what's sad is I have access to Jordan and I may not even use him

At $52 mil in this salary structure, I can pick any three stat studs I want and then have to slow down and build the team around them.  It takes $6-8 mil to build a complete bench at this point depending on your strategy...way more than used to be the case.  I'm still likely to end up with 2-3 guys who are true scrubs.

At $57 mil I still can't necessarily take the most expensive player at each position, but I wouldn't want to anyway.  (Although I once won a $100 mil league title by doing exactly that, just to spite the system.)  But at that cap level I can afford to get excellent value out of each minute, and generally rely on a short list of supersubs that leave newbies wondering why their team that starts Wilt and Oscar or Paul is losing to my team that starts Walton and Billups or Porter.

So, I agree there's a big difference between the two levels.  And again, either can work for this theme...and therefore, so can $54 mil.

Posted by felonius on 1/20/2011 8:03:00 PM (view original):
what's sad is I have access to Jordan and I may not even use him

I was thinking the same thing about Shaq. 

That is sad.  But understandable.  There's only a couple of his seasons I like using (in non-progressive, anyway) because, at the end of the day, my guards have to shoot threes at least a little bit, and my high usage players have to get to the line a lot.  Jordan gets to the line, but he only has a few years where he shoots enough threes to satisfy me.

I won't list the players I have, just the eFG of the main rotation, ordered from highest usage to lowest: Although this is subject to change, given that I realized I can't fill the last 4 slots and stay under the cap. (that means back to the drawing board, NOT raising the cap.)

56.7
50.3
58.8
53.5
50.5
60.7
57.8
52.3

Very fun league idea. Can't wait to get started.

Posted by longtallbrad on 1/20/2011 8:05:00 PM (view original):
At $52 mil in this salary structure, I can pick any three stat studs I want and then have to slow down and build the team around them.  It takes $6-8 mil to build a complete bench at this point depending on your strategy...way more than used to be the case.  I'm still likely to end up with 2-3 guys who are true scrubs.

At $57 mil I still can't necessarily take the most expensive player at each position, but I wouldn't want to anyway.  (Although I once won a $100 mil league title by doing exactly that, just to spite the system.)  But at that cap level I can afford to get excellent value out of each minute, and generally rely on a short list of supersubs that leave newbies wondering why their team that starts Wilt and Oscar or Paul is losing to my team that starts Walton and Billups or Porter.

So, I agree there's a big difference between the two levels.  And again, either can work for this theme...and therefore, so can $54 mil.

$52M is almost a $47M from the previous version.  It's really like a $45M.  Which means you can afford to have some average defenders on the floor.  You can't quite get away with a terrible defense like you could in OLs before, but you can have a couple of 60s or less and do reasonably well..  $57M is like $52M from before... which means you want top notch defenders throughout, because you're going to spend all your money on boards, efg%, etc and still come up with excess minutes unless you restrict yourself even further.


$57M non-draft league is dumb, though.  Who is the best player in the sim at each position?
C - 67 Chamberlain (4th tier usage)
SF - 92 Rodman (bottom tier)
PG - 09 James (1st tier)

okay, let's fill this out.  James needs a cohort to score.  Best rebounding guard that gets to the line, shoots some threes and isn't a clone (because the answer is still Lebron) is Jordan.  90 Jordan fits this perfectly.
Again, best PF in the sim is going to be Rodman, but he's more valuable as a SF.  Assuming you can't use clones, you now have to find a PF who, preferably, has lower than a 4th tier usage.  Ben Wallace, Bill Russell, etc... lots of great rebounders here.  But there's one out there that's not quite a "boardlord" but gives you tons of threes AND top notch defense.  09 Troy Murphy.  And I have enough money left to put Magic Johnson and Erick Dampier on my bench, which perfectly fills out the rotation.

