We did not have any junior bigs that could have gone early entry and didn't, unless you're talking about the season prior to this one when my 2 current Sr. AA's were Jr's that rated 893 and 860 respectively.  But they were only secondary scoring options on that team and both averaged fewer than 9 points per game and as such did not have the big stats or award recognition to leave early

EE's should be based on talent of the player, not how you do or do not do as a team.

In fact, I would think that if a very good player is on a team that plays poorly, then he would have a bigger chance of leaving ... at least in real life.

Guys often come back because they want to win a championship ... if the team is on the bubble to get into the tourney at all, what is his motivation to return.

He has a bigger motivation to return if the team projects as a possible final 4 team.

But, regardless, it should be the best of the best that leave early. There are only "X" number of players drafted, and how many go early should be tied to how good they are compared to the Seniors in that class. If the top 25 players are all underclassmen, then most of them should leave early.

If you are able to recruit the 5 best freshmen every season onto your team ... well, then you should lose more EEs than a team that can not get the best players. It only makes sense that the best of the best declare early. Of course, there should be some randomness as well ... some guys who are early first round picks, like Terrence Jones of Kentucky, do come back.

So, IMHO, the top underclassmen should leave early, regardless of the team they play on .. with some randomness of a guy staying who you would expect to leave every now and again.

Also .. overall ratings should not be used to decide leaving early ... it should be core values. If a Guy is 100 in Durability and 100 in WE, that can easily inflate his overall rating, but his actual performance attributes may not be as good as other players. It should be the better players in core ratings and not overall ratings that matters.

Posted by bow2dacowz on 9/14/2011 3:45:00 AM (view original):
We did not have any junior bigs that could have gone early entry and didn't, unless you're talking about the season prior to this one when my 2 current Sr. AA's were Jr's that rated 893 and 860 respectively.  But they were only secondary scoring options on that team and both averaged fewer than 9 points per game and as such did not have the big stats or award recognition to leave early

Stats aren't part of the EE process.

Posted by hughesjr on 9/14/2011 4:15:00 AM (view original):
Also .. overall ratings should not be used to decide leaving early ... it should be core values. If a Guy is 100 in Durability and 100 in WE, that can easily inflate his overall rating, but his actual performance attributes may not be as good as other players. It should be the better players in core ratings and not overall ratings that matters.

It's not based on overall ratings currently.

Posted by hughesjr on 9/14/2011 4:11:00 AM (view original):
EE's should be based on talent of the player, not how you do or do not do as a team.

In fact, I would think that if a very good player is on a team that plays poorly, then he would have a bigger chance of leaving ... at least in real life.

Guys often come back because they want to win a championship ... if the team is on the bubble to get into the tourney at all, what is his motivation to return.

He has a bigger motivation to return if the team projects as a possible final 4 team.

But, regardless, it should be the best of the best that leave early. There are only "X" number of players drafted, and how many go early should be tied to how good they are compared to the Seniors in that class. If the top 25 players are all underclassmen, then most of them should leave early.

If you are able to recruit the 5 best freshmen every season onto your team ... well, then you should lose more EEs than a team that can not get the best players. It only makes sense that the best of the best declare early. Of course, there should be some randomness as well ... some guys who are early first round picks, like Terrence Jones of Kentucky, do come back.

So, IMHO, the top underclassmen should leave early, regardless of the team they play on .. with some randomness of a guy staying who you would expect to leave every now and again.

Once again, hughes ... is this more like real life? Yes, I think so. Is it bad for the game? Absolutely.

I actually think there's currently a bit too much emphasis on postseason success in determining EE's. I think that aspect should be dialed back somewhat in favor of how good the player actually is. But removing it from the equation completely would be pretty disastrous -- a rich-get-richer formula that also makes it harder for low BCS and non-BCS teams to compete.

My opinion is make HD like college ball of 50 years ago, with basically no EEs. Lew Alcinder stays. Bill Walton stays. Michael Jordan stays. They all stay. It would be awesome to see some of these teams, and we'd get much less customer discomfort and complaints about "the champion SHOULD have lost some players." If done in conjunction with a tweak to player generation (more players with so-so ratings with high potentials to become great players by Sr year) so mid-majors could compete better, this could possibly maximum aggregate customer satisfaction.

I have no problem with EEs being in the game.  They need to be much less random.

I think they just need to tweak the wording in the evals - right now, it seems like every Top-100-150 overall recruit is likely to leave early.  Drop that number to about 30-35 per recruit pool and sprinkle it among all starred DI recruits (although definitely more 5-stars, etc).  Then have those 30-35 recruits leave early.  They can use the current criteria or tweak it to determine if a kid will leave after his FR, SO or JR season, but he is going early.

Also, I think it would be nice that if a player was thinking about leaving early, or prone to leaving early, your assistant coach would be able to give you a heads up.  You could get an email from him with the NBA draft email at rollover, saying something like:  "Coach, based on their performance this summer James Smith, Mike Jones and Tom Davis are thinking about going pro if they have a big year this season."  That lets the coach know, and they can plan a little better, if those 3 players are their depth chart at SG, then a coach might want to emphasize G recruiting that season.

acn, those are solid ideas.

Posted by Trentonjoe on 9/13/2011 7:54:00 PM (view original):
It cracks me up when the Big Boys complain about losing players......

