Player Settings Topic

Alright, I had typed out a long post here earlier, but accidentally clicked some sort of link and lost the whole thing.  This will be an abbreviated version.  Essentially, my Rochester team has played very well this season but is nevertheless underperforming relative to my expectations.  If you look at the individual game results (which I'm not suggesting, but if you did...) you would likely find that several of my wins have been much closer than you might have expected, I lost to a couple of teams I should not have had much trouble with, and my Chicago losses, which I expected to be tight games, ended up less than competitive.  So I'm hoping some veteran coaches who have had more success than me can look at a few of my settings and see if they recommend making any changes.

Three Point Settings:
I have 3 guys who can really shoot 3s effectively.  My starting PG Christopher Hallum is currently set to a +1.  He's shooting .526 inside the arc and .454 from 3.  He's also a decent FT shooter.  Should I bump him up to +2?  That would render his substantial LP rating basically useless, but based on TS% or any other advanced offensive metric it would improve his offensive efficiency (theoretically).
My starting 2 guard is Adam Coury.  He's shooting just under .500 from 2 and .408 from beyond the arc.  He's not a very good FT shooter, but last year he shot just over .500 from 2 point range and only .333 from 3 with virtually identical ratings.  He's been at -1 all season; this season's results suggest moving him up to a 0, while last season's say to leave him where he is.  What's the play here?
Finally, my backup SF and 3rd-string SG, Chris Gamble, has been on -1 all season and somehow has only attempted 16 triples.  His success rate isn't good, but the sample size renders that totally irrelevant.  He has 79 PER now and has the look of a guy who should be attempting more 3s.  In fact, I really don't understand why even at -1 he's taken just over 10% of his shots from downtown this season.
My major concern is that pushing all of these guys up a notch on the 3-pt. shooting tendency will make my team too perimeter-happy.  So far this year we've attempted 28% of our shots from 3.  For me, something close to 30% is around my sweet spot.  Pushing my 3 top offensive options towards perimeter shooting could potentially increase my 3 pt tendency by 10% or more.  I've never had this many inside-outside scoring threats or, frankly, 3 elite perimeter shooters on the same team, so I'm not sure what the best course is here.

Depth Chart:
Currently looks like this:
PG: Hallum, Daniel, Coury, Gamble
SG: Coury, Melchor, Gamble, Daniel
SF: Jones, Gamble, Melchor, Trower
PF: Moore, Castaneda, Anderson, Trower
C: Wheeler, Moore, *blank*, Castaneda

My main questions have to do with Gamble.  First of all, is it getting too ridiculous for him not to be starting?  At the beginning of the season Jones had better IQs, 1 point better passing, and a lot more speed.  Now the overall defensive gap has closed, the IQs have gotten close, and Gamble is a distinctly better passer.  I still like Gamble's offense with my second unit, though.  The rest of those guys are sorta solid all-around players (although my backup posts are definitely sub-par and not nearly as athletic as they should be), but nobody else off the bench can score all that effectively.  Jones can score some in his own right, but Gamble is probably the 2nd-best offensive option on the team.  The second question here is whether I should make Gamble the 2nd option at the 2.  He's better than Melchor offensively but less talented defensively.  The main reason I haven't made that move is that I want to ensure that when both are in the game together Melchor plays the 2 and Gamble the 3, but overall I'm not sure it makes sense to take minutes away from a guy who just reached the 700 overall mark for a guy who's marginally stronger on defense but otherwise outshined in every way.

Player Rest:
I have had all my starters + Gamble set to "Getting Tired" all year, the other 5 guys set to "Fairly Fresh."  If I leave Jones as the starter at the 3 I'll probably move him to "Fairly Fresh" for the postseason to redistribute the minutes more towards Gamble, who is probably a better player and certainly more valuable than a tiring Jones.  Otherwise does this seem right?  My backup guards are solid, but the dropoff from the starters is still huge.

In conclusion, let me just say that I'm trying to become a better coach and better understand the intricacies of gameplanning.  I understand that most of the game is recruiting, but once I'm fielding a talented team I frequently feel behind the 8-ball in terms of helping them reach their maximum potential.  I'm sure someone will want to interpret this as whining about some specific game, which simply isn't the case.  I'm looking at a full season's worth of results and a disturbing number of them are less favorable than I would expect looking at the relative talent levels involved.  I recognize that ranked 12, RPI #13 I'm still having a good season, and I'm not complaining about any particular loss, but I'd like to know what I might be able to do to improve my team's performance in the postseason and going forward.  Thanks.
5/31/2012 6:44 AM
Jeez you have a backup SF over 700 and you're asking for advice? ;)  jk I'll take a look and give you my 2 cents.
6/1/2012 2:27 PM
Thanks kb.
6/1/2012 2:28 PM
Kept getting interrupted here at work, but some random thoughts I had.  Really good looking team, I'm surprised with you at some of the results.

1.  I agree 30% from 3 seems like about the ideal ratio, but I think I'd be ok with 40% with your team.  I like Hallum at +1, Coury at 0, and Gamble at -1..maybe I'd play Hallum at +2 in rare cases, but I've never liked that setting.  In my experience SFs don't shoot 3s as well as I'd like usually, unless you're talking 70+ Spd and 90+ Per maybe..so I'm actually not surprised at Gamble's 3pt%.  He should be able to hit jumpers all day though.  Also I wouldn't let Jones or Anderson take any 3s.

2.  I like how your using Gamble.  I think too many people get their best 5 in the starting lineup and don't consider that the next 5 can't score at all.  I could go either way on playing him at backup SG too.  He does look better than Melchor, but I don't see an amazing 3rd option at SF for when Gamble slides over to the 2.  Like you said, I think if they're both on the court, you'd rather Gamble be at the 3.  I'd probably leave it as is.

3.  I'm not a huge fan of using "getting tired" like you are.  I use all "fairly fresh" by default, sometimes putting a starter or two on GT.  I've had bad experience with all my starters at GT, but maybe that's just me.  I would suggest a better way to get your starters more minutes might be all FF and playing slowdown.  That might seem like you're wasting Gamble, so I'd put him at GT..actually do that either way so he gets more minutes.  For the starters, I'd probably only have Moore and Coury at GT normally.

4.  You might be careful about using uptempo.  I think sometimes it leads to unexpected bad results, and it goes against wanting your impressive starters to stay on the court.  I also noticed a couple times where you played a 2-3 at a + setting when I probably would've run 3-2.  I didn't look at every game, not sure if you've used the 3-2 at all, but I think you have the Reb to pull it off.  For whatever reason I just trust a 3-2 (+1) more than a 2-3 (+3).
6/1/2012 3:28 PM
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