Doggg, I’m only going to respond to your last couple posts to say this. As an autistic person with a literal lifetime of dealing with people like Benis, this is a special part of the conversation that doesn’t really involve you, nor anyone else for that matter. If you go back and look at old threads where Benis and I are involved, you will see 1) a lot of references to “poopshoe”, and 2) a lot of folks saying stuff involving popcorn. Benis wants you to get involved on his behalf, for sure, and feel free to do that if you need to I guess. But you are better than that.

If you go back and read my non-Benis posts for what they are, without the color of “outrage” or “condescending d!ckhead” I’m comfortable with my credibility. I’ve acknowledged, here and elsewhere, that I can get testy when people change my words, draw conclusions for me, etc., or when I have to repeat myself over and over (especially when it’s very common for autistic s to be ridiculed for repeating themselves). So when I say “follow along” or go into detail about the difference between “win button”, which seems like it would be something like guaranteed victory, and “upset button” which is certainly not, that’s what’s going on.

Anyway, another coach just reached out to me last night and asked me for some thoughts, and referenced my Top5 list, so I’m seriously not worried about how I look. And for those who are going to see me as a villain, well like I said, nothing I can do about that. Fun job really. I don’t mind being Scott Hall to Benis’s Sean Waltman.

No one sees you as the villain. I'm just saying dont jump off the deep end dude!

Posted by gillispie on 4/8/2022 7:10:00 AM (view original):
a few thoughts on the tempo discussion, a few questions. there is a LOT to unpack, i think we can dive into a bunch of specifics...

1) i agree that from a fatigue standpoint, there is a clear impact on fatigue from tempo, which gives uptempo an extra fatigue obstacle to overcome, while taking one away for slowdown. this is what causes folks to see better fg% and lower TOs from slowdown, IMO, and lower fg% with more TOs from uptempo.

- however, you guys don't seem to be really talking about how this impacts both teams. if you run slowdown, my team is going to be less tired and is going to have better fg%, too. i think this helps keep it at least somewhat balanced?

2) fatigue is a big part of the tempo picture - the impact of possessions on volatility is another big part. fewer possessions results in more volatility. this is great for the underdog, not so much for the favorite. there is a lot of mixing here, folks talking about feeling like slowdown is OP both for underdogs and favorites. neither one of those positions is unreasonable, but, IMO there is a big difference between the two. its almost two separate conversations.

- higher pace is a major advantage for championship favorites. i prefer to get mine in the form of press. having a pace of slowdown man, or slowdown zone, makes it significantly harder to win championships than a higher pace would. a lot of folks seem to generally agree that slowdown is too powerful, but, i suspect there's a lot of folks who disagree, too. anyway, i am curious to you folks who generally think slowdown is overpowered - do you think it is overpowered for the top tier of teams, for them to use it, i mean? what about if they are press vs man/zone, that sort of thing?

i think the 4 main cases to talk about here are: slowdown for (1) favorites with press (fb/press as a sub-case, etc), (2) favorites with man/zone, (3) underdogs with press, (4) underdogs with man/zone - and i suspect many folks think slowdown is powerful in some of those cases, but less so in others. i am definitely curious where folks see issues and where they don't, would like to read what people think if anyone is up to break those out and share their thoughts!!


3) there's (obviously) nothing wrong with folks running slowdown. morally or whatever, it doesn't cheapen their success... not sure what that was brought up, but i kinda think people don't really think that. and if they do, they are sort of idiots, without really meaning offense. there's a lot of interesting stuff to discuss here about slowdown IMO, without it being personal

Gil, I’ve been waiting for you all week. :)

1) on that last part, maybe… but that side is so minimal, because as you know, the tempo a coach chooses primarily affects their own team. So I wouldn’t think that is approaching “balance”.

