One of the things that motivates me any more in taking players is to avoid the synergy of high negatives. Especially if those negatives only really show up in looking at the totals column, as I think most of us get to hung up on only looking at the advanced column. To me the worst synrrgy is a combination of high fouls and high turnovers, combined with high usage. 

Two of the worst (drafted) players in that regard are Terry Porter and Hakeem Olajuwon.  I used Hakeem a couple of times in open leagues and he could almost single-handedly kill your teams chances. Which btw was what started me on thinking "why am I losing with these guys?".

This is also why some of the players are so ridiculously sim-friendly, and by some I mean Dennis Rodman. It isn't just his cred that makes him so deadly, it is that he does it with an almost absurdly low number of fouls + TO's, while maintaining a 90+ defense almost every season. The other synergy we almost instinctively avoid is crappy efg + low FT's. In the real NBA, possession, no score, possession, no score can go on for several minutes at a time, even in the playoffs. In the sim that will get you run out of games 135 -100. 

The big question I have is where assists figure into other categories. I suspect that there are some numbers where there are positive (or negative) synergy with assists, it is just really hard to figure which.

assists seem to have a 'soft influence' like steals or blocks what you see on the box score doesnt necessarily tell the whole story with how assists are positively impacting your fg% - however I see assists as a diminishing return stat - once you get enough to be in a non penalizing situation you're fine but loading up on more doesnt necessarily pay dividends

Posted by longtallbrad on 4/25/2011 6:06:00 PM (view original):
scud is asleep in China now and will draft when he wakes up.  Then we'll be ready for sappy and round 4 - starting the short run on monster centers.

I'm really stunned at 3-4 of the players who are on track to fall out of this round.

I had a list of 4 guys for my pick. KG went 11. I got McAdoo at 12. The other two.. dropping out of the round?

"Then we'll be ready for sappy and round 4 - starting the short run on monster centers."

yeah, baby!

well, felonius, does bill russell define your team? 3rd round selection. i remember you bringing up this issue in the odl and 52 mil league. or, this being a different format, doesn't apply?

I dont think it applies as much in this format - In this theme I think it's draft order by position and where you have your advantageous picks that does the defining- to wit I've been building around a player I havent even drafted yet

as soon as I could see that I was going to get a high usage, high efficiency 60%+ attempts inside scoring machine with  just ok boards and decent dimes (positionally) I knew I would need some other stuff to support him and I've been working towards that end ever since

7.   coachcroft - Gary Payton, Danny Granger, Larry Bird,
i don't know about the rest of the owners opinion's, but i think coach is kicking the crap out of us in this draft. payton holds his own with any point man in this league, and his top season is board friendly, 3 point friendly, and min friendly. and what makes him even more deadly on this squad, he's just the 3rd scoring option. good god. the usage with granger and bird and payton fits quite well, as long as coach doesn't go crazy with the eye candy in the fourth round, but i don't think he has to worry about that since all the high scoring centers will be gone. he needs boards. bird and the glove take care of the dimes, and granger is gonna light it up on this team. damn happy granger doesn't have a 3000 min season. there are many low usage board lords available, so i have great confidence in this team going deep in the playoffs.

8.   garyman - Kobe Bryant, Chris Mullin, Tim Duncan,
gary has always been a duncan fan (if i remember correctly), and duncan went at the right time. though i think duncan gets shafted in this sim, he does have breakout games, and kobe is flat out an unstoppable force in the sim. one of the few players that actually comes close to realizing all his fta's. kobe and duncan is such a nice duo. inside out game, dimes, points and def. so good. a work of art. then chris mullin? am i missing something? a big old black crow just flew over his painting and dropped white poop bombs all over it. haha. chris mullin? i had to actually look again. there were probably 125 guys better to choose. so, i went back and looked at mullin's numbers again, and yeah, i was right... white poop bombs. however, gary is a wily vet and knows what he's doing when not getting sauced in some shanghai pub. jury is out. let the crows clear and find timmy a playmate in the 4th.
   
9.   sixernuggets - John Stockton, Alex English, Charles Oakley,
stockton and english is a nice pairing, but i don't see english as a top 24 sg, or even a top 34. stockton's salary has come down a lot in the sim, and makes him a top value point man (top 5 certainly). still, i can't get past the english pick, and this is only compounded with the oakley pick. funny thing, in the last master draft league, i also drafted oakley in the pf round, so i have no room for talk here. actually, oakley surprised me with his game. he won many game mvp's, still, my team ended up out of the playoffs. haha. i don't see chemistry here yet, but there's 2 more rounds to make it come together. you need 3's and another 28% dreb guy. the center round will be your most important draft selection now.

