I have a couple teams that use the triangle.   It's a fascinating offense and I feel like I am doing it wrong.    I have searched the forums but still have  a lot of questions.

#1.  Is the AI looking for the coach to designate a triangle using our distribution?   When I first saw the triangle I decided to look for scoring PF/SF/SG, a purely defensive C and a purely mechanical PG.   I have had some success but it's hard to tell if the triangle distribution is helping, hindering or has no effect.

#2.  I read up on how the triangle is actually used in real basketball.   It turns out that even in it's most basic form, the offense can fall into a strong side triangle or a weak side triangle.    Regardless of which way it forms the triangle is the point guard and two other players.   Does the AI in HD go to this level - if so it seems like it would make the PG even more important than normal . .

#3.  Since the O2 is often not in the triangle, it seems like he needs to be able to rebound, and a zero-rebounding SG is more of a liability than normal ?

Any advice would be appreciated

You need at least 1 pure scorer if not 2/3, the triangle is the most LP/PER needing offense to be effective.  It's the hardest to score on just ath/spd alone since it values ath the least of all four.

You also need some high passing in your PG to get your superstar offensive players the ball

I dunno.  For all I know the probabilities are well designed to do accomplish forming a "triangle", but I don't think that level of detail would make all that much difference.  Distribution assigns the likelihood that the play will run through a particular player and not the likelihood of that player taking the shot for that play (at least not directly).  A lot of the results likely depend more on the defense that you are playing against than your settings.  I'm not even really sure that the triangle always includes the PG, but certainly would include one guard.  I just think IRL, that may not be the guard that the coach prefers to bring the ball upcourt.

From what I can tell of this game, you really don't want to run the triangle without a very strong interior threat and perimeter threat.  Basically like the0nly's comment.  By contrast, you might run fastbreak or flex without a strong post scorer (without saying it's a great idea, but I believe it would be more successful than trying the same thing with triangle or motion, all else being equal).  I recall some opining that you may only need 3 scorers and then everyone else can be role players (the other 2 starters and the bench, for instance).  Again, by contrast, somewhere it is mentioned that it is tough to get strongly unequal distro to work in motion.  Not certain that's true, or at least such a large effect to change who you target in recruiting or your distro, but it is something to consider when you are setting up your team in recruiting.

I try to set up my triangle teams so that EITHER the 4 or 5 is an offensive weapon and then two of my 1-3 can score......in a perfect word one of the perimeter players is a SPD/PER scorer and the other is either a SPD/PER or SPD/BH

Posted by Trentonjoe on 12/29/2015 9:26:00 AM (view original):
I try to set up my triangle teams so that EITHER the 4 or 5 is an offensive weapon and then two of my 1-3 can score......in a perfect word one of the perimeter players is a SPD/PER scorer and the other is either a SPD/PER or SPD/BH

this is how i play it, too - but it really has nothing to do with hoping those 3 guys form the triangle. i am pretty sure triangle offense in HD doesn't worry about who is in a triangle when. i would basically recommend NOT thinking about HD triangle as real life triangle, there seems to be little correlation, to me.

also i agree, triangle does need lp/per more than other sets. worth mentioning though, the differences between offense sets (except fb) are all pretty minor, and if you played a motion championship team the same way under triangle, good chance its still a championship caliber team, maybe just a hair lower... calibrating to a particular HD offense (other than FB) is a detail you consider far after you get the basics in place, like making sure your starting line has a couple good scorers, couple good rebounders, strong defense, couple passers, etc... basically until you are regularly making it deep in the NT, i wouldn't worry much about the difference between triangle/flex/motion.

Something I noticed over the last couple of seasons is I have had trouble getting my PFs to score when they were supposed to be the focal point of the offense. I had some real studs that just weren't taking shots like they should but when I moved them to C they started getting a lot more touches. Didn't change the distro just their position. This happened with two different players over the last 4 seasons.

A few times I have read that the triangle (and other offensed too) need both LP and PER.   On all my teams I already seek out players who can do both, but I wonder if I have the right standards.

For a D2 triangle I am looking for a scoring guard with high per and passable LP - say 70+ and 30ish.    For my scoring big I am looking for the opposite - 70+ LP and 30ish per.    When I was focusing on having three scorers that meant that I had to find a SF who was a dual threat - like 60+ both per and LP.

