im looking for some opinions (and maybe a lively debate) about the value of speed, from a defensive standpoint only, in man defense.

i think in any defense, speed is more important at the 1/2, then progressively less at the 3, 4, and 5. my question really spans all positions, although its speed at the 3 that prompts the question.

i think we'd agree for bigs, speed is significantly less important (again, defense only considered here) than ath and def, and probably sb too. but by what margin? id think ath and def are at least 3 times as important each. i mean in general, id probably put them at 3x or more, so from defense only, maybe its more? id guess def is #1 for sure, from a defense standpoint only, id probably take 1 point of def over 5 points of spd. so maybe id peg it somewhere in the 4-7x as valuable range? ath, id put maybe in the 3-5x as valuable range?

for guards, there is probably a lot less consensus. i don't even know if we'd agree on the order. for m2m, is ath > spd or is spd > ath? i think def definitely trumps both. and i get the feeling ath edges out speed, but im not sure, and its probably no more than 2:1 in my opinion. i dont think its even more than 1.5:1 but really ive never studied man closely, ever, nothing like i did for press, motion, or triangle.

so i basically start with guards and bigs because i think those are easier to think about. what about at the 3? does it really matter who you are defending against? even without putting values on it (which obviously i am hoping to hear some of in the guard/big cases), whats the nature of defense at the 3? say you are guarding the same guy at the 3, that you would might at the 1-2, a really strong offensive guard with great per and crap lp. is speed now less important than if that guy was at the 1 or 2? is ath more important? what about if you are guarding a combo (lp and per) scorer? do you guys think that guarding the exact same guy at the 3, youd still favor ath more and speed less than if you were guarding him at the 2, or at the 1?

what about compared to bigs? say you have a 90 ath/lp guy. if hes goes from playing C to playing SF, do you think that it takes the same exact type of ratings to defend him? or does SB now matter less, speed more, and ath less (relatively, of course)?

so really, i guess my question about the 3 has 2 main parts. 1) do you guys think if you are guarding a typical perimeter shooter or a typical lp big, that the ratings have the same weight as they would if that player was playing the 1, 2, 4, or 5? or are the weights different? much, or not much?

part 2) how would people weigh the defensive attributes at the 3? assume this is a solid iq and sta guy playing in a typical high d1 setting. how do you compare ath, spd, def, and sb? even in the absence of actual weightings, how would you compare it relatively? do you think its like, the mid point of the weights of a 1 and a 5? or is it more big-ish? more guard-ish? or something different? how much does this answer depend on the type of player you are facing at the 3 (a pure per shooting, pure lp guy, or combo player)

Not really a lively debate going on ATM. I'll try to get one started. 

Let me preface it by saying I don't have a good feel for ratings as a whole. However, I believe that SPD should be a "secondary" defensive attribute, behind ATH and DEF. I would take an 80/80 ATH/Def guy with only 40 SPD over a 65/65 guy with 60 SPD. On the other hand, if the 65/65 guy was 80 SPD, he may be the guy. 

That short answer probably doesn't come close to what you were looking for, CBG, but hopefully it starts the discussion.

I haven't had a lot of M2M teams and none currently, however my thoughts are that speed outranks athleticsm at the 3 spot. My logic is that I don't care how good a defender a player is, if he is slow getting into position then the offensive player gains the advantage. I would rank Speed in decreasing order at the 1-5 and visa versa for Athleticism.

In my opinion speed is #1 in guards. I had a juco with defense and ath in the 30-40 range get 120 steals in his 3 years. I find that low defense shows the most in relation to fouls. That same player seemed to pick up 4 fouls a game. I didn't keep any detailed stats on opponents fg %. That may be an area ath and D are more important.

Posted by Weena on 9/16/2012 3:55:00 PM (view original):
I haven't had a lot of M2M teams and none currently, however my thoughts are that speed outranks athleticsm at the 3 spot. My logic is that I don't care how good a defender a player is, if he is slow getting into position then the offensive player gains the advantage. I would rank Speed in decreasing order at the 1-5 and visa versa for Athleticism.

i agree with the speed decreasing thing (well, i count 1/2 about the same), and same with ath increasing (about same at the 1/2 again). 

i have spent a decent amount of effort trying to determine if the engine works the way you allude on the speed thinking. its basically like, there are 2 options. 1) if the speed difference is too large, there are going to be open looks where ath/def don't even come into play. not all the time, but at times. 2) the engine just takes ratings and converts them into "abilities", without doing any fancy analysis about if a player is too much faster, too much taller, etc... basically, this would be in the school of thought that you can compensate for things like more speed, more athleticism, etc. if you are smarter about it with strong fundamentals

its hard to know for sure but im fairly confident the engine works in the second way. if you have a guard with 40 speed guarding a 99 speed guard, i think there is nothing special going on. its just a reliance on speed being important enough in the "ability equation" if you will, for the 99 speed guard to come out on top. i could be wrong, but based on the complexity of this engine in a number of areas, i really would be surprised if it got into that. i consistently had the speediest of the speedy guards in d2, i remember one of my title teams, i had 6 guards over 90 speed. i mean, they did dominate, but it was just consistent domination more than a situation where we dominated slower guards more than fast guards. its hard to say, because speed was so valuable then, the quality of guards was so dependent on speed (i put speed at 3x ath in the press, for example). but when i tried to isolate out the speed factor and look at overall quality of guards, we seemed to do as well against speedy guards and non speedy but still quality guards (high ath/def/bh/pass). you never know though, if i incorrectly valued speed, i could have come to the totally wrong conclusion.

i guess in this case, like so many others, i rely as much upon my ability to get inside the creator's head (being a programmer and algorithm guy definitely helps) as actual experience. but this was one of my main questions early in my career, and i tend to rely heavily on any findings i had during that period, because i was SO into the game at the time, and my understanding seemed to really be in sync with the engine.