2) I agree there are two separate conversations to be had here. That’s kind of what I was getting at when talking about slowdown being a tactic we see in real life for all sorts of teams, point being that it’s used within context of other basketball strategies. I’d like to see that here, too, which is why I want tempo to be balanced; so it’s part of bigger strategy sets, not mostly a strategy on its own. Limit possessions vs maximize possessions, even if you extract the fatigue factor entirely, is such a boring dichotomy for a basketball game to be based on. It also has broad recruiting implications, which I’ve alluded to before. That’s why I was encouraged when Chris both indicated general agreement that tempo imbalance was a problem, and offered the “common ground” of decreasing the power of both plans, bringing them both toward neutral, which I think is closer to the right call.

FWIW, my anecdotal impression is that slowdown is the strongest for press teams. I think it’s strong across the board, in terms of underdog vs favorite, because all teams can* benefit from fatigue mitigation, and increased minutes for their top players (*the degree varies to the extent they have their depth chart and distribution optimized, of course. If you are starting all your freshmen and developing players, maybe don’t run slowdown and expect optimal results).

3) Not speaking for anyone, but I suspect this was said in jest. I never blame any coach for running slowdown, and as I’ve said, I use it with the teams I still can when it makes sense to me.

Posted by topdogggbm on 4/8/2022 10:01:00 AM (view original):
No one sees you as the villain. I'm just saying dont jump off the deep end dude!

That's all I'm saying.

It's just a game Poopshoe. Relax. More important things in life than HD. No need to get defensive and worked up about everything someone on the internet posts.

To answer Gil, I think its powerful in one main scenario. I think slowdown works too well for teams that are very strong 1-7 or 8 but take walkons 9-12. As I said in my previous post, this is usually a D1 issue because of the nature of targeting contested talent and EEs. I think deep uptempo press teams should probably be punishing these teams more than they currently do. As it is now, slowdown can really hide 4 walkons, and when the rest of your talent is top 10 recruits, this strategy is very viable and is happening quite a bit right now. There's just not that much of a punishment for missing on a top recruit and not having a backup ready.

Personally, I don't think slowdown is an upset button for underdog teams. Having a slightly fresher bad player is still a bad player on the court. I think it could appear that way because untalented teams tend to run slowdown when they are an underdog. So when an upset happens it looks like slowdown is the reason for it when it was just a bad sim. I think that's why we don't see slowdown that dominant in D2 or D3 where its easier to build full teams, and the discrepancy between the first 7 players isn't as significant as it can be in D1. If slowdown was making underdog teams better, then we'd see it be more successful in those lower divisions where uptempo press tends to be dominant.

Posted by Basketts on 4/8/2022 11:10:00 AM (view original):
To answer Gil, I think its powerful in one main scenario. I think slowdown works too well for teams that are very strong 1-7 or 8 but take walkons 9-12. As I said in my previous post, this is usually a D1 issue because of the nature of targeting contested talent and EEs. I think deep uptempo press teams should probably be punishing these teams more than they currently do. As it is now, slowdown can really hide 4 walkons, and when the rest of your talent is top 10 recruits, this strategy is very viable and is happening quite a bit right now. There's just not that much of a punishment for missing on a top recruit and not having a backup ready.

Personally, I don't think slowdown is an upset button for underdog teams. Having a slightly fresher bad player is still a bad player on the court. I think it could appear that way because untalented teams tend to run slowdown when they are an underdog. So when an upset happens it looks like slowdown is the reason for it when it was just a bad sim. I think that's why we don't see slowdown that dominant in D2 or D3 where its easier to build full teams, and the discrepancy between the first 7 players isn't as significant as it can be in D1. If slowdown was making underdog teams better, then we'd see it be more successful in those lower divisions where uptempo press tends to be dominant.

Complete agreement up top.

On the last part, I don’t specifically disagree anywhere, but my perspective is a little different. I think factoring in the “no consequences” aspect of slowdown for the underdog, and the idea that normally what a favorite would do to counter that - maximize possessions - is undermined (because of the stamina related neutering of press), it really does function like that “upset button” here. And like I’ve said a bunch, that *does not* mean “win button”. It doesn’t result in wins all the time, or a majority or the time, or even necessarily a highly significant time. I obviously have no vision into meaningful data. But what I’m saying is that it shouldn’t function like that *anytime.*

And again, that doesn’t mean upsets shouldn’t happen. But at a certain point, upsets achieved a certain way are absurd, in a similar way allowing 99-1 recruiting upsets would be absurd.

