The way I look at it is that if you have quality defenders with high def/spd/ath, then they are just much more effective in a man to man defense.  They would still be effective in a zone, but if you can match up position by position then you are in better shape.  The zone is effective for masking problems with a player or two defensively.  Also, I think the zone can be effective when gameplanning since you can focus more in the interior or perimeter which is nice if a team is terrible at shooting 3's or something like that.

Just my two cents.

Posted by tianyi7886 on 6/10/2011 6:37:00 PM (view original):

Posted by isack24 on 6/10/2011 11:10:00 AM (view original):

Posted by billscnb on 6/9/2011 11:49:00 PM (view original):
Easier to recruit for imo

You think it's easier to recruit for man-to-man?

I think that's totally opposite, at least at the lower levels.  Not only do you have to find guys with ath/spd who can keep up with press teams' ath/spd, but those guys also must have def.  WIth press, you need ath/spd/sta.  WIth man, you need ath/spd/def.  I think the first combo is easier to find.

With the new update, finding ath/spd/def guards are easy. There is a post by someone earlier, about how all the athletic players also have high def, and after looking at the recruiting pool in all of my worlds, I have not found a single guy with great ath but poor def. Now, finding ath/spd guys with good stamina, that's a diff story.  

And what about bigs, it's nearly impossible to find a big with great ath/spd and can also rebound. With m2m, you can go with lower ath/spd and aim for the 90+ rebounders, which is a little easier to find. 

That's weird, because I have three teams of badass bigs with no guards.  If these guys are everywhere, feel free to point me to them in Wooden next season :)

There's one other factor that I think works against press. In M2M, I can hide one or two mediocre defenders (say, in the 35-45 range at D2) if their offense is strong enough. I can move them around to place them against weak scorers on my opponent. But in press, a guy with mediocre stamina is, in my experience, basically useless. It doesn't matter how good their other cores are - they'll commit fouls like crazy and be a net negative on your team.

Zone has a lot of great strategic advantages -- less fatigue, ability to flip between 2-3 and 3-2 (an enormous piece that most people don't properly utilize), fewer fouls, easier to hide a weak defender or two.

I think a big problem is that probably about 90% of the teams I see playing zone don't know how to properly utilize these strengths.

Posted by bhansalid00 on 6/11/2011 9:21:00 AM (view original):
There's one other factor that I think works against press. In M2M, I can hide one or two mediocre defenders (say, in the 35-45 range at D2) if their offense is strong enough. I can move them around to place them against weak scorers on my opponent. But in press, a guy with mediocre stamina is, in my experience, basically useless. It doesn't matter how good their other cores are - they'll commit fouls like crazy and be a net negative on your team.

I don't think that's true.  A guy with exceptional ath/spd will still be good in the press despite mediocre stam, and won't "foul like crazy."  It's no different that what you're saying about man and def ratings.  If the other ratings are good enough, you can have one or two guys on your team with mediocre stam.  

I tried to use 3-2 and got absolutely lit up everytime, committed a ton of fouls, etc.

And I really disagree with the expression 'hide a weak defender'. You can't 'hide' them. Since ratings are averaged in a zone, you hurt the average when you put weak defenders on the floor. It just spreads the suck around, it doesn't hide it.

Ratings are NOT averaged in the zone.  I don't know why people can't get past this.  They may be effectively averaged over the course of a game, but in any given possession one defender is assigned to the ball handler.

CS told me flat out that they are averaged.

and although I assume that you are correct and CS mis-worded their answer, if one defender is assigned to one ballhandler, then that still isn't really 'hiding' a defender, you just have much less control over who the poor defender actually guards.

Posted by pjbrankin on 6/11/2011 11:43:00 AM (view original):
I tried to use 3-2 and got absolutely lit up everytime, committed a ton of fouls, etc.

And I really disagree with the expression 'hide a weak defender'. You can't 'hide' them. Since ratings are averaged in a zone, you hurt the average when you put weak defenders on the floor. It just spreads the suck around, it doesn't hide it.

You can absolutely hide it more than in m2m. In a m2m, that guy can be isolated and attacked ruthlessly. In zone he can not. If you're smart about roster building, you can pair a low def but great offensive guard with a very strong defensive guard and be in good shape. That same guy in a m2m would get torched. (A good example was a guy I inherited on my Marshall team w. 99 per and a total defensive liability. Even as a senior, I really could only bring him off the bench, otherwise he would've gotten torn apart.)

Posted by pjbrankin on 6/11/2011 3:12:00 PM (view original):
CS told me flat out that they are averaged.

lol, they told me flat out that they are not...  I'm gonna submit this ticket again and try to force it up to seble...

dahs, I went back and looked at the ticket and it turns out they wrote that they are 'essentially' averaged, not actually averaged. So apparently I misunderstood them and thought it was indeed being averaged.

and girt I understand and agree with everything you said, it's just that I hate the expression 'hide a weak' defender, since they are still hurting your team defense. The opposite of what you said also works, though, where you can take a weak defender and move him around if you think another coach will try to attack him, whereas you can't in a zone.