Posted by cubcub113 on 3/4/2023 5:23:00 PM (view original):
I mean, at the minimum, tanking BH/PA in bigs and REB in guards, PA in elite scoring SFs... just beyond obvious how insanely positive this is.

Min/maxing practice plan distribution for every player is routine for a lot of coaches, and not controversial. If you think it makes your big worse to zero out BH or passing, then you probably think twice and put maintenance minutes on instead. Likewise with guards and rebounding.

As to EE caliber players, and min/maxing for the purpose of keeping them low on the big board, it's not always positive, for every coach, every year. I do it commonly, but not exclusively, because there are lots of instances where it makes more sense for my team to go for it. That's why lots of very good coaches don't worry about doing this at all. There are competing coaching perspectives at work here, and while there are a number of areas where this game is absurdly imbalanced regarding gameplay choices, this is not one of them.

Both of my guys Draft Board stayed. I got lucky, and my guys ended at 34th for Lauderdale, and 93 for Floyd Jones.

Some teams got hosed. UC Irvine lost a guy in the 100's. There were other screw-overs too.

So, anyway, it paid off for me to deliberately have my studs sit around and eat Ho-Ho's and Ding-Dongs and Yodels and Yankee Doodles and Ring Dings, while binge-watching anything with Lily Collins.

At a minimum, again, i hope more people are aware of this odd and sometimes effective strategy.

Posted by npb7768 on 3/5/2023 8:43:00 AM (view original):
Both of my guys Draft Board stayed. I got lucky, and my guys ended at 34th for Lauderdale, and 93 for Floyd Jones.

Some teams got hosed. UC Irvine lost a guy in the 100's. There were other screw-overs too.

So, anyway, it paid off for me to deliberately have my studs sit around and eat Ho-Ho's and Ding-Dongs and Yodels and Yankee Doodles and Ring Dings, while binge-watching anything with Lily Collins.

At a minimum, again, i hope more people are aware of this odd and sometimes effective strategy.

Keep in mind, there are always some changes between the last big board and the actual draft. We never see a real "final" big board - it's just the draft. If everything remains as it stood, Lauderdale would have been called at #25 (considering the guys ahead of him staying), which would have put him in the likely going camp at the time of draft - but it's very possible that your entire teams "tanking" and missing the tournaments this season dropped his stock a bit in the offseason, and he fell out of the first round. Or you did just get lucky, that's also possible. Duke definitely did.

generally, folks shouldn't be giving up too much important growth for this. its more about that semi-superfluous stuff to help your EEs around the margins. occasionally there are instances where you should be significantly holding cores on key players, but usually this is not the case. it kinda takes a lot to hit those ones right anyway. you usually need to see it coming early, preferably 1st practice early, and to make intelligent decisions about what you'll be able to afford to give up at the times when the player is particularly important. otherwise you end up giving up too much of value (chances at deep runs) to justify it all.

i partly dislike EE planning for its gimmicky nature, but to its credit as a facet of the game, its a decent skill expression that leans heavily on team planning.

Posted by gillispie on 3/5/2023 2:37:00 PM (view original):
generally, folks shouldn't be giving up too much important growth for this. its more about that semi-superfluous stuff to help your EEs around the margins. occasionally there are instances where you should be significantly holding cores on key players, but usually this is not the case. it kinda takes a lot to hit those ones right anyway. you usually need to see it coming early, preferably 1st practice early, and to make intelligent decisions about what you'll be able to afford to give up at the times when the player is particularly important. otherwise you end up giving up too much of value (chances at deep runs) to justify it all.

i partly dislike EE planning for its gimmicky nature, but to its credit as a facet of the game, its a decent skill expression that leans heavily on team planning.

3 times when holding a guy back is super obvious to me:

1. I am really into holding back some selected cores on Ineligible players. You can't develop the stud guy normally or risk a ridiculous chance of losing them after 2 years. I try to transfer most of them into 4-year role-player guys, although they can get pretty elite by NT senior year with a full year of growth.
2. There is never any reason to let a Junior finish 90 on the big board.
3. Getting a SO to drop from 10 to 40 reduces his chances of leaving from ~75% to ~25%. Some people get a bit out of control with their studs so quickly, but I see no reason to not try to get a 3rd year out of them.

Unless you are developing PER or STA, a guy who is 35th on the big board has got to be good enough as a SO anyway... without great IQs it's not like they'll be insanely different with +5 BH, PA and DE...

