Well actually my very first $52 million draft team took 2nd place in the division and then made it to the finals against a uvasooner team. My overall average wins here was at 49 or 50 per season until that 37 win stinker team a few seasons back. What sucks is the 2 teams that I had that  won 54 and 56 games respectfully that got beat in the playoffs against mikee1's championship and dh555's championship teams. Mediocrity is just as hard for me to take right now in this league as it is for me to accept some of the defects of middle age.

It is somewhat annoying to see some of the same owners at the bottom time and time again after 5 or 6 seasons or more of trying. But the competition is fierce and not every owner is cut out to be great in this league. I respect people for doing different things. However, when owners try things IMO that will never ever end up being competitive such as drafting Ray Allen and Kevin Durant at SG and SF in this league that is crazy. 

In my mind that basic idea is to always do your best to draft a championship caliber team and not try to achieve neat and special statistical seasons for individual players or teams. But that's just my take on it. I Iike to win and hate to lose so I won't ever intentionally draft a team that is bad or doesn't have a chance in hell to be a winner just to make a name for myself or to get negative attention. If I want to be foolish or need people to laugh at me believe me I can do that very well in RL without going out of my way to be a spectacle or an outlier here. 

Vance, or anyone else, can we get your take on some of the teams you see so far? This thread has taken a detour and I'd like to see some commentary on some of the squads so far (like mine) :)

Posted by dh555 on 1/3/2014 10:28:00 PM (view original):
well if nate doesnt draft anymore guards or sfs he can play his 4 guys at the 1/2/3 with only a few mins leftover at pf...then he could focus on boards for the rest of the 4/5 mins...but i have a feeling hes not going that way haha

DH, you are correct and likely correct again. I only have about 3 excess mpg right now and can fill 144mpg at the 1-3 positions with a min of 14 usage points, min of 52% combined ast% and min ave D of 62.7, with a max of 16 usage points, ast% just over 73% and D of 79.3. All the time protecting my FTA advantage.

However, if I go all-in with this strategy and want to protect my D then I'm more likely to draft another 3/4 type player that really is a 3. Lots of options now since I have all of the ast%, usage and 3's I REALLY need. 

The good news for me now is that I have a short list of guys that I have NEVER seen drafted here that fit what I'm trying to do. I'll likely take a guy in the 5th that generally gets taken here and use a few new guys in the 6th.

I still think the West pick fits, even if I opt out of this strategy and finish with a more standard team. I now have the option to take foul monsters at the 4/5 and still win the FTA battle, and with the 90D of West I not only balance the 40D of Allen but I also can now afford a 50-60D big as well instead of HAVING to add two more 70+ guys.

Vance,

You NEVER know what may work here until you give it a try and I honestly have had some basis for believing everything I have tried in this league had a chance to produce a winner.

I only built my 50ppg Wilt team after I tried it in an open league where I won my division and something in the high-50's and made the finals. It failed here because I traded away all of my mid-round picks to get him, had two sub-50D guys, and underestimated the difference between a pool of players with a $42mill cap and a $52mill one.

My D Wade / undrafted high usage G team failed because I drafted too many fouls and sub-50 D guys. 

Last ODL people thought it was crazy to take Allen and Kobe and no PG to pair with Wilt, but that worked. And I used the lesson I learned from my Wade team in this league to take Kobe in the PPL to pair with Wade, where again people thought I was a fool but that team won a league record 64 games last season and lost in the finals.

Of all the teams I've built in all of the leagues on WIS I've only had ONE not have a winning record with this version of Allen and that was because I fell below the ast% floor. IMO, Allen should be a late 1st / early 2nd guy in this league, as long as you protect your D at the other positions and give him enough assists. 

I had Kareem foul out like 15 times here last season, it screwed up my minutes management etc, etc, etc. I also finished dead last in FTA;s, so I refuse to go down that path again because it's not a fun trip.

I look forward to going 28/30 from the stripe and 12/23 from the arc against your team when we play, even if I lose the rebounding battle by 15-20 I truly believe that pure domination of the FTA battle can produce a winning team as long as you protect other areas.

I respect your opinion, but I have NEVER built a team that I didn't base on what I thought could be a winning strategy. But I welcome the doubters, because it makes it far more satisfying when I actually do have a theory play out as I expect it to.

Sly I really like your team and will work on eval later on it. Most of the time I don't like Pierce but mikee1 used him and Payton with Wilt to win the title. Robinson's high EFG% and around 26% usage sort of balances out Pierce's low EFG% IMO. Billups also has a low EFG% for this league but great assists. You have a ton of 3's so far and great overall defense. Finding the right PF is of course the key for this being a top team favored to win the title. But knowing you that will happen. I would have to give your squad an A so far. 