I have to agree. When I saw this I wrote a book... then after reading it it sounded like i was more jumping on Doomey than just disagreeing with his idea so I deleted it.

A+ Stanford who the coach poorly planned and has 6 SR's leaving loses an EE or two after a Final-4.
Yeah I feel real sorry for him as he takes 5-6 5* players and then plays 2 free seasons to get right back to the same final 4 that at least 250 other DI teams have no chance what-so-ever to make.
Lets fix it so he is never punished and only the same 20 teams have ANY chance to EVER get past the first round.

and as far as any tweek to the current system... why do we have to take the only random thing left in the game out? Why do we have to take away the only small equalizer left? Why do the same teams that have all the power need a warning so they can better prepare?
Fix the broken part of the game first so more than 20 teams have some sort of chance to land a decent player or two... then you "might" look at EE's.

Given I have 8 d1 teams with candidates for EE'ing, I probably have donated close to as many EE'd players to the game as anyone.  A couple of thoughts on EE'iing:

#1 - EE'ing diminished the ability of the top franchises to 'stash' players on their roster for the future - in the old days, most of us had a 6th thru 12th roster that would have made the NT, that is no longer the case, partially due to EE'ing, and partially due to the recruit generation.

#2 - sort of the yin to point #1's yang, the top franchised team coaches did not get there by being 'one trick ponies', most know this game very - they know all the 'tricks' and are very creative in coming up with new ones, these coaches often take changes that were directed at them, and turn them into advantages.

#3 - It is very frustrating (and feels unfair) to low or mid level d1 coaches, to have only one great player on their roster, and to see them go early, when trying to compete with teams that have 7 or 8 BETTER players on their roster, and they only lose 1 or 2.  I have not had real many mid level teams since EE was brought to the game, but one case I recall, with B prestige UWGB, I was able to 'swipe' the #1 recruit in the nation from the defending national champ, I had to promise the moon, and the guy was my best player by far, he left after his frosh season - for all the teams and stories I might recall as a participant here, that is one I have not forgotten.  Does that mean mid or low level d1 teams should not lose players?  That is not my call, if it were, I do know what I would do!

Posted by girt25 on 9/14/2011 6:51:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bow2dacowz on 9/14/2011 3:45:00 AM (view original):
We did not have any junior bigs that could have gone early entry and didn't, unless you're talking about the season prior to this one when my 2 current Sr. AA's were Jr's that rated 893 and 860 respectively.  But they were only secondary scoring options on that team and both averaged fewer than 9 points per game and as such did not have the big stats or award recognition to leave early

Stats aren't part of the EE process.

Girt - +1 to your other comments, but I did think stats were a part of the equation, and that the 'change' made only dimished their importance, but did not eliminate, although if I were your lifeline on the million dollar pryamid, I might say your guess is as good as mine on my opinion on this subject.  I know I do try to limit my EE eligible guy's time and points when I can.  But these days that is almost never the case, so it really doesn't matter in my decision making one way or the other.

How does the sim decide how many players they need to leave early?  With more Euro's entering the draft, I'd bet the likelihood of college players leaving early has dropped off some.  There is simply a smaller chance that they'd be drafted.  Are there Euro's drafted or is it just college players?  This could make quite a difference in the number of players who leave early.

Posted by mlitney on 9/14/2011 10:52:00 AM (view original):
How does the sim decide how many players they need to leave early?  With more Euro's entering the draft, I'd bet the likelihood of college players leaving early has dropped off some.  There is simply a smaller chance that they'd be drafted.  Are there Euro's drafted or is it just college players?  This could make quite a difference in the number of players who leave early.

Interesting insight, as far as I know there is no HD function that adds European league guys to the NBA draft. 

My son and I thought this season it seemed 'Dirk' fever caught some of the GM's, kind of counteracting 'Darco' fever from 8 or 10 years back.  But I have not seen the real data on Euro's drafted, might be 3 or 5 every season, might be some have 10 or 12 while other drafts have 1 or none?????

I like both points that acn and jsk added but I do think EE does help equalize, but like others have posted, I'd much rather they be the best core ratings guys, not just taking a majority of the EE's from teams making post-season runs. On the other hand it does get confusing when 900+ rated players who played in the championship DON'T go and you lose that 822 guy. Sure it has to do with the kids' makeup, but that's a pretty big disconnect.

zags, I take no offense, I know it may seem like I was complaining about EE's in general, but I'm not I take issue with teh concept, but with the process and formula. I expect no sympathy for losing a 926 jr or having to rebuild after a FF. My issue was the continued gutting of good roleplaying jrs from deep teams. i've seen it on other teams and it's happened to me twice in the last few seasons where I lost an underclassman who was rated in the very low 800's while better seniors stayed home. If a guy is good, that's a risk you take, but at 822 the guy this year cannot possibly be among the best players in Phelan so it reinforces the idea that they are getting rid of players just to get rid of them and that is an issue. For the record, the 822 guy in quesiton this season has 60 ATH and 64 DE. Not exactly what you'd expect the NBA to come calling for.

The other issue is that the rich do get richer in terms of prestige with the EE system. When better seniors from clubs that didn't go as deep (or missed the tourney altogether) sit home on draft day and some 822 guy gives an A+ even more prestige to recruit with, that doesn't help the inequity either.