Can I get some advice on what I can do with Timothy Schneider?  I have high hopes for his scoring potential during his senior season, as he will have around 96 SPD, 90 BH, and 40 LP.  The problem is his passing, which probably won't get above 50.  I am playing in an elite conference (all 4 Final Four teams came from my conference this season), and the teams are running almost exclusively press.  Can he still be a serviceable SG with his low passing?  Unfortunately I run the flex, so probably the worst offense for a crappy passer.

My starting SF, Gary Shipp, is an even worse passer (still enough potential to get up to 50ish though).  I need him in my starting lineup as he was my best scorer this last season.  What I plan on doing is using Schneider as my #1 backup at both SG and SF, giving him enough minutes to consider him as a "6th starter".  My concern is when Schneider and Shipp are on the court at the same time, meaning my SG and SF will both have passing ratings of around 50.  Is this going to be a death sentence against quality pressing teams?

I appreciate any help and guidance you guys can provide.  Thanks!

Personally, I would do it the other way around - Shipp's defense and turnover risk are both poor, so I'd rather have him be the guy coming off the bench - but that's just me.  Whatever you're comfortable with.

I think most people who read these boards regularly are aware that I'm one of the biggest proponents of passing going right now.  1-5 I'll look to recruit above average passers wherever possible, and the smaller the position the more important that rating seems to be.  That said, I wouldn't necessarily go too far out of my way to construct my lineup around it once the recruiting is done.  I think teams with substantial passing advantages shoot better.  In fact, for anyone whose done a reasonably broad study, it would be hard to argue otherwise.  That said, it's still only a couple of percent bump.  If you can get 2% better shooting team-wide, that's about 1 extra made bucket a game.  I think great passing teams might even do better than that.  But even so, it doesn't make sense to start two guys who combine to be anything worse than one made basket per game worse as individual scorers - a fraction of a bucket, really, given their time on the court - because they pass better.  Even a lot better.  And looking at your team, it's not like you're going to have dramatically better-passing options around.  Nobody who's going to make more than a smallish fraction of a basket per game kind of difference.  Maybe a smallish fraction of a turnover, too.  Even so...  I wouldn't worry about it.  It's more something to address during the team building and recruiting phases, but not necessarily look too hard at during lineup construction and gameplanning.  I think small things like that, while obviously important, can be blown out of proportion by coaches trying to overplan for big games, who wind up costing themselves by giving up large advantages trying to seize small ones.

Posted by dahsdebater on 5/27/2014 10:25:00 PM (view original):
Personally, I would do it the other way around - Shipp's defense and turnover risk are both poor, so I'd rather have him be the guy coming off the bench - but that's just me.  Whatever you're comfortable with.

I think most people who read these boards regularly are aware that I'm one of the biggest proponents of passing going right now.  1-5 I'll look to recruit above average passers wherever possible, and the smaller the position the more important that rating seems to be.  That said, I wouldn't necessarily go too far out of my way to construct my lineup around it once the recruiting is done.  I think teams with substantial passing advantages shoot better.  In fact, for anyone whose done a reasonably broad study, it would be hard to argue otherwise.  That said, it's still only a couple of percent bump.  If you can get 2% better shooting team-wide, that's about 1 extra made bucket a game.  I think great passing teams might even do better than that.  But even so, it doesn't make sense to start two guys who combine to be anything worse than one made basket per game worse as individual scorers - a fraction of a bucket, really, given their time on the court - because they pass better.  Even a lot better.  And looking at your team, it's not like you're going to have dramatically better-passing options around.  Nobody who's going to make more than a smallish fraction of a basket per game kind of difference.  Maybe a smallish fraction of a turnover, too.  Even so...  I wouldn't worry about it.  It's more something to address during the team building and recruiting phases, but not necessarily look too hard at during lineup construction and gameplanning.  I think small things like that, while obviously important, can be blown out of proportion by coaches trying to overplan for big games, who wind up costing themselves by giving up large advantages trying to seize small ones.

great summary... this is dead on. to the optimization junkies, team passing/iq are pretty important, in terms of their impact on fg%. but you can't lose sight of the really big things, like the core offensive ratings of your key scorers, to try to get that passing - you will shoot yourself in the foot. and dahs is absolutely right, team planning/recruiting is when you address this. i think the gap from a "great" team to a "******" passing/iq team, in terms of overall effect on fg%, is definitely more than 2%, but i think dahs is talking baseline to peak, and im talking peak to trough, within the reasonable range, so its not apples to apples. 

i think a good comparison is the difference in team building for say motion and triangle. its different, its important, but its all about perspective. competing for a championship, building to your offense is very important. competing to make the NT and win a game or two, its just not, not on the big picture, next to things like your core offensive, defensive, and rebounding ratings. doesn't mean you ignore it, but you have to prioritize, and while you definitely shouldn't take this to mean "ignore passing until you get the rest" - because passing is important in its own right, for turnover prevention and such - it does mean optimizing passing/iq to increase team fg% is lower on the list, roughly where teams seriously contending for title bids (top 10) need to be thinking seriously about these things. rebuilding a program, it should barely make the radar. all about perspective :) i've taken an unsightly amount of criticism for my insistence that you should build differently for say motion and triangle, being told this advice was bad for coaches... i think it was all a perspective problem. i was trying to address coaches trying to be the best, i should have been clearer, if you are pushing to make the NT, its really not that significant - there is so much more impact to be had by focusing on core ratings. the thing is, once you go for that title, everyone has great core ratings - so now its all about the 20 little things, the things that give you a 1% advantage over an opponent, those become all that is left. thats when things like getting the 2% increase in team fg% is huge, when building right for motion is huge, potentially making the difference between winning that title and not. so, i think its really all about perspective, and its very important to keep priorities in order, you don't hunt the 1% with 5 and 10%s still on the table...

I think flex is the least for pass. Motion, fast break use passing more Imo. Flex is a per off, pass in bigs seems to help better. I had a couple of guys in my flex withblow pass and they led the conference in scoring.

Posted by terps21234 on 5/27/2014 11:00:00 PM (view original):
I think flex is the least for pass. Motion, fast break use passing more Imo. Flex is a per off, pass in bigs seems to help better. I had a couple of guys in my flex withblow pass and they led the conference in scoring.

i firmly believe motion requires less passing, from an individual passing and individual scoring standpoint, than flex or triangle. motion places a higher importance on bh than triangle or flex, while flex places the most importance on speed, talking about 3pt shooting in particular. the rest i agree with. its very hard to detect the true impact of individual passing on individual scoring, as it does not present itself in fg% and 3pt% (not in the individual sense, meaning the part of how it works today which is all there was in the old engine - before team passing impacted fg% and 3pt% directly). it only presents itself in turnovers, and thus, in overall scoring levels. but you can still have very good raw scoring numbers, with great fg% and 3pt%, with a passing liability. this is all really talking guards here, im not sure about bigs. its so hard to measure this stuff on normal teams, these things are amplified on high end teams and more so on super high end teams - as advantages are generally multiplicative, not additive. back in the day when my teams were really good with those great title runs, big man scoring was less important, by far, than it is today - and i ran *very* guard centric teams. i probably won my 1st 15 titles without ever having a double digit scoring big on any of those title teams. so, im pretty sure on guards, but for bigs, i have no idea about the relative importance of bh and passing in different offenses.