATH.

Bigs: These guys are easy to rank.  1. Montez, 2. Griffin, 3. Lane, 4. Morejon.  I agree with the depth chart you've proposed as far as these players are concerned, the edge Montez has on the others on the boards makes him the logical player to start at C.

pg - furlong, hall
sg - houston, black
sf - steinmetz, cozart, fortune
pf - griffin, fortune, morejon
c - montez, lane, morejon

your welcome

well, the first place to start IMO is, what is the best lineup? and then you have to decide if you want to make adjustments to get younger players more PT.

generally, i suggest starting with the easiest decisions, and moving on to the hardest. bigs seem easiest to me, its clear who is #1, 2, 3, 4... thus
pf - griffin, lane, morejon, fortune
c - montez, lane, <blank>, morejon

i think sf is pretty easy as well:
fortune, steinmetz, cozart

i guess there was a little debate on the sf thing - with iq, i think fortune is pretty much better at everything, so it seems like the obvious choice to me

then, you have your guards. i think pg is straight forward enough
pg - black, hall, furlong

i put black ahead of hall even though they are basically a toss up outside stamina, and i prefer to have my higher stamina player start in that case. there are a number of reasons for this, one is that in close games, your starter gets pushed fatigue wise by the engine - better to have more stamina in that case.

finally, sg. i think most people would say the obvious choice is houston, furlong. but luckily, i am not most people :) i feel like your first line has enough offense, and your second could use a bump. meanwhile, furlong's defense and passing bonuses over houston will be very valuable to your starting lineup. so, i would go furlong, houston.

as far as getting tired vs fairly fresh, i would probably go fairly fresh for everybody, except maybe your bigs. your big situation there is tough. with an intended largely 3 man rotation, the ideal setup is, higher stamina starter on getting tired, lower on fairly fresh. however, with your lower stamina guy being significantly better, its not clear what to do. i would start with all your bigs at fairly fresh and see how it goes. i could potentially see you ending with both starters at getting tired or just griffin, but probably not just montez.

I tend to agree with gill - I would  give houston nearly comparable distro numbers to your starting scorers though so when he comes in he gets shots...

also, maybe its just a philosophy thing, I never put starters in the depth chart at another position. When they are on the court I want them where I put them...

(I would have gone with furlong to start anyway, even if you didn't have other strong offense, but I am an ATH whore...)

Posted by dacj501 on 2/2/2011 3:44:00 PM (view original):
I tend to agree with gill - I would  give houston nearly comparable distro numbers to your starting scorers though so when he comes in he gets shots...

also, maybe its just a philosophy thing, I never put starters in the depth chart at another position. When they are on the court I want them where I put them...

(I would have gone with furlong to start anyway, even if you didn't have other strong offense, but I am an ATH whore...)

yeah, i would actually probably give houston the most distro of any player.

some people feel like their starters should all have more distro than their backups - that is totally wrong and a very damaging thing to do, unless all 5 starters are better offensively than your 5 backups (and then you probably should shuffle things around a bit anyway). in general, it just makes sense to order your distro in the same order as the quality of your offensive players.

i once had a backup player, he was recruited to be a career backup, never started a single game. but he ended one of the top scorers in school history, and was the top scorer on the team his last 2 seasons - leading the team to 2 championships. so on an offensively packed team, a great backup offensive player can be extremely valuable, and in this case i feel its a great move. any time you have a guy who is great on offense but a rough starter (for guards, weak def and pass, for bigs, weak def and reb), its often smart to put them at backup - their weaknesses are hidden to some degree, and their strength becomes better utilized, because they are beating up on weaker defenders, and they are taking shots away from your weaker scorers.

presupposing, of course, that your squad has enough offense from the other starters. If you happen to have a weak offensive team, (in general, not that OP does), you'd clearly need to absorb the more offensively gifted player's shortcomings and have him in the starting lineup, IMO.

Gill, did he back-up more than one position? I hate trying to gameplan for those floating back-ups...(why dedicated defensive matchups are necessary)

Posted by dacj501 on 2/2/2011 6:03:00 PM (view original):
presupposing, of course, that your squad has enough offense from the other starters. If you happen to have a weak offensive team, (in general, not that OP does), you'd clearly need to absorb the more offensively gifted player's shortcomings and have him in the starting lineup, IMO.