Posted by topdogggbm on 3/4/2023 3:56:00 PM (view original):
I had no idea that lots of coaches still actually did this. I just can’t break myself to do it. It just seems weird to keep players from developing. I don’t pay close enough attention to other teams unless they’re on my game planning tab for that night, but I only ever noticed piman doing Things like that. I haven’t really noticed others. And the only reason I noticed him, is if I play against him, I’ll notice he’ll have some big board upperclassman with like 30 points of growth in PER or LP and he’ll have 0 growth anywhere else on that player.

obviously it must be helpful when it works out right. But it’s difficult for me to mentally say “ok I’ll just compete with what I got. I could use this extra 90 PER guy to put me over the top. But Meh, I’ll wait till next year”. I wanna be the best I can EVERY year personally. To each their own

Totally agree. Its a silly system.

Posted by Benis on 3/5/2023 9:08:00 PM (view original):

Posted by topdogggbm on 3/4/2023 3:56:00 PM (view original):
I had no idea that lots of coaches still actually did this. I just can’t break myself to do it. It just seems weird to keep players from developing. I don’t pay close enough attention to other teams unless they’re on my game planning tab for that night, but I only ever noticed piman doing Things like that. I haven’t really noticed others. And the only reason I noticed him, is if I play against him, I’ll notice he’ll have some big board upperclassman with like 30 points of growth in PER or LP and he’ll have 0 growth anywhere else on that player.

obviously it must be helpful when it works out right. But it’s difficult for me to mentally say “ok I’ll just compete with what I got. I could use this extra 90 PER guy to put me over the top. But Meh, I’ll wait till next year”. I wanna be the best I can EVERY year personally. To each their own

Totally agree. Its a silly system.

it is kinda silly, but also, the description here is kind of a charicature. its not like 'hey i will just bail on this extra 90 per guy who would be hugely valuable'. its more like 'this big is already 90+ ath/reb/def/blk/lp maybe i'll hold back on a couple points in whatever couple of those he has growth in to get him back an extra 10% of the time' or 'this 90+ in all cores big has like 40 bh/pass which i could grow to 60 but i'll decline so hes about a 50/50 instead of 85-90% to leave as a jr'

I'm kind of at the same point where I'm at with promises where everybody gets a start/25 because it's just not worth the risk of losing the player. Getting a guy to stay 3-4 seasons is such a huge benefit, that basically everyone worth a damn is getting max stunted out the gate aside from stamnia and free throw shooting. The titles aren't going to come because your Sophomore improved from 80 to 90 PER, rather they're going to come because that Sophomore decided to come back for his Junior year.

It is definitley dumb and I do hate it though, however I do see Shoe's point about not wanting to take away control from users. But when something like that gets to a point where everyone is doing it because it's the right move 99% of the time, then it's like what are we doing this for.

If there was no value in strategizing the (lack of) growth of studs' player ratings, then it wouldn't be done.

Also similarly, if base prestige is no big deal, then HD players would not sit at A+ schools forever, like me at Crum UConn.

HD is a game of inches, and we're looking to get an edge here and there.

Again, i've lost at least 2 freshmen across all worlds... not a disaster since i must have 70-80 top-conference D1 seasons under my belt, but with so many close calls in the NT, who knows? Until this season i was loosely aware of Draft Board workings, and i hadn't put any thought into it.

It's part of the game, thats fine. My goal here with this thread is to share this strategy so that everyone is playing with the same understanding.

Posted by Baums_away on 3/6/2023 11:13:00 AM (view original):
I'm kind of at the same point where I'm at with promises where everybody gets a start/25 because it's just not worth the risk of losing the player. Getting a guy to stay 3-4 seasons is such a huge benefit, that basically everyone worth a damn is getting max stunted out the gate aside from stamnia and free throw shooting. The titles aren't going to come because your Sophomore improved from 80 to 90 PER, rather they're going to come because that Sophomore decided to come back for his Junior year.

It is definitley dumb and I do hate it though, however I do see Shoe's point about not wanting to take away control from users. But when something like that gets to a point where everyone is doing it because it's the right move 99% of the time, then it's like what are we doing this for.

