It's no secret that athleticism is the most important rating in this game, but how important is it exactly?  It's been my experience that bigs need 80 athleticism if you want them to be successful.  Anything less than 80 and even with great skills, a big guy won't be able to score 10 points per game (while shooting 50%) on a NT contending team.  So, for bigs, athleticism is really more important that pretty much any combo of skills.  Even at 100 REB-DEF-SB-LP, 60 ath guys won't have any success.  Coaches know this, so they tend to look at athleticism as the 
defining rating for big man recruits, which I believe leads to athleticism being over-recruited.  So I pose this question to you: Would you rather have a big man with 100 ath and 60 cores or a big man with 60 ath and 100 cores?

100 ath-60 /lp/bl/def/reb?

I'd rather have 60 ath and 100 in those cores.

But that's not exactly the same tradeoff. You are trading 40 ath points for 40 in reb/def/blk/lp, a total of 160 points. To be honest, I would take the 60/100/100/100/100 over the 100/60/60/60/60

Alright, so what about a 60 ath 100 lp/bl/def/reb big guy or a 100 ath 70 lp/bl/def/reb big guy.  Who's the better scorer?  Rebounder?  Defender?

Posted by tkimble on 8/9/2012 4:06:00 PM (view original):
Alright, so what about a 60 ath 100 lp/bl/def/reb big guy or a 100 ath 70 lp/bl/def/reb big guy.  Who's the better scorer?  Rebounder?  Defender?

the 60 ath, 100 guy, is better a rebounder, defender, and scorer.

i dont really agree with the initial premise. i do agree that you really need high ath/lp to be effective scoring as a big - the real problem is how INEFFECTIVE bigs have become (and been) from a scoring standpoint. nowadays, you seem to need like 95 ath/lp with a healthy dose of per to actually have anything resembling an offensive start. its stupidly out of balance. sure, you can get effective bigs at the 5-8ppg level, but its totally unrealistic to have teams with talented guards and talented bigs where the guards have to take 75% of the shots to keep the team competitive. good big men dominate high end NCAA play, i mean not to say guard play isn't vital, but its so hard to deal with a superior big if you don't have one. this game doesn't come close to capturing that, and its a real problem IMO.

but in terms of a big's other qualities, namely rebounding and defense, ive had a good deal of success taking those 60-75 ath bigs in d1 that "no one wants", with 90s in reb/def/sb and maybe lp. sure, the ath makes a big difference, but if you have a 70 ath/95 reb/95 def/95 sb guys, you can ball with anyone.

60/100/100/100/100 is a pretty decent big man.
100/60/60/60/60 is a SF, playing zone,who with a 90/90 PE BH makes first team all conference.

http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=2152878

How well would this guy perform?

Posted by tianyi7886 on 8/9/2012 3:52:00 PM (view original):
But that's not exactly the same tradeoff. You are trading 40 ath points for 40 in reb/def/blk/lp, a total of 160 points. To be honest, I would take the 60/100/100/100/100 over the 100/60/60/60/60

All day, every day, without a second thought.

Posted by udm_mike on 8/10/2012 1:51:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tkimble on 8/9/2012 4:06:00 PM (view original):
Alright, so what about a 60 ath 100 lp/bl/def/reb big guy or a 100 ath 70 lp/bl/def/reb big guy.  Who's the better scorer?  Rebounder?  Defender?

I'd go 100ath in both cases.  I think you'd give some up in scoring, but you'd make it back in rebounding and defending.

You actually lose in the reb and def department with 100/60/60. The reb part is pretty much confirmed from the regressions I ran.