Posted by gillispie on 4/8/2022 7:10:00 AM (view original):
a few thoughts on the tempo discussion, a few questions. there is a LOT to unpack, i think we can dive into a bunch of specifics...

1) i agree that from a fatigue standpoint, there is a clear impact on fatigue from tempo, which gives uptempo an extra fatigue obstacle to overcome, while taking one away for slowdown. this is what causes folks to see better fg% and lower TOs from slowdown, IMO, and lower fg% with more TOs from uptempo.

- however, you guys don't seem to be really talking about how this impacts both teams. if you run slowdown, my team is going to be less tired and is going to have better fg%, too. i think this helps keep it at least somewhat balanced?

2) fatigue is a big part of the tempo picture - the impact of possessions on volatility is another big part. fewer possessions results in more volatility. this is great for the underdog, not so much for the favorite. there is a lot of mixing here, folks talking about feeling like slowdown is OP both for underdogs and favorites. neither one of those positions is unreasonable, but, IMO there is a big difference between the two. its almost two separate conversations.

- higher pace is a major advantage for championship favorites. i prefer to get mine in the form of press. having a pace of slowdown man, or slowdown zone, makes it significantly harder to win championships than a higher pace would. a lot of folks seem to generally agree that slowdown is too powerful, but, i suspect there's a lot of folks who disagree, too. anyway, i am curious to you folks who generally think slowdown is overpowered - do you think it is overpowered for the top tier of teams, for them to use it, i mean? what about if they are press vs man/zone, that sort of thing?

i think the 4 main cases to talk about here are: slowdown for (1) favorites with press (fb/press as a sub-case, etc), (2) favorites with man/zone, (3) underdogs with press, (4) underdogs with man/zone - and i suspect many folks think slowdown is powerful in some of those cases, but less so in others. i am definitely curious where folks see issues and where they don't, would like to read what people think if anyone is up to break those out and share their thoughts!!


3) there's (obviously) nothing wrong with folks running slowdown. morally or whatever, it doesn't cheapen their success... not sure what that was brought up, but i kinda think people don't really think that. and if they do, they are sort of idiots, without really meaning offense. there's a lot of interesting stuff to discuss here about slowdown IMO, without it being personal

Nothing in there that I disagree with.

You should play the tempo that best fits your team.

I have found that if I am playing zone, uptempo gives me the minute balance I want between starters and backups .. for press and M2M that is usually normal. On offense, I never play Fastbreak.

I always play slowdown if I am ahead at the end of the game, or uptempo if I am behind. I think almost everyone does that.

I only start games in slowdown if I am a huge underdog (by my calculations, not necessarily by the game's point spread). I sometimes do start in uptempo if I think I am a huge favorite (or sometimes if I am playing zone defense, I play uptempo most of the season.).

To Shoe:

Yeah, I get what you are saying. And I assume if some tweak is introduced to slowdown to address where I'm mostly seeing the issue, then that would naturally trickle down to all scenarios. I'm mostly seeing this through my limited D1 lens, so I'd defer to those who have multiple teams in multiple divisions. Sounds like you at least got it on Chris' radar, which is a good first step.

Posted by topdogggbm on 4/8/2022 10:01:00 AM (view original):
No one sees you as the villain. I'm just saying dont jump off the deep end dude!That's all I'm saying.

It's just a game Poopshoe. Relax. More important things in life than HD. No need to get defensive and worked up about everything someone on the internet posts.
shoe3 admits to being autistic..break please..

Posted by franklynne on 4/8/2022 11:52:00 AM (view original):

Posted by topdogggbm on 4/8/2022 10:01:00 AM (view original):
No one sees you as the villain. I'm just saying dont jump off the deep end dude!That's all I'm saying.

It's just a game Poopshoe. Relax. More important things in life than HD. No need to get defensive and worked up about everything someone on the internet posts.
shoe3 admits to being autistic..break please..

Sure, I can empathize with that. But it shouldn't matter when he's being a jerk to people on here just trying to engage in the conversation.