You could also use a good rebounding, lower tier-usage, bomber at the 2 (Mike MIller) and instead use a boardlord at the 4 with higher usage (like Dwight Howard).  This would give you slightly more boards.  But Murphy + Jordan > Howard + Miller.  Also lower fouls, turnovers and better defense.  And better fg% for the team as they'll have the higher ast%.

There's almost no reason to not build that line-up.  I think it's no coincidence that in a $57M open, three of the four division leaders had almost this exact starting line-up (two did, one used Ben Wallace instead of Troy Murphy)

Yes, but the difference is that we are limited to who we can use.  You can't have James + Wilt for example.  I fully get that 57 is more than enough-that is not the point.  Thing is, a player's best season for rebounding might also be his best at scoring and his most expensive.  See what I'm saying?  Not that we NEED more cap, just that it opens up more possibilities.

Currently have Shaq/Dampier/Big Ben-Donyell-Miller-LBJ. 

ash, you're definitely describing the emerging $57 mil cookie - in fact, ncmusician has a team with that basic name and pretty close to that starting five (Przybilla at the 4). 

And not surprisingly, he's got the league's best record after 28 games.  I'm tied for 3rd, though, with the following core:

PG:  09 James / 04 Charlie Ward
SG:  03 McGrady / 08 J.R. Smith
SF: 92 Rodman
C/PF:  rotation of 71 Boerwinkle, 80 Nater, and 77 Walton

Not scoring a ton of points, but giving up fewer.

"Yes, but the difference is that we are limited to who we can use."

I think you miss the point:  If you can overfill the cap with the absolute best available, then it's dumb to have that high of cap with a restrictive environment.  It makes things more unbalanced, and it favors veteran owners.

"I fully get that 57 is more than enough-that is not the point."

It kind of is the point.

"Thing is, a player's best season for rebounding might also be his best at scoring and his most expensive."

So?  What does that have to do with anything?  Use it.  You should have no problem doing this, unless you're just blindly using the most expensive season of each player... and if you're doing that, you're probably not playing theme leagues anyway.  Remember, usage heavily influences salary now, so by wasting usage, you're wasting salary just like if you are spending too much on minutes.

"See what I'm saying?"

No.

"Not that we NEED more cap, just that it opens up more possibilities."

Possibilities for what?  To build even more unbalanced teams?  The higher the cap, the greater the chance for teams to be unbalanced.  Especially in themes like this.  You give guys like Sly or Monkee the opportunity and they'll abuse the hell out of average players and new owners.  By having a higher cap in a restrictive environment, you're giving vets even more of an advantage than they already have.

That's my point.

monkee?

Posted by longtallbrad on 1/20/2011 8:34:00 PM (view original):
ash, you're definitely describing the emerging $57 mil cookie - in fact, ncmusician has a team with that basic name and pretty close to that starting five (Przybilla at the 4). 

And not surprisingly, he's got the league's best record after 28 games.  I'm tied for 3rd, though, with the following core:

PG:  09 James / 04 Charlie Ward
SG:  03 McGrady / 08 J.R. Smith
SF: 92 Rodman
C/PF:  rotation of 71 Boerwinkle, 80 Nater, and 77 Walton

Not scoring a ton of points, but giving up fewer.

nc's the one who's using that with Wallace instead of Murphy.  He's also using 90 Rodman instead of 92 & 88 Jordan instead of 90.  He went 63-19.  The other two went 70-12 & 67-15.

Posted by longtallbrad on 1/20/2011 8:35:00 PM (view original):
monkee?

I'm assuming he's still around lurking and playing the theme circuit.  I was trying to think of some of the best owners without tooting my own horn.  The guy does have the most championships and continues to grasp the changes in the sim as they happen. 

is the sim so screwed up that I might be better off using Jon Barry instead of Mike Jordan? or Glen Rice? sad sad sad

I'm using Jon Barry instead of the following list of players:

Kobe Bryant
Dwyane Wade
Paul Pierce
Ray Allen
Penny Hardaway
Gary Payton

I'm too depressed to continue this list... lol.