I’m doing my semi-annual “tempo sucks, why is slowdown a magic upset button?” discussion with CS, and this time Chris came back at me with some kind of figure representing the amount of times users choose the various tempos. Before I disclose where he says it’s at, I’m curious where folks think it is? About what percentage of normal, slowdown, and uptempo chosen among human coaches? What are we all seeing, and where do we suppose the overall numbers sit, based on our individual impressions?

If I'm the underdog talent-wise, I always go slowdown (Ala Princeton vs. Georgetown). If we're pretty even talent-wise, it depends on other factors. If my team is better talent-wise, I choose normal. I never choose up-tempo.

Any guess regarding what overall human tendency might be, ie:
Normal - 34%
Slowdown - 33%
Uptempo - 33%
just for example?

Posted by shoe3 on 4/4/2022 8:12:00 PM (view original):
Any guess regarding what overall human tendency might be, ie:
Normal - 34%
Slowdown - 33%
Uptempo - 33%
just for example?

Normal - 40
Slowdown - 20
Uptempo - 40

I'm actually interested in this. I feel like uptempo is going to be under-represented in the estimates and slowdown over-represented. People reading this and guessing may assume that the average user is a forum user with baseline knowledge and I just really don't think that's close to the case.

I'd guess most new coaches run normal by default so I'd guess that's the highest by a bit. Then I'd guess uptempo since, I'm assuming, a lot of new coaches like seeing a lot of points crazy statlines. Then slowdown pretty far behind. Even in real life, slowdown grind it out basketball isn't seen as 'sexy' and I'd imagine most coaches in this game aren't in love with the idea of running a heavy defensive lineup.. Except the coaches who understand the significant impact that slowdown can have on a team.

I'd be more interested to see results drawn from experienced, successful coaches.

I beat you using slowdown today with an inferior team! Am I finally the cause of a message board rant?

Of course, I never really used slowdown until one of your your rants a year ago or two ago so maybe just dont write these and people won’t know :)

for the record, across my 3 teams I probably average:

slowdown: 60
average: 35
uptempo: 5

and if I had to guess for the average across the site I’d say

slowdown:20
average:60
uptempo:20

Posted by texashick on 4/4/2022 10:16:00 PM (view original):
I beat you using slowdown today with an inferior team! Am I finally the cause of a message board rant?

Of course, I never really used slowdown until one of your your rants a year ago or two ago so maybe just dont write these and people won’t know :)

for the record, across my 3 teams I probably average:

slowdown: 60
average: 35
uptempo: 5

and if I had to guess for the average across the site I’d say

slowdown:20
average:60
uptempo:20

Haha, no this started after the second game of the season, a *much* worse loss. I’m not mad about losing to Duke. But the “interesting” thing is that it crosses worlds. When FB/P, or the uptempo/many possession style in general is on a downswing, it swings looow, and across many of my teams. Fresno and UK have also lost bad games recently to slowdowns.

FWIW, my thinking is/was along the lines of upsetcity.

ETA - I’ll check back in tomorrow morning and update with the numbers given.

My guess is

Normal: 50
Slowdown: 35
Uptempo: 15

Uptempo 40
Normal 40
Slow 20

Slowdown - 75%
Normal - 20%
Uptempo - 3%
Cheryl Ladd in Striped Bikini - 2%

My guess is
15% Slowdown most causal users want their players to accumulate stats!
50% Normal. Most are lazy
35% Fast Most casual players want their player to accumulate stats

I know a lot has changed but having hours and hours of conversation with the original coders. The tempo of the "better" team is more of a driving force, The complications come in when its Better Starters vs better bench. And the casual player doesnt get this and so they chose normal.

Idk with how many D1 teams run on low depth rosters, slowdown may be more common than you'd think. I'm curious if shoe has it broken out by division - that I'd be even more interested to see.

Across all divisions, I'd guess something like 25% slowdown, 50% normal, 25% uptempo.

Posted by sol_phenom3 on 4/5/2022 10:22:00 AM (view original):
Idk with how many D1 teams run on low depth rosters, slowdown may be more common than you'd think. I'm curious if shoe has it broken out by division - that I'd be even more interested to see.

Across all divisions, I'd guess something like 25% slowdown, 50% normal, 25% uptempo.

I have mostly low D1 teams and I am in the very early stages of trying to create deep/balanced teams and FB Pressing all of them to see what happens. I know its been done a lot but I have some ideas I want to add to tweak it. Still only being back for a few months(even though I have dove right back in). So I wont know if I was a massive failure if I find some ideas that might work

Here are the figures given to me by Chris in CS:

”this is the tempo breakdowns across all worlds (for human coached teams that would choose tempo):

Slowdown: 46%
Fast Paced: 44%
Normal: 10%”

I’ll post more thoughts on this a little later, but for now, I’ll reiterate if you’d asked me prior to the conversation, my feelings would have been along the lines of upsetcity - 50% normal, 35% uptempo, 15% slowdown; mostly because I know uptempo is especially more common at lower levels and *especially* against sims. This is far from the most important factor to my question, and probably plays into the issue in a counterintuitive way (I’ll explain when I have more time later today), but for now, let’s just say I’m pretty shocked (and also pretty skeptical) that normal is down this low in the figures given.

If he came back and said “oops, I had slowdown and normal reversed”, now that I would buy.

Tempo is weird in this game. Slowdown seems to be a magic pill for lesser talented teams, and uptempo along with fb/press on every single play just doesn't make sense in any form of basketball.