I've run into this situation and few times and was never really sure how to handle it.

Say I have 2 guards that start,

player 1:  has very good scoring attributes (max spd and per, high bh and pass), but defensively, he can be a major liability (very low defense and ath). Yes I know someone will probably say he shouldn't start, so lets move past that. 

player 2: Has high ath, def, spd, some ability to score etc, but his bh and pass are very low, like in the 20's to 30's. 

Naturally I'd play player 1 at the pg and player 2 at the sg and it works since often the opponent has an elite scorer that is not against  player 1, but how should I handle it when there is an elite scorer against my weak defender and the backup is not an option because of the production I would lose. Also, I have the option to double team this elite scorer and my other players are good enough defenders to make up for the weak player. 

What I want to know is

1. If I were to just switch player 1 and player 2 at the pg and sg spots for matchups, would player 2's low bh and pass hurt my team anymore at pg than when he was playing at sg? Keep in mind he's starting either way, but just not sure of the impact of moving him over to a position where handling the ball is important.

2. On the double team, who is the 2nd person coming to assist in any of these situations? Normally the pbp just reads player x shoots/passes etc out of the double team.

I have a questions, Is it possible to have another PG start, bump your scorer to a 2 and the hi athletic to a 3?

In answer to your questions:

1 - his low bh and scoring would definitely hurt against a press. probably hurt against a m2m. and hurt the least against a zone. it would also likely hurt more than it would when he's a sg, since he will become your primary ballhandler.

2 - I haven't found anywhere that states who the normal double-teamer will be in these situations.      

It is possible in most cases, but in this case I don't think I'd be willing to go that route. The guy who would get bumped from the 3 is an elite defender and the backup pg that would be coming in is a decent defender, but likely not enough to handle the opponents elite scorer on his own (the backup is in the 50's while the guy who would be coming out is in the 80's with good ath and spd).

Maybe with this backup up in, I reduce the opponents elite scorer point total by 5, but my own pg would then be covering the opponents 3rd best scorer and likely increase that players ability to score and in the end I would still be down more defense than when I started overall (especially once you consider the potential lost turnovers that would have been created with the original sf in). If i were just to switch the 1 and 2, the weak defender would be covering his 3rd best scorer still, but his elite scorer would be covered by an elite defender as opposed to an average defender who will still get owned.

I move my "PG" to "SG" all the time based on matchups.  If there is an impact I haven't noticed it.

A guy with BH and Pass in the 20s and 30s has no business starting at a guard position for any human-coached team.  Maybe passing in the high 30s or low 40s with BH of at least 60+ at the 2 with some elite ATH/SPD/DEF or SPD/PER.

dahs while I agree that should be the case, my results have shown in some cases it still works. I've had one as the lead scorer on an elite 8 team and another who was a starter on my DIII championship team. In the current pairing, the guy I have playing at the 1 is in the 80's in bh and pass with max speed while the 2 has 30's in bh and even less in passing. They both get the ball about the same distribution, but the 2 has less than 10 more turnovers, plays a lot more minutes, draws tons of fouls and is a monster defender. 

It will sound stupid, but I've found guys like this that have been more efficient scorers than the guys who are supposed to be stud scorers. In all 3 cases, said player at the 2 spot shot over 50% with poor lp, per, bh, pass while drawing lots of fouls while the scorers shoot near 47-48% and draw doubles and stuff. One of those guys actually shot near 60% and took nearly 600 free throws. 

Posted by Trentonjoe on 5/8/2013 3:14:00 PM (view original):
I move my "PG" to "SG" all the time based on matchups.  If there is an impact I haven't noticed it.

TJ, I do it as well sometimes, but my question on the impact is will this guy with crap bh and pass effect my offense too negatively, or does the sim engine recognize who is the better bh/passer and automatically give it to him. 

I'm curious about this answer too. I move my guards around a lot... but when playing a start at PG, I haven't dared put a crap BH and P player there. I figure the PG takes the ball across half court and is sort of the QB of the offense as in real life.

Lots of things don't work out on HD as they do IRL, but that is what the logic in my brain has said to do at this point.

Essentially, I think it boils down to the fact that PGs seem to have an extra TO possibility beyond their distribution.  So the total turnover probability for any given possession is PGdistro*PGturnoverrate + SGdistro*SGturnoverrate + ... + constant*PGturnoverrate2 where the turnoverrate values are determined by the players ratings, primarily BH and Pass; it may or may not be the case that the PG turnover rate in the act of running a play for the PG is equal to the PG turnover rate in the backcourt, etc, IE what I've called PGturnoverrate may or may not equal PGturnoverrate2.  But even at 0 distro PGs with poor BH and Pass will amass a significant number of turnovers, whereas at any other position the number of turnovers tends to be quite small at very low distro.  Not 0, mind you, but low.  Perhaps an even better guess at the turnover equation is (distro + K1)PGturnoverrate + (distro + K2)SGturnoverrate + ... where the Ks decrease as you move from the 1 to the 5, with a huge dropoff from K1 to any other K.  Regardless, you are maximizing the harm of a poor ball-handler/passer by playing him at the 1, so you have to balance the defensive difference, but certainly there might be situations where playing a poor BH/Pass guard at the 1 is the least harmful scenario.  But I would anticipate that a guy with BH in the 30s and Pass in the 20s with a significant distro could easily AVERAGE upwards of 6 TOpg, even in D3.

That is kind of what I was getting at Dahs in the sense that the potential for turnover is greatly increased by playing him at the 1 vs the 2. Then again, this is SIM and we honestly and the engine does not always work the same way our logic does which is why I asked.

With that said, while I can imagine the same scenario of up to 6 TO's a game from this poor bh/pass, that is not the case in this one. This guy currently has 2 turnovers per game, not what you might expect from a player with that low of bh and pass at the 2 spot. Is it possible that high ath or spd enhance the bh and pass to a respectable level in the same way as other categories?

Guy in my D2 conference started a 14 BH, 24 P guy all season at the point (he's now up to 19 BH, 35 P). He averaged 5 PPG and 2.5 turnovers/gm

http://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=2354737

http://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=2331803

These are my starting guards. I got to the DIII championship with these 2 as my starters. you'll see the drastic difference in pass and bh of the 2 players, but barely any difference in turnovers.