Posted by deroches on 12/30/2015 4:10:00 PM (view original):
A few times I have read that the triangle (and other offensed too) need both LP and PER.   On all my teams I already seek out players who can do both, but I wonder if I have the right standards.

For a D2 triangle I am looking for a scoring guard with high per and passable LP - say 70+ and 30ish.    For my scoring big I am looking for the opposite - 70+ LP and 30ish per.    When I was focusing on having three scorers that meant that I had to find a SF who was a dual threat - like 60+ both per and LP.

That makes a great deal of intuitive sense.  My experience is that it is completely the wrong way to go.  Get a post player (SF, PF or C) with very high ATH & LP to the exclusion of PER, then get a perimeter player (SG or SF) with PER, BH & SPD to the exclusion of LP, then get one other guy that can score (a slashing guard - ATH/SPD/BH/FT or another perimeter shooter).

Do not, especially below D1, attempt to get an all-around guy.  If you happen to land one, then fine, but you should not be focusing on recruiting your interior & perimeter scoring from the same guy.  

Posted by rogelio on 12/30/2015 4:40:00 PM (view original):

Posted by deroches on 12/30/2015 4:10:00 PM (view original):
A few times I have read that the triangle (and other offensed too) need both LP and PER.   On all my teams I already seek out players who can do both, but I wonder if I have the right standards.

For a D2 triangle I am looking for a scoring guard with high per and passable LP - say 70+ and 30ish.    For my scoring big I am looking for the opposite - 70+ LP and 30ish per.    When I was focusing on having three scorers that meant that I had to find a SF who was a dual threat - like 60+ both per and LP.

That makes a great deal of intuitive sense.  My experience is that it is completely the wrong way to go.  Get a post player (SF, PF or C) with very high ATH & LP to the exclusion of PER, then get a perimeter player (SG or SF) with PER, BH & SPD to the exclusion of LP, then get one other guy that can score (a slashing guard - ATH/SPD/BH/FT or another perimeter shooter).

Do not, especially below D1, attempt to get an all-around guy.  If you happen to land one, then fine, but you should not be focusing on recruiting your interior & perimeter scoring from the same guy.  

this. in the lower divisions, you really cannot afford to require lp and per in your scorers - and really, i don't think you'd even want to. i would take a 1 lp guard in championship level d1 play, running triangle or any other offense, without so much as a pause (assuming they were good elsewhere - like a 90 spd/per/bh guard).

now, i will say, lp and per definitely do impact fg%, and i definitely value lp in scoring type guards and per in scoring type bigs. however, i pretty much would always take the primary stat over the secondary one, if i could trade 1 for 1, until i maxed the primary stat. so, on a 90 per guard, i'd still rather add 5 points of per than 5 points of lp, even though i do value the lp in a 90 per 50 lp guard significantly. hopefully that makes sense... 

also, one thing that has always ****** me off about this game, in a very deep and serious way, is how ****** high lp and per players can be, relative to their goodness. like, a 90 lp/per sf should absolutely wreck, right? not only are great at lp and per shots, but you also have the compounding bonus of being able to take any shot from anywhere, forcing defenders to always give you respect, they can never cheat to protect the jumper or the drive, plus you have more ways to exploit matchups, all that good stuff. none of that seems to exist in this game - and therefore, going from 1 elite shot to 2 elite shots, its just trading 1 shot for another, it doesn't actually make you any better in any way :(

plus, i think when you go for lp/per dual thread, you often give up some ath/spd/bh, which may matter more. if a guy is already an elite per scorer, being able to score lp wise too doesn't really help - its just trading 1 elite shot for another - so even giving up a little of that per shooting ability, for like 50 more lp, may actually make you worse. or in the flip case, you might have a guy who is an elite per scorer, with say 75 ath. suppose now he goes from 20 lp to 99. well now hes going to take all kinds of 2 point shots, and with that ath, he may not actually be taking elite caliber lp shots, just very good ones, which is a step down from the elite shots he used to be taking.

i think i better stop, i've re-written that like 3 times to try to make sense, and it still sucks. but hopefully the point still gets across to some degree.

no, it makes perfect sense, Gillespie, thank you so much for the advice.    You are obviously right that it's tough to have it all in there D3/D2 players, and trying to avoid LP1 Guards makes it tougher.