What traits tend to work better in zone than man in HD?

I've always played exclusively man because that's what I believe in IRL, but I'm starting to wonder if zone might be a better fit for what has become my recruiting niche (average or below speed, REALLY athletic, good defense). I tried searching the forums, but zone isn't a long enough word for the search function apparently.

To begin, attributes for zone are calculated differently than man. Basically what the sim does is group players together and takes their average ratings. For example, in a 2/3 zone, the PG and SG are averaged together, the SF and PF are averaged together, and the center is by himself. In a 3/2, I believe the PG, SG and SF are grouped together and the PF and C are grouped together. That's mainly the only difference though. Key attributes are going to be similar for both defenses.

In general speed is good for perimeter defense and athleticism is good for interior defense. If you have a PG with great speed / bad ath and a SG with great athleticism / bad speed, they'll probably average out to be mediocre defensively outside and inside. Obviously it would be best to have great spd and great ath at all positions.

Besides learning how the zone groups positions and how they effect player ratings, I think the biggest consensus is that shot blocking is more important in zone than any other defense.

Shot-blocking has significantly more value for your front court and rebounding is incrementally more important. Stamina is less important. Average or below average speed means you are going to generate very, very few turnovers relative to other elite teams so you will need to make it up blocking more shots and grabbing more rebounds.

Assuming you are playing a straight zone, you can have a smaller roster which should in-theory allow you to chase a bit better recruits because you can plug more resources into them.

I like zone because it's the most flexible and there are more combinations to use in your gameplan but on it's face I think its the weakest of the three defenses. Thats not to say you cant be successful with it, you just need to build the right team into it and learn how to maximize the gameplanning.

Everyone thinking about zone defense should read through this thread. I’ve linked to the post where it gets good. There’s some throwaway stuff in the middle pages, but there’s a lot of gold in here.

Thanks for the link Shoe, and thanks for the advice, mlitney and texas.

After reading all of that, zone probably isn't a great idea because I generally haven't prioritized shot blocking at all and rebounding has been an issue against good teams already in man.

It was worth exploring the idea. If I eventually decide to go zone I'll have to try to shuffle my recruiting to prepare for it ahead of time.

Posted by notoriousopp on 3/18/2021 2:48:00 AM (view original):
Thanks for the link Shoe, and thanks for the advice, mlitney and texas.

After reading all of that, zone probably isn't a great idea because I generally haven't prioritized shot blocking at all and rebounding has been an issue against good teams already in man.

It was worth exploring the idea. If I eventually decide to go zone I'll have to try to shuffle my recruiting to prepare for it ahead of time.

It’s always good to plan ahead of a switch. I usually play the old set for a season after I start practicing the new one anyway, and start playing the new set at the end of the first season, or the next season. In general, recruit to the set you play, don’t change sets based on the personnel you have, unless you’re taking over a team and completely starting over from scratch with an almost entirely new roster.

There are a lot of downsides to zone talked about at length in that thread, and it’s still by far the least used defensive set among humans I think. That makes it the least well understood, and gives you some growth potential, IMO. The upsides include gameplanning and roster construction flexibility, it gives you very good Opp FG% suppression, which you can really take advantage of as long as you prioritize rebounding, and since it’s less used, you get some recruiting advantages you see less often with more frequently used defenses.

I always use a HC press with the zone, because I don’t like giving away all the ground in the possessions game. Others’ mileage seems to vary on this, but I am generally pretty happy with my results. One thing I have added to my zone pitch of late is that at D2, with D1 population increasing in many worlds - especially with the recent job change restrictions loosening - we see more D1 teams coming in late for lower level D1 pool recruits that top D2 teams are used to landing. This is hurting zone teams in particular. One big strength of zone is roster flexibility, and the option of taking walkons or redshirts or projects, and focusing your resources on trying to land the stars, elite-for-level players to carry your roster year over year. When those elite players are consistently raided, and you’re forced to accept classes full of plan B’s and C’s, it’s very hard to compete at an elite level. This is not an issue at D1, of course. I doubt it’s much of an issue at D3, either, because great D3 teams can be built on mostly D2 pool recruits. It’s D2 where I see this really shifting the balance of power toward teams that field deep rosters of more generic talent, which is not how you win with zone.