His response to mlitney's post earlier in this thread is garbage. He was being rude, condescending and insulting to mltiney's post that was on topic, relevant and respectful. Poopshoe just didn't like that he didn't agree.

"You’re not following along very well. Most of this has already been addressed."
" Don’t put words on my keypad. “Win button” is your thing, not mine. I’ve used “upset button”. Not the same thing."
"That’s pretty hilarious, and also pretty similar to the silly logic CS was using."

And then he responded the same way to Trojan

"Lol. Another one not following along. It would be great if you read what I write, instead of responded to the things you think I mean. Thanks."

Just saying, he's acting like a butthole to people for no reason and intentionally doing it to start arguments.

But I was being serious. If this game or the forums are really that stressful, take a break. Go do something to take your mind off it and come back. We'll still be here.

Posted by shoe3 on 4/8/2022 11:29:00 AM (view original):

Posted by Basketts on 4/8/2022 11:10:00 AM (view original):
To answer Gil, I think its powerful in one main scenario. I think slowdown works too well for teams that are very strong 1-7 or 8 but take walkons 9-12. As I said in my previous post, this is usually a D1 issue because of the nature of targeting contested talent and EEs. I think deep uptempo press teams should probably be punishing these teams more than they currently do. As it is now, slowdown can really hide 4 walkons, and when the rest of your talent is top 10 recruits, this strategy is very viable and is happening quite a bit right now. There's just not that much of a punishment for missing on a top recruit and not having a backup ready.

Personally, I don't think slowdown is an upset button for underdog teams. Having a slightly fresher bad player is still a bad player on the court. I think it could appear that way because untalented teams tend to run slowdown when they are an underdog. So when an upset happens it looks like slowdown is the reason for it when it was just a bad sim. I think that's why we don't see slowdown that dominant in D2 or D3 where its easier to build full teams, and the discrepancy between the first 7 players isn't as significant as it can be in D1. If slowdown was making underdog teams better, then we'd see it be more successful in those lower divisions where uptempo press tends to be dominant.

Complete agreement up top.

On the last part, I don’t specifically disagree anywhere, but my perspective is a little different. I think factoring in the “no consequences” aspect of slowdown for the underdog, and the idea that normally what a favorite would do to counter that - maximize possessions - is undermined (because of the stamina related neutering of press), it really does function like that “upset button” here. And like I’ve said a bunch, that *does not* mean “win button”. It doesn’t result in wins all the time, or a majority or the time, or even necessarily a highly significant time. I obviously have no vision into meaningful data. But what I’m saying is that it shouldn’t function like that *anytime.*

And again, that doesn’t mean upsets shouldn’t happen. But at a certain point, upsets achieved a certain way are absurd, in a similar way allowing 99-1 recruiting upsets would be absurd.

I’m confused. If weaker teams playing slowdown rarely results in an upset (“or even necessarily a highly significant time”), and you believe that upsets should be part of the game (“that doesn’t mean upsets shouldn’t happen”), what is the complaint and how is there an issue with the current coding for slowdown?

Well this thread spiraled pretty quick!

Here are my thoughts (which no one asked for). When I first started, I read a number of times that given the nature of volatility, better teams should run uptempo because more iterations (ie possessions) meant less likelihood of a surprise outcome. What I’ve come to realize is that is extremely flawed logic because it completely disregards fatigue which has a HUGE impact on the each possession. I think fatigue is (sneakily) one of the most underrated team attributes and the best coaches learn how to use fatigue to their advantage. I also think one of the most important things to understand is your own tempo affects your team more than the other (although it effects both).

I still think the most dominate team is a 12 deep team with a ath/spd/def/stam advantage (even at the expense of more sexy categories). Those teams can simply run 8-9 man rotations off the court with uptempo. If they come up against another team rotation, they just drop down their tempo because there is no point in tiring out your players more than theirs as well as risking more fouls for your team.

