I entered 3 identicle teams in $42M open leagues. One had a 43-39 w/l record, one had a 53-29 w/l record and the last 55-24 w/l with 3games left to go. The difference in their w/l was directly related to the quality of the rookies they received. Quite frankly I think this is bullshit, why should the success of my team depend on dumb luck. WIS clearly screwed the pooch. The rookies should be removed from the game..period. so if you think you have a good team and it goes 43-39, enter it in another league, or 5, maybe you'll catch good rookies and grab a Ship. GL

yeah your story shows that rookies are a problem

but just to be a stickler you also have to take into account competition

and just plain old

RANDOMNESS

I've been saying for years that rookies should be eliminated from OL (computer generated players are in the mlb and nhl sims as well).  I wouldn't count on it changing anytime soon.

Seconded.

Yep. Instead of addressing the issue, WIS would just tell you that you have the choice of playing theme leagues, which you do but unfortunately many of them don't fill up.

With respect to competition, the higher win teams are actually in the more difficult leagues, the 53W team has 4 Top25 teams with 5 teams over 60W's. Yup I'm toast in that league. Mostly this is just an observation, I know, WIS won't change this. The take home message is, if you have a good team that doesn't work as expected, it may be the rookies. Just bring it again.

I just had two rookies experience significant injuries - I wonder if they've made some tweaks - not the first time they would have done that without announcment

The final installment of this story - Up-n-Smoke went 57-25, won the eastern conf, unforntunately EdPlumly caught the ship & left me standing on the dock. Thanks for wreaking my story Ed. My point is rookies are destroying the $42M OL. Well I'm off to play in the theme leagues until the rookies are removed, and the salery cap is raised. GL

Guess I might be the only one in these posts that likes the rookies.  I have been charting the rooks since I started WIS and believe the difference between teams to be a maximum of 4 wins in 82 games...not a big swing.  Usually they change the outcome by 2-4 games a season.  The 3 rooks usually give you 30 minutes per game, 12-14 pts and 5-7 rebounds.  What makes it interesting to me is hoping for rooks that get me some minutes...especially a C durability.  As I draft around 17,400 minutes, I have to manage the teams every day to keep fatigue at bay and 3 D rated rooks makes it a nightmare but an enjoyable one.

Posted by tadmand on 12/22/2011 7:50:00 PM (view original):
Guess I might be the only one in these posts that likes the rookies.  I have been charting the rooks since I started WIS and believe the difference between teams to be a maximum of 4 wins in 82 games...not a big swing.  Usually they change the outcome by 2-4 games a season.  The 3 rooks usually give you 30 minutes per game, 12-14 pts and 5-7 rebounds.  What makes it interesting to me is hoping for rooks that get me some minutes...especially a C durability.  As I draft around 17,400 minutes, I have to manage the teams every day to keep fatigue at bay and 3 D rated rooks makes it a nightmare but an enjoyable one.

tadmand,

Unless you have another username I am going to say that your sample size is not nearly large enough.  You are in for 21 seasons, and you haven't seen the full weight of rookie imbalance.

Imagine that I was in a league (and this happened) where I had three bad rookies.  Two were D's on was a C, but none were better than a three in any given stat.  Now I get to play against someone with the same fatigue as mine, but has a C rookie that is rate 1-8-9 and the D's are no less than 1-4-5.  I had the best record in the league and got swept out of the finals.  Doesn't make a lot of sense does it?

He can rest players better by wearing out rookies instead of key players then leaving an opposing team at a huge disadvantage

Tad, your right in that my sampling is quite small and frankly your rookie stats amaze me, the best I ever receive was 1-2-5C, mostly see 1-1-1D. But at the same time you were still beat by someone who was luckier than you wrt rookies. See my point? Regardless of where the luck intercedes, its still based on luck, not team building skills. I find this unacceptable.

just to chime in: In my league i received an 1-8-8C rookie and a 1-5-4D...never seen ones that high before.

I never liked them because it allowed you to draft less minutes from the actual WIS roster you are assembling to use in the league. Isn't the point to see "What if" happens if you construct a roster full of player that have oh I don't know ACTUALLY PLAYED in the NBA?? So why throw anybody 3 bones that can eat up any minutes at all? Draft enough mins to get your squad through a season.

Malone, granted my sample size is limited to 17 leagues where I kept stats but the difference in the performance of the 3 rooks, when taken in total, was fairly limited.  The range was 7.3 -14.3 pts/game played, 4.7 -8.1 rebs/game played and 33 fg% - 48 fg%/game total for 3 rooks added together.  Although the spread between top and bottom stats seems large, they never happened in the same league and, for the most part, the performance stats were mostly the same.  I actually would not mind if they dropped the rooks and added some $ cap but if they stay with the rooks, I would not mind either.

I like the rookies. As a "coach" you are not the GM. If you want more authenticity and control, I would advocate for a "sim rookie draft" before each season wth draft position random or based on previous leagues w/l records.