I've played a lot more baseball here than basketball, and one of the nice things about baseball is you actually get to manage your team. You make changes to your batting line-up due to things like whether the opposing pitcher is a lefty or a righty, is the ballpark good for home run hitters, stuff like that. The point is, you actually get to manage.

In basketball, on the other hand, you draft your team in part to get just barely enough minutes to get through the season. In most leagues you simply manage the minutes, not the players. You never play the defensive guy because you're trying to slow down Kevin Durant, you just play the same thing every game.

What I would like to try is to have a league in which you pick players because of their skill set, not because of how many minutes they can give you. Pick 12 usable players. Need more rebounding? Great! Play Rodman. Need a defensive stopper? Super! Tell Kawhi Leonard to get out there. It would be nice to have a little flexibility in deciding who plays each game.

What are your thoughts?

Apparently out of the 27 people left on this site, none of them has any thoughts.

There's only 27 people on whatifsports?

I slightly exaggerated.

if the engine were better, I'd agree with you 100%.  It's what we have, though.

Did someone say defense? Here's something to mull over. I just had a team of mine give up 154 points in a game--to a team with a losing record that was averaging 112 PPG. My starting five has defensive ratings as follows: Lebron-90, Shaq-80, Rodman-90, Kidd-80, Paul-70. WTF? Does defense mean ANYTHING in this game??

Posted by stengelese on 9/11/2015 7:49:00 PM (view original):
Did someone say defense? Here's something to mull over. I just had a team of mine give up 154 points in a game--to a team with a losing record that was averaging 112 PPG. My starting five has defensive ratings as follows: Lebron-90, Shaq-80, Rodman-90, Kidd-80, Paul-70. WTF? Does defense mean ANYTHING in this game??

Who knows really?  At least they say in the beginners section to pick people with a defensive rating that are least a 70.  My current team that I am trying has 6 guys with an 80-99 defensive rating. 

What I have found out is that when the good defenders are on my team they don't guard anyone, but if another team has a good defense I can't score at all. That's pure gospel.

Posted by Midge on 9/11/2015 11:18:00 PM (view original):
What I have found out is that when the good defenders are on my team they don't guard anyone, but if another team has a good defense I can't score at all. That's pure gospel.

Did they do something to the fatigue factor recently also when it comes to the up tempo offense?  I've had 4 players get worn down near the end of the of the 10 game sim league who all played at least 71 games and their minutes were roughly the same (if not a few seconds more) to what they played in the season I drafted them.

Posted by stengelese on 9/11/2015 7:49:00 PM (view original):
Did someone say defense? Here's something to mull over. I just had a team of mine give up 154 points in a game--to a team with a losing record that was averaging 112 PPG. My starting five has defensive ratings as follows: Lebron-90, Shaq-80, Rodman-90, Kidd-80, Paul-70. WTF? Does defense mean ANYTHING in this game??

defense has a much greater effect than it used to.  You could have a team full of 96 rated defenders (max at the time) & give up 130ppg.  Defense doesn't need any tweaking at this point.  The benefit of ast% is what needs to be tweaked, if anything.  Salary structure overhaul is also something that should be looked into.

Well, I'd still like to see the D ratings of some individual players - especially pre-1970 - looked into.  But the staff would have to be willing to do some subjective tweaking.

Posted by longtallbrad on 9/13/2015 2:30:00 PM (view original):
Well, I'd still like to see the D ratings of some individual players - especially pre-1970 - looked into.  But the staff would have to be willing to do some subjective tweaking.

I don't disagree with that at all.  I mean, James Harden is a better defender than Bill Russell...  REALLY?

Posted by ashamael on 9/13/2015 5:53:00 PM (view original):

Posted by longtallbrad on 9/13/2015 2:30:00 PM (view original):
Well, I'd still like to see the D ratings of some individual players - especially pre-1970 - looked into.  But the staff would have to be willing to do some subjective tweaking.

I don't disagree with that at all.  I mean, James Harden is a better defender than Bill Russell...  REALLY?

Russell should probably have a 100 d-rating from 58-67 and 90-95 in 57, 68 and 69.  He does have a 90 rating in 69 but he was past his prime while his prime years have ratings in the 70s.

the reason he has that 90 rating is that is the first year they implemented all Defensive teams which is a weighted factor in the rating equation - it is no stretch at all to assume that if they did have that award throughout the duration of his career he would have been named to that honor every single year not to mention the probable DPoY almost every year of his career (also a weighted factor)

but the real problem with this issue isn't WiS willingness or lack thereof to make subjective decisions in this matter, the real issue is that there is no there, there - no one to talk to, no one to respond, no one monitoring any of these forums, no one at the helm of the ship - we're on a ghost ship people - aint no living people running this site

Posted by copernicus on 9/14/2015 10:29:00 AM (view original):
the reason he has that 90 rating is that is the first year they implemented all Defensive teams which is a weighted factor in the rating equation - it is no stretch at all to assume that if they did have that award throughout the duration of his career he would have been named to that honor every single year not to mention the probable DPoY almost every year of his career (also a weighted factor)

but the real problem with this issue isn't WiS willingness or lack thereof to make subjective decisions in this matter, the real issue is that there is no there, there - no one to talk to, no one to respond, no one monitoring any of these forums, no one at the helm of the ship - we're on a ghost ship people - aint no living people running this site

Sad, but true. Oh, for the good old days Unfortunately, WIS's neglect is what chased owners away, so there really is no reason for the state of the site, other than WIS simply doesn't care.