10. bargearse - Chris Paul, Jason Richardson, Shawn Kemp,
this is the kind of team, in my wildest inaginations, i couldn't put together. i absolutely hate kemp's game, though he is popular with other owners. too many fouls and t.o.s to justify his shooting eficiency and paint play. i remember doubling him in a finals once, and i swept the finals to victory. kemp imploded with t.o.s and poor shooting. richardson is an excellent man off the bench, imo, but not as a starter. chris paul is so great! but expensive. but i think he's worth it. the positive: this team shoots threes and has a good inside-out game and is efficient. however, there are few boards at the no. 1 and 2 positions, and kemp is not a board lord. lots of work to do here yet, but bargearse will get this ship righted in time to brave the oncoming tsunamis.

that's very nice now how about make your pick!

 yes, mama

stealing from some writer on espn...forget who but...

player 1: 26.7% usg  52.4%efg  13.1%drb  11.3%ast  55def  41%per  3151mins  243/599 3s  249/331 fts  44.1/40.6/75.2 shot%s  2.5top48  3.7fp48  27.2pp48  $7,626,652

player 2: 27.6% usg  54.4%efg  10.1%drb  12.2%ast  40def  44%per  3022mins  269/653 3s  324/359 fts  45.4/41.2/90.3 shot%s  3.0top48  2.4fp48  31.1pp48  $7,431,469



one player would have been a top 3 sg if he wasnt taken in the pg round and the other was just called a bench player.....

dh555 - Dwyane Wade, Maurice Cheeks, Ben Wallace

Hard to argue with Wade, as long as you’ve got additional passing and some outside shooting.  Cheeks, whose real-life game I loved, only fills one of those two needs.  He’s priced a bit high for what he gives you in this sim.  Big Ben is obviously a nice (and pretty reasonably-priced) start on boards.  I think there were much better players available in both the second and third round, but I notice that dh is wisely accommodating Wade’s 36 usg%.  I’m really not in love with this team, but it could come together nicely in the next couple rounds.   



thanks for doing evals ltb and you nailed it with my team.....i would have slammed this team too for not getting a 3pt shooter next to wade and passing up the chance to have an awesome 1-2 scoring punch with wade and barkley......im trying something very different from the usual high scoring teams i draft

robo, I get your point about Olajuwon...I think it's possible to  build a playoff team around him but awfully tough to go deep in the playoffs.

But your Terry Porter venom I don't get.  Can you explain?  Is this some problem with his stats that I don't see, or are you talking about intangible sim juju?

My pleasure, dh.  And I love that you're using Cheeks.  He just falls way outside the mold that I've been trained to use...but I do think that the recent, significant salary overhaul has changed what's possible in ways that I haven't yet caught up with.

mikee1 - Lebron James, Reggie Miller, Dennis Rodman

" I probably wouldn’t have picked either Miller or Rodman in the slots where they were selected, but they both fit reasonably well with Lebron.  One of the last two starters needs to provide some assists since Reggie doesn’t do much besides score.  I only use him next to a monster playmaker like Magic, but the team will be okay in that regard if mikee’s able to draft some assists in one of the next couple rounds.  The presence of Rodman and the fact that Lebron is manning the point (presumably) means that rebounds are on the way to being taken care of.  I do think it was a slight misstep not to have taken Moses in order to have strong inside scoring that keeps defenses honest.  Still, I think this is a decent start."


I share the same concerns...I think my C/SF projected combo is reasonably attainable at this stage in the draft--have a few backups in mind for each-- and if I could pull it off this squad will be VERY tough on the glass, hit the asst% goal I want to hit and also shoot a very un-mikee-like ton of 3's.  Very fun format so far though, thanks scud and LTB for running this!

Porter is ok at PG, but only ok imo. He is usually 100 more TO's than steals, and his 400+ fouls plus turnovers on less than 20% usage (most seasons) are slippping real close to that negative synergy. He is borderline on the negatives, I just think there are better options. He is cheap though, so if he clears you for a 9 mil PF + Center duo, he is an ok option.


Part of my problem is that so many of you start building a team from the frontcourt, and I start in the backcourt. Most teams, I'm fine with my PG being my best player.