Posted by bvb24 on 9/16/2012 4:31:00 PM (view original):
In my opinion speed is #1 in guards. I had a juco with defense and ath in the 30-40 range get 120 steals in his 3 years. I find that low defense shows the most in relation to fouls. That same player seemed to pick up 4 fouls a game. I didn't keep any detailed stats on opponents fg %. That may be an area ath and D are more important.

are you suggesting speed is #1 in guards, just from a defensive standpoint? it sounds like you are, but i just wanted to make sure. also, it sounds like you were playing press, is that the case?

its definitely true that spd in press trumps speed in other sets. not as much as it used to, but still. i put way more (i think too much, but still) stock into speed on my d2 press team than my d1 man team. before the new engine, id 100% agree speed was #1 on defense, but i think now def has passed it. i could be wrong obviously, but it really seems like seble has the mindset that defense SHOULD trump ath/spd in any set. ath/spd play into everything, while defense is just, well, defense.

and i think you are right... speed is still #1 in steals (less so than it was, but still). and it is a significantly smaller factor in opponent fg%, that is where defense really makes its money.

im curious weena, i think you still play both d1 and non d1... what do you run? press or zone? particularly in d1, im curious, why is that what you go with?

I have 7 current teams: In DIII I have 1 Zone and 1 Press team. In DII I have 2 Press teams. In DI I have 1 Press and 2 Zone teams.  I know I am in the extreme minority but I don't like being forced to recruit for defense. M2M requires that Def be the #1 skill and if you have a weak link it leaves you vulnerable for exploitation. In the majority of conferences I play in, there is a who's who of coaches any of which would identify a weak spot in a heartbeat. Heck, even in one of my DIII conferences, 9 teams play M2M. I love the Press because I can cause fouls and TO's on a level comparable to M2M. I like Zone because it minimizes my teams fouls and I can switch between 2-3 and 3-2 against good Perimeter teams.

I think there is also a comfort level involved. I am very confident in finding players that fit my Press or Zone teams and I don't have that same feeling recruiting for M2M. I am always afraid that I am giving up too much on the other skills by focusing so much on Def. That does not mean that I don't value Defense. I just don't like to recruit around it.

Also, FWIW 5 of my 7 teams play Triangle and I have one Motion and one Flex team.

I would definitely look for SB at the 3.  

Posted by gillispie1 on 9/16/2012 9:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bvb24 on 9/16/2012 4:31:00 PM (view original):
In my opinion speed is #1 in guards. I had a juco with defense and ath in the 30-40 range get 120 steals in his 3 years. I find that low defense shows the most in relation to fouls. That same player seemed to pick up 4 fouls a game. I didn't keep any detailed stats on opponents fg %. That may be an area ath and D are more important.

are you suggesting speed is #1 in guards, just from a defensive standpoint? it sounds like you are, but i just wanted to make sure. also, it sounds like you were playing press, is that the case?

its definitely true that spd in press trumps speed in other sets. not as much as it used to, but still. i put way more (i think too much, but still) stock into speed on my d2 press team than my d1 man team. before the new engine, id 100% agree speed was #1 on defense, but i think now def has passed it. i could be wrong obviously, but it really seems like seble has the mindset that defense SHOULD trump ath/spd in any set. ath/spd play into everything, while defense is just, well, defense.

and i think you are right... speed is still #1 in steals (less so than it was, but still). and it is a significantly smaller factor in opponent fg%, that is where defense really makes its money.

I play m2m.  I'm saying I value speed over anything else.  That's not to say I'm ignoring defense, but I would gladly trade 10 points of D for 10 points of Speed in most my guards.

I have noticed that speed has a huge effect on steals in MTM. I've had guys with low d as well lead the team in steals and the only noticeaBle attriBute I could relate with tHe spIke in steals was speed. But its not consistent and I'm not sure if there is a minimum threshold of def required where everything works to generate more steals.

am I the only one trying to decipher the hidden message left by red's random caps?

I bet it was posted from an iPad or iPhone. Sometimes that happens if you accidentally move out of the text field and go back in - the next letter is caps.

Lol yeah iPad aintheb. Sorry dacj. I usually don't type on this thing because it makes me look foolish when I'm not too attentive to what I'm doing. The keyboard appears right over the post box and sometimes you have to jump out of the post box to see what you've written and when you go back in it doest what aintheb said.

the world inside my head is way more interesting than all that :)