Please do not take this as a complaint, because I have very little to complain about with my Nichols team. Sitting at #6, with two losses(one of my own doing, and one to an incredible team that's ranked #1)

BUT - I am trying to understand the engine a bit better than I do right now, specifically as to how exact distribution percentage and FG% are calculated. 

Nichols has three guards that I would describe as 'very good' to 'elite', including both the NPOY and DPOY from last year. I expected Sutton to be absolutely dominant this year, and while he has been great, he isn't playing as well as last year. His FG%, 3pt FG%, and PPG are way down from last season. On the other hand, Sprayberry is outperforming expectations this season.

Of the four primary scorers on the team, Sutton is by far the least efficient despite being the best player. His FG% sits at 43.1%, while the other three are between 50.5 and 53%. He does not have an unusually high distribution percentage, generally set at about 25%. Sprayberry is set to 19% and Lehberger at 18%. None of these are changed much from last season.

That leads me to my next question - Sutton's actual off% is barely 20, despite being set at 25%, while Sprayberry gets slightly more than he is set for. I do understand that the actual  %'s will never be exact, so that's fine. I suppose my questions boil down to how do I get Sutton to be more efficient and more like last year, and how do I get his off% more in line with how it's set without making dramatic changes to distro settings. ie, I don't want to have to set him to 35% to get him to off% of 25, etc.

Hopefully this made at least a little sense. 

A couple thoughts:

1) Is he getting double-teamed a lot, or even just sometimes?  If so, that would explain why the players around him are playing better and he's not.
2) Sutton is the PG, and the rest of your starting lineup is lousy at passing.  This means he's probably creating his own shot most of the time and not getting the ball passed to him.  Although Sutton is quick and athletic, that athleticism isn't going to help him as much with a 2 in LP.  He ought to be able to get open on his own sometimes with that speed, but he doesn't have anyone on the floor with him who can get him the ball.

If you started Lehberger with Sutton and brought Sprayberry off the bench, I suspect Sutton will play better on offense AND you won't lose much on defense.

good thoughts. Last season I played around with having Sprayberry as the primary backup for both PG and SG, but his passing is bad for a guard and I don't want him playing any PG for that reason. and I don't want him only getting 10-15 minutes per game as the backup SG, either. He's too valuable for that. So I ended up deciding on starting him at the 2 and bringing in Lehberger as the primary backup for both guard spots. 

if you bring Sprayberry off the bench, you can always slide Lehrberger in as the PG.  All 3 guys can get 24-28 minutes a game if you want.  Schnabel's ratings are fine as a backup PG too - I'd put him 3rd on the PG depth chart after Sutton & Lehrberger.

also, I have not noticed a lot of doubleteams on Sutton, but I will look closer.


Are you suggesting there that Lehberger should be the primary SG and first backup PG? I'm not sure I follow you when you say to slide Lehberger in as the PG. 

Schnabel is currently already set as 3rd string PG, by the way

Posted by pjbrankin on 6/7/2011 4:28:00 PM (view original):
also, I have not noticed a lot of doubleteams on Sutton, but I will look closer.


Are you suggesting there that Lehberger should be the primary SG and first backup PG? I'm not sure I follow you when you say to slide Lehberger in as the PG. 

yeah, make Lehberger the primary SG but the backup PG.  depending on your fatigue/minute settings, you can adjust so that your #2 SG (would be Sprayberry in this scenario) and even #3 SG get the minutes you want them to get.

I do this a lot - generally my best two guards have the best BH/P combo, so often I make my starting SG the backup PG, and then two other guys get SG minutes as the 2nd & 3rd SGs on the depth chart.

so far, so good haas. thanks for your input. I messed around some with the lineup, putting sprayberry as the primary backup for both the SG and SF positions(I was using a guard as backup SF anyway), and it worked out really well last night. Of course, I won't see another truly good team until the NT so it's hard to judge.

good news!  glad it's working so far.