I think it’s way easier to get that advantage in D2/D3 which is one of the reasons I prefer D1. It’s basically impossible to consistently have an advantage at ath/spd/def/stam with a 12 man roster at D1 making that strategy harder to execute. Shoe, you know I value your opinion more than basically everyone else, but youve got multiple FB/FCP D1 teams. There are many, many ways to win in this game but that’s a harder road than some of the other choices. Nothing wrong with that plan, it’s just not making your games easy and slowdown is easily the best counter to this type of team.

In general, I agree with Shoe’s opinion that normal tempo “should” result in the most optimum shot and I am of the belief that I get a slightly batter FG% running slowdown. What I don’t know is if that’s a result of slowdown v normal or more of a function of fatigue. Personally I think it’s more of the ladder. I do get annoyed when D1 teams can get away with 8 man rotations but I don’t think decreasing the effectiveness of slow down is the right way to change that. I think the result would be even more FB/Fcp teams which I think is even more silly.

there are a few things in this game that can be “gamed”, fatigue being right up there with early entries and playing way under and doubling the best scorer. I do take advantage of these where I can because at it’s heart we are playing a game. Don’t think changing how this works would be high on my list of suggested changes even if i think it’s a place we’re knowledgeable coaches are getting an advantage.

I’m not sure who is getting stressed by this thread, but it’s definitely not me. I enjoy talking about the game, and sharing different opinions. As I’ve said, I can get frustrated when folks change my words to better fit their arguments, or make me repeat myself many times. But really like I told Trojan/baseball, I don’t take this personal stuff seriously at all. I was just talking to a friend in an adult autism group about a similar experience for her last week; it turns out that this kind of stuff is a common occurrence for our neurotype, in large part because we don’t tend to use the same communication patterns and social conventions as neurotypical folks, or if we do, they’re not natural to us. I pretty much always say what I mean (unless I’m explicitly telling a joke) and when people “read between the lines” or whatever, they usually end up way off from what I meant (this is something my wife and I have had to really watch). But I enjoy the discussion, even with folks who have different perspectives, I’m not out to win debates or converts, or whatever. Anyway, it was always difficult for me to understand why this forum in particular felt so competitive and combative, where it’s not like that in lots of other groups I participate in. And it dawned on me in discussion with my friend, its probably because this is a competitive, sports related gaming site, with sports fans. Of course many of them will be competitive, and assume I’m competitive (in that way).

So stressed? Not at all. Outraged? Lol. You guys can read whatever you want into my posts, I can’t stop you, and it’s too entertaining to watch Benis trip all over himself to take shots at me while trying to look like he’s not taking shots at me, far be it from me to ever stop him. You do you. But I’ll keep talking about the game I enjoy, the one that also irritates me. Not much in the next few days though, just got back from helping out as vocal coach for a musical, which I’ll do again tomorrow (after serving as delegate for the DFL senate convention here in Minnesota, civic duty comes first). But I look forward to seeing where you all take it in the meantime.

Posted by shoe3 on 4/7/2022 2:08:00 PM (view original):
List of Top 5 things that irritate shoe3 in HD.

1. Lack of tempo balance
2. Unintelligent implementation of doubleteams
3. Game engine course correction or feedback (aka “oops you did too well in the first half, now your team will suck for the rest of the game, too bad”)
4. Injuries and the uselessness of durability (it doesn’t matter at all until it wrecks your season)
5. ***new addition*** Lack of a care emoji in the forums. The just doesn’t cut it.

Interestingly, for someone who “only complains when he loses”, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who complains less about losing recruiting battles or early entries, despite losing plenty of both. I suppose we all have our little irritants.

1. My biggest problem with tempo is that the slow-down team seems to dominate the overall tempo. This happens in real life, but you also see better teams take control of tempo during the game, sometimes totally or other times during dominant scoring surges. It seems like this doesn't happen in HD.
2. I gave up on using double teams b/c the results didn't make any sense. So I don't have enough current experience to comment.
3. I was wondering about this but have never looked into it. Intuitively, I figured that this was what was happening and was the reason my team would score 60 in the 1st half and then stumble around like they were drunk in the 2nd.

Also, why no NET ranking in HD? How about we get some advanced analytics?