Look nate I love giving you a bad, sometimes a terribly bad time, with your drafting strategies. I look forward to our teams playing too. The problem that I see for your team is how are they going to generate 23 FGAs from 3 and get enough possessions to get 30 FTAs with such poor defensive rebounding. I also don't see many second chance points for that unit either. I will give you credit for being the current ODL champ which is something that I have never been close to doing. You belong in the PDX with me and sly. Our city slogan is "Keep Portland Weird." Want to visit us any time soon?

can someone explain "usage points" and where/how do you calculate such?

Posted by pennsylvania on 1/4/2014 9:22:00 AM (view original):
can someone explain "usage points" and where/how do you calculate such?

Penn use this link

http://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?TopicID=445171&TopicsTimeframe=30

Posted by vancem on 1/4/2014 2:25:00 AM (view original):
Sly I really like your team and will work on eval later on it. Most of the time I don't like Pierce but mikee1 used him and Payton with Wilt to win the title. Robinson's high EFG% and around 26% usage sort of balances out Pierce's low EFG% IMO. Billups also has a low EFG% for this league but great assists. You have a ton of 3's so far and great overall defense. Finding the right PF is of course the key for this being a top team favored to win the title. But knowing you that will happen. I would have to give your squad an A so far. 

Thanks vance! Except I'm using Pierce's 10-11 season with 55 efg%, 2700+ mins, 56def which is perfectly acceptable for a 4th round SG in my book. And I agree Billups' 51 efg% is a bit low, his ast%, def, 3pm will help me live with the slightly low efg%. We'll see who's left when the draft gets back to me!

Nate - in theory I like your strategy but it is very difficult to generate high numbers of FTA in the sim. IMO fouls are determined much more by the opponents' PF than your own FTA, and I've never seen anyone be successful at drawing a significantly higher number of fouls by drafting FTA. Unless you have an isolated high-usage guy (see Tmac in my ODL team) your high FTA guys are likely to have significantly more FGA, and significantly fewer FTA, than in real life.

I'm not saying it won't work, just that I think you'll be disappointed if what you're expecting is to blow away the rest of the league in FTA. I can tell you that I've basically ignored FTA in drafting for the last couple years, and have yet to regret it.

BTW, im not completely happy with my team so far. Payton is definitely a lower-efg lead scorer than I usually want in the 52 mil, and that might hurt me. I was crushed when Nance didn't make it back to me and wish I could do those 2nd and 3rd round picks again. But I'm pretty happy with my last two picks, even though some people might think them odd. Kirilenko and Weatherspoon were by no means the best two players on the board, but they give me the two major things I was looking for: defense and flexibility. The latter is often one of the major focuses of my teams, moreso than for others, and it's especially important when my last two picks won't come until 70 other guys have been picked. Depending on who's left at the end, AK47 could back up the 2 and 3 or start at the 3, and Weatherspoon could back up the 3 and 4 or start at either. So my team is still able to go in a lot of different directions.

eleibowitz:  thanks, although I must say that I've resigned myself to those who "never were" ---  not surprisingly, this game requires way too much time  --- which I just don't have.

As it is, I spend way too much time on my RL game - golf - and still haven't figured out a way to make a go of it - good thing I have day job.

Posted by pennsylvania on 1/4/2014 10:40:00 AM (view original):
eleibowitz:  thanks, although I must say that I've resigned myself to those who "never were" ---  not surprisingly, this game requires way too much time  --- which I just don't have.

As it is, I spend way too much time on my RL game - golf - and still haven't figured out a way to make a go of it - good thing I have day job.

You just need less sleep Penn.. get more done by 7 am than must people all day. Or was that an old commercial for the Army???

Well sly I do like that version of Pierce and if my head was screwed on straight these days I might have taken him for the season instead of taking Okafor so high. I just figured that in order to be able to win at all I had to get a big with decent numbers and at least 70 defense to make up for Mel Daniels 61 D. 

Nate: To make a long story short IMO you focus way too much on the numbers that you think that your team will generate based on what they did in RL. Remember in RL those are probably rosters with $45 to $49 million in player salary. In this $52 million league for the most part all of your players positive numbers will go down and all of their negative numbers will go up from what they did in RL.

Tarheel: I am very interested in what happens for your team. The last picks in round 6 don't leave much quality normally. I love Brent Barry but his 1 usage point means that he won't be scoring over 15 ppg. Wilt's 18.5 usage normally gets you about 20 to 24 ppg. Payton as your number one scoring option so far is problematic IMO. 

My pal Sixer has done a great job so far. It's nice to see him back in full participation in this league. Moses and Zelmo will hurt teams with their inside scoring. Nick Anderson is so efficient and penn proved that you can build a winning team in this league with Steve Nash. AC Green is one of my favorites too. This looks like a playoff team to me right now after 5 picks.

tar you just had to take Kirilenko didnt you with that i  would have completed my super defense team now i have settle for some low 90s defender