So basically go out and recruit guys with high ATH and everything else can be crap, but with high ATH the other ratings that are crap will get a boost?

kind of a weird question on a complex topic, but in short... kind of.

team building is generally the exercise of combing individuals (or contemplating combining individuals) into a cohensive team unit, especially in the recruiting / recruiting planning part of the game, but also when it comes to practice planning and EE planning.

building a team with a bunch of strong defenders across most or all of the team, with particular players who fill other roles like lead scorer, pg, or rebounder - is generally a good starting point. ath is a component in most of the abilities that the game runs on, like the ability to rebound, or defend, or to take 2pt shots. so, skimping on other ratings and focusing on ath, its a decent starting point from that perspective. its perhaps semantics, but ath doesn't boost other crap ratings, but ath is a component in most of the basketball abilities in the game, so the good ath and crap other ratings can average out to be decent.

good ath alone isn't usually enough to do anything, ath/def primarily drive defense in most cases, good ath with crap def would yield pretty poor defense. ath alone is enough to get to the level of basic competence scoring wise, perhaps not with like 1 lp/per, but it can go a long way with just some crap level of scoring abilities. ath is a decent component in rebounding but rebounding the rating is significantly more important in the rebounding ability, so a team with good ath and garbage reb will still suck on the boards.

i think what you are probably getting is advice geared towards newer coaches, especially in d1, where new coaches tend not to value ath enough. ath is important. a team with high ath and everything else crap is still going to basically be a crap team. the point of team building is to try to get high return on your investment. having 12 95 ath/def players on a d1 team is a complete waste if you lack all the other abilities. you are going to get a much better return on the talent you bring in, if you have some scoring, some rebounding, some bh/pass in your back court, and then about as much defense as you can get (the ability, not the rating) on top of those other things. that said, ath is quite important in today's game and you definitely want a lot of it.

I hear ya, just getting a little frustrated. With the rebounding thing, I had a 22 ATH with 89 Reb and he still got out rebounded by a 80 ATH and 65 REB. I'm leaning and started reading more on the forums. Thanks for the thoughtful input.

Posted by jrnellie on 9/14/2022 3:06:00 PM (view original):
I hear ya, just getting a little frustrated. With the rebounding thing, I had a 22 ATH with 89 Reb and he still got out rebounded by a 80 ATH and 65 REB. I'm leaning and started reading more on the forums. Thanks for the thoughtful input.

no problem! i wasn't sure what kind of level you were talking about, but that makes sense. 22 ath players can't compete in d3 with any ratings, except perhaps a guard who has really nice speed, per, bh, pass. ath is probably the overall most important rating, if you were to take all roles and value their cores and average it out, at least in m2m and zone. ath is a core rating for all roles, and the only other thing that is true for is defense. and maybe stamina, but stamina is kind of different, it ends up feeling totally different than all the other ratings. it factors more into depth, and its mediocre for mediocre players but the most valuable rating for the best players, which isn't really how any other rating works. you could probably safely call stamina a core for all players though.

but anyway. ath is very important so you probably got some good advice on that front. there is more important stuff like passing in your pg, per in your scoring backcourt players, so don't go totally selling out for ath, but generally speaking focusing on ath/def for your team and sprinkling in some other talent generally at least gives you a good team. i think of today's HD as being the ath/def paradigm, it is definitely a core pillar of most good teams.

I tell newer coaches to view ATH as body mass, in relation to the ability of other categories. In real life you could have a middle school player that is a great rebounder because he’s 6’ tall. But he’s still a middle school player (22 ATH, 89 REB) and his body hasn’t filled out yet. If he plays against a real life college freshman that isn’t that great of a rebounder, he’s still going to get pushed around in the block by the bigger body (which would be the 80 ATH, 65 REB kid)

Tried to use your example numbers so you’d understand.

Think of it like 3pt shooting. Dude can nail every catch and shoot 3pter in practice. But without speed and BH, he's never gonna be able to create his shot and get open to actually make a 3pter.

I just came up with that analogy just now. And I'm high. But I think it makes sense.

Posted by Benis on 9/15/2022 10:06:00 PM (view original):
I just came up with that analogy just now. And I'm high. But I think it makes sense.

Have a dude right now that literally shoots 90% from 3 land during practice. Averaged like 2 points a game last season. On the other hand, I have a player that is a stud athlete (super fast, super strong, can jump out of the gym, brother played D1, mom played in the wbna) and a Rhodes Scholar, he will be valedictorian. It has yet to transfer to the court in 3 seasons. He will be a Sr. this year. One of the quirkiest things I have ever seen in coaching. The dude gets on the court during a game and makes mistake after mistake. Pretty sure there is a "clutch" attribute that we all carry and his is 0.

Posted by damonh1992_ on 9/16/2022 2:45:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 9/15/2022 10:06:00 PM (view original):
I just came up with that analogy just now. And I'm high. But I think it makes sense.

Have a dude right now that literally shoots 90% from 3 land during practice. Averaged like 2 points a game last season. On the other hand, I have a player that is a stud athlete (super fast, super strong, can jump out of the gym, brother played D1, mom played in the wbna) and a Rhodes Scholar, he will be valedictorian. It has yet to transfer to the court in 3 seasons. He will be a Sr. this year. One of the quirkiest things I have ever seen in coaching. The dude gets on the court during a game and makes mistake after mistake. Pretty sure there is a "clutch" attribute that we all carry and his is 0.

dude needs some confidence. get him laid a couple times and he should be alright?

Posted by gillispie on 9/16/2022 5:14:00 PM (view original):

Posted by damonh1992_ on 9/16/2022 2:45:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 9/15/2022 10:06:00 PM (view original):
I just came up with that analogy just now. And I'm high. But I think it makes sense.

Have a dude right now that literally shoots 90% from 3 land during practice. Averaged like 2 points a game last season. On the other hand, I have a player that is a stud athlete (super fast, super strong, can jump out of the gym, brother played D1, mom played in the wbna) and a Rhodes Scholar, he will be valedictorian. It has yet to transfer to the court in 3 seasons. He will be a Sr. this year. One of the quirkiest things I have ever seen in coaching. The dude gets on the court during a game and makes mistake after mistake. Pretty sure there is a "clutch" attribute that we all carry and his is 0.

dude needs some confidence. get him laid a couple times and he should be alright?

I'll see what I can do

In D3 recruiting, I typically will never recruit any post players who will have an athleticism cap of 50 or lower (and strongly prefer 60+). With guards, a good rule of thumb is that Ath+Spd should equal 120 or higher.