I actually don't think that's a 99% scenario at all. Completely depends on the team if I go for it. If I have a contender with 3 other good perimeter options, then sure, raising a potential EE soph from 80 to 90 per is an easy call - hard pass. But if I don't have 3, it's not clear cut. And if I have 0-1, I am leaning toward developing that per and taking my chances.

But of course, if I don't have a real contender, I am likely OP's position, just save it for next season.

Posted by npb7768 on 3/6/2023 11:35:00 AM (view original):
If there was no value in strategizing the (lack of) growth of studs' player ratings, then it wouldn't be done.

Also similarly, if base prestige is no big deal, then HD players would not sit at A+ schools forever, like me at Crum UConn.

HD is a game of inches, and we're looking to get an edge here and there.

Again, i've lost at least 2 freshmen across all worlds... not a disaster since i must have 70-80 top-conference D1 seasons under my belt, but with so many close calls in the NT, who knows? Until this season i was loosely aware of Draft Board workings, and i hadn't put any thought into it.

It's part of the game, thats fine. My goal here with this thread is to share this strategy so that everyone is playing with the same understanding.

i think everyone here would agree with you that there's significant value in this part of EE planning.

also 100% with you on the spreading of the knowledge that this exists.

Posted by gillispie on 3/6/2023 11:03:00 AM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 3/5/2023 9:08:00 PM (view original):

Posted by topdogggbm on 3/4/2023 3:56:00 PM (view original):
I had no idea that lots of coaches still actually did this. I just can’t break myself to do it. It just seems weird to keep players from developing. I don’t pay close enough attention to other teams unless they’re on my game planning tab for that night, but I only ever noticed piman doing Things like that. I haven’t really noticed others. And the only reason I noticed him, is if I play against him, I’ll notice he’ll have some big board upperclassman with like 30 points of growth in PER or LP and he’ll have 0 growth anywhere else on that player.

obviously it must be helpful when it works out right. But it’s difficult for me to mentally say “ok I’ll just compete with what I got. I could use this extra 90 PER guy to put me over the top. But Meh, I’ll wait till next year”. I wanna be the best I can EVERY year personally. To each their own

Totally agree. Its a silly system.

it is kinda silly, but also, the description here is kind of a charicature. its not like 'hey i will just bail on this extra 90 per guy who would be hugely valuable'. its more like 'this big is already 90+ ath/reb/def/blk/lp maybe i'll hold back on a couple points in whatever couple of those he has growth in to get him back an extra 10% of the time' or 'this 90+ in all cores big has like 40 bh/pass which i could grow to 60 but i'll decline so hes about a 50/50 instead of 85-90% to leave as a jr'

Yeah, maybe the example isn't an exact representation of how to manage this.. But I know Top has said many times how ridiculous it is to intentionally make a player worse and I definitely agree with that.

We all know this game isn't realistic BUT if you do strive for realism then I don't see how you possibly think this is a good system that represents real life.

I think taking an EE should give a double team prestige bonus based on their draft position compared to if someone stays 4 years. Very realistic as well, since recruits don't just want to get to the NBA, they want to get there fast! Give teams incentives to develop their players, WIS!

Posted by cubcub113 on 3/7/2023 9:33:00 AM (view original):
I think taking an EE should give a double team prestige bonus based on their draft position compared to if someone stays 4 years. Very realistic as well, since recruits don't just want to get to the NBA, they want to get there fast! Give teams incentives to develop their players, WIS!

I think that's a good idea, generally - not sure about double exactly, but significantly more would be fine, I think - and plays well with my proposal of the academic v. pro-ball preference. The big thing is that it should matter to players. An intelligent system would have players notice this kind of thing - along with roster construction, and noticing how many players would potentially be blocking them. And on the flip side, players who come in wanting to play should always be kind of antsy about the coach signing and promising minutes to new guys. Sort of like a "selfish vs team player" personality dichotomy.. There's a lot of room for more complexity if we're going down this road. And as long as it isn't going to chill promises or close that prestige window and cut off competition, I think it would be generally good for the game if the devs want to tackle it.

Posted by cubcub113 on 3/7/2023 9:33:00 AM (view original):
I think taking an EE should give a double team prestige bonus based on their draft position compared to if someone stays 4 years. Very realistic as well, since recruits don't just want to get to the NBA, they want to get there fast! Give teams incentives to develop their players, WIS!

I've always liked the idea of an NBA preference. Get a little bonus for recruiting if you're putting guys in the draft.