Posted by dukenilnil on 10/4/2010 12:07:00 PM (view original):
I think what these few examples have shown is that it appears that 1 speed centers can be effective AND that this is another area that makes the HD basketball word vastly different from RW basketball.  I for one don't think HD needs to mimick RW (unless they stated it was their intent) but it's useful to know if they are playing by a different set of basketball rules so that one can drop any presumptions about what makes an individual a good player and focus solely on the rules of HD.

What makes you sure that low-speed centers aren't often effective in RL college hoops? If you've got strong ath, def and LP, I don't see why you couldn't be very successful in half-court sets, in HD or in RL.

1 speed guys can be effective in real life.

for example - look at cole aldrich recently. 

also - dexter pittman at texas.

There are a ton of 1 speed RL centers that were effective.  Great scorers? No, but solid def reb/blk guys.

the bell curve is starting to make sense to me in a way that i dont think the programmers intended...

BOTH the slowest players in college bball and the slowest humans on earth would have a 1 speed. thus, 1 speed encompasses a relatively wide range of actual speeds.

these ranges decrease as you go up in rating. thus, the improvement bell curve at the low end of the rating spectrum causes slow improvement in terms of the ratings.

meanwhile at high speeds it simply becomes more difficult to increase in speed. thusly the other end of the bell curve.

Posted by jetwildcat on 10/5/2010 10:10:00 PM (view original):
the bell curve is starting to make sense to me in a way that i dont think the programmers intended...

BOTH the slowest players in college bball and the slowest humans on earth would have a 1 speed. thus, 1 speed encompasses a relatively wide range of actual speeds.

these ranges decrease as you go up in rating. thus, the improvement bell curve at the low end of the rating spectrum causes slow improvement in terms of the ratings.

meanwhile at high speeds it simply becomes more difficult to increase in speed. thusly the other end of the bell curve.

So are you saying that you feel a ratings increase from 1 to 2 is much more significant than say 49 to 50?

Also, if you have a player with a rating of 1 or 2 in a category with high potential and you are throwing in a bunch of practice minutes into this category, should you expect to see improvement even if you don't get a ratings improvement? Basically, is it worth putting 10+ minutes into such a category, even if you only get an increase of 1-2 points over a season?

ryan, I'm not exactly sure what you're asking. If there's no ratings improvement, then there's no improvement. (Technically you are still improving by fractions of a point, but that translates to basically nothing on the court.) It's not worth it to invest minutes into the category if the guy can only get 1-2 points total. But if they have high potential in a category, it very well may be worth it just to get a few points initially, so that in subsequent seasons he can progress more rapidly in the category and realize that potential.

Ryan, I don't think that 1 to 2 is more significant in terms of on court performance, but in terms of improving you rank vs. the world population, 1 to 2 is a bigger deal, since it is so hard to get from 1 to 2, much harder than going from 49 to 50.

I think people (or the programmers) are confusing speed for quickness.  Quickness is more of an athleticism trait and the RL centers/pf people mention as being slow, really aren't (See the pre-draft scouting on C Aldrich noting good open court speed http://www.nbadraft.net/players/cole-aldrich).    A 1 speed player would be a complete liability in lacking any ability to get back on defense or play anything other than a plodding offense.
The point though, is not that HD differs from RW, a fact most obviously reflected in D1 recruiting where dozens+ home visits and campus visits are common.  Rather, it's that due to RL experiences, there are certain expectations of how an individual will perform and what it takes to be a good bball player.  Effectively, one should throw out their RL basketball knowledge when playing this game and learn the traits that make an effective HD baller.

Posted by reinsel on 10/6/2010 2:59:00 PM (view original):
Ryan, I don't think that 1 to 2 is more significant in terms of on court performance, but in terms of improving you rank vs. the world population, 1 to 2 is a bigger deal, since it is so hard to get from 1 to 2, much harder than going from 49 to 50.

I think my second question got really confusing, so I'm just going to forget about that for now. I guess elaborating on my first question, talking about the bell curve trend. Obviously we all know that getting a player from a 1 to 2 rating takes a lot more practice time than from 49 to 50 or whatever. But, performance wise would a rating increase from 1 to 2 show more on court improvement than from 49 to 50?

More generally, an easier question to answer would be would a ratings increase of 1 to 10 show a greater performance improvement than a ratings increase from 51 to 60?

The HD categories are not a perfect fit for real life players.

Ideally the physical attributes would be broken down into more categories such as strength, agility, leaping ability, hands, quickness, and speed. There are clear differences in those tools basketball-wise. Size should be a factor as well. However for simplicity's sake HD seemingly lumps str/jumping/agility?? into ATH, and quickness/speed?? into SP, while size is just window dressing. The abstraction makes it hard to make clear analogies with real life players, and like dukenil said you are better off figuring out what works HD-wise.

Part of me would like to see a more detailed system, but it would probably be too unwieldy and intimidating for new players.

FWIW the 1-100 scale is clearly meant to reflect the college basketball universe and not the population at large.