For arguments sake, let's say we can perfectly sum up a player's offensive and defensive ability in one number.

Which offensive player would you expect to perform best:

90 offense against 90 defense
75 offense against 75 defense
60 offense against 60 defense

Error rate on both sides would increase as your ratings go down, overall competitiveness would otherwise be equal in all three scenarios.

Just based on gut feel, it seems like offensive skills outweigh defense in this game, so I believe the 90 offense guy would do best. I often try to matchup my best defender against another teams top scorer and even though my defender has better ratings, it may slow them down a bit, but they always seem to get 20+ points. I really don't think you can shut down a great offensive player if their distro is cranked up.

If that were true, the ATH/SPD/DEF mantra would not hold water.

Two posts above were exactly my thinking. However, what Ath and Sp always do is get you to the free-throw line which is equilibrium to shooting 70%. It also can get the superior offensive players in foul trouble.

Check out what Franklin, King and Loaiza did to the lower Ath/Sp/De guys.

Look how tired everyone was.

DEF is hard to quantify. It's probably just more of a feeling. In the zone thread, there was a discussion over the importance of BLK in big men. I significantly upgraded by ATH/SPD/DEF in C/PF but I firmly believe my interior D is not as good because I lost so much in BLK/REB. I can't prove it because the numbers don't show it but I'm sure my D declined.

Well, looking at the game above, it's best to have bigs like Colligan for D and guards like King.

Posted by slayterhill on 6/20/2017 5:24:00 PM (view original):
Just based on gut feel, it seems like offensive skills outweigh defense in this game, so I believe the 90 offense guy would do best. I often try to matchup my best defender against another teams top scorer and even though my defender has better ratings, it may slow them down a bit, but they always seem to get 20+ points. I really don't think you can shut down a great offensive player if their distro is cranked up.

Distro and matchup choices introduce extra variables. cub's example was much simpler than that.