Gill, did he back-up more than one position? I hate trying to gameplan for those floating back-ups...(why dedicated defensive matchups are necessary)

nope he was backup sg only, his passing wasn't good enough to play pg and he couldn't rebound. at the time i had 5 guards with 90+ speed on the team (in d2), most with good per, so trying to hide a poor defender was still a pretty impossible task. ah, the good old days when ridiculously good speed was all you needed to dominate :)

Thanks for the info guys, I really liked Furlong and thought the he should be getting more time and possible even the start due to better Ath, Def and Pass.

At SF what is the thinking with Cozart #3 over Furlong? Is it Cozart's better LP or is it the fact that Furlong is beter suited for the #3PG and therefore should not be the #3 guy at 2 positions? Same this with Stienmetz and Fortune, does Fortune start because of his superior reb over Stienmetz eventhough Stienmetz has better Ath? 

Posted by pajamainc on 2/2/2011 8:01:00 PM (view original):
Thanks for the info guys, I really liked Furlong and thought the he should be getting more time and possible even the start due to better Ath, Def and Pass.

At SF what is the thinking with Cozart #3 over Furlong? Is it Cozart's better LP or is it the fact that Furlong is beter suited for the #3PG and therefore should not be the #3 guy at 2 positions? Same this with Stienmetz and Fortune, does Fortune start because of his superior reb over Stienmetz eventhough Stienmetz has better Ath? 

furlong is your starting sg. he should be putting in as much time as possible at that position. i don't see the value in putting him at any other position. the only times my starters appear elsewhere on my depth chart, except very unusual situations, is at 4th, when i am short on depth and need the failover. for example, if i have 4 bigs, they typically all appear at both pf and c, because other wise in foul trouble situation, you would not be able to as effectively balance the trouble between pf and c.

the consequence of putting furlong at #3 is probably minimal, because the sim engine tries to put the top of your depth chart in... so he would pretty much never play sf. but if he did, what does that mean? it means you have shittier guards playing guard, probably. sometimes, you can make a case for it - like if you have a starting sg who is the only reasonable 3rd option for pg, so you put him at 3, which he will never actually play at, except in foul trouble or injury situations (one would hope, im sure thats not 100% true, but its probably 99% true). but usually you would be hard pressed to explain the advantage you gain by putting a starter somewhere else on the depth chart.

with stienmetz and fortune, that is a totally different question. that is a starter/backup issue. in this case, i think fortune is the clear starter because of iq. ratings wise, they are pretty similar, but the iq gap is pretty significant. also, one of stienmetz's big ratings advantages is per, and because of his iq, he is useless on offense. the reb and spd advantage more than make up for the ath as well, IMO. plus the bh/pass doesn't hurt. i guess right now, with iq, i feel fortune is better on offense, defense, rebounding, and as a team player (passing, and maybe bh). so i guess there is no tradeoff in my mind, but only because i am looking at abilities, not attributes. its important to evaluate players by ability - you've heard me say that before in sitemails i'm sure. but this is a great example. ath is a very important rating, but what really matters is, how good is a guy defensively? offensively? on the boards? etc... evaluating by ability is not only more effective when picking players, but thinking in that way is good because you always want to be thinking about roles, what a guy is on the floor to do, his strengths, weaknesses, etc - and that is all based on abilities, not simple attributes.

I'd put Furlong in at starting SF because of the Ath, SP, DEF, BH, Pass, & Stamina advantage of both of the SF's you have. Yeah the REB and BLK goes down some, but I think his advantages in the other 5/6 catergories more than makes up for it.

If you start anyone other than my son, Lee Black, at PG, you'll have to answer to his Mama. Remember those recruiting promises you made???

Al those promise were told to you in confidence, I hope that they don't make there way to your son. but don't worry he has better upside and will be starting.

Plus he mentioned in our first practice that he is looking forward to being able to help me get my first win over your Kentucky state team. He heard you muttering something about this years team lacking tallent. I would not let that getout to your players. ;-)