What's the most important thing to consider when drafting a team?

to pick good players

seriously though: winning the possession battle and being efficient with your possessions are tied for #1 in my book

Look for players that do other things extremely well besides scoring points and include them on your rosters. I've never seen a SIM team win a lot, for example, with three players who averaged 25 to 30 PPG in RL.

Quote: Originally posted by vancem on 7/11/2009I've never seen a SIM team win a lot, for example, with three players who averaged 25 to 30 PPG in RL.

I have. But the first part of your post was good advice. You do, however, have to have scoring, and the number one problem most teams face that avoid the too-much-scoring problem is not-enough-scoring. That comes straight up from not enough usage and/or possessions.

19000 mins is vital. four guys w/22% usage avg is nice.

draft boards. 3s. this current model is all about it.

don't fall victim to the cookie cutter. make your own winning squad. the cutter is a dog. a dog w/o loyalty.

OK, thanks. Also, is Dennis Rodman as good as they say he is?

rodman gives you great value - especially the 91-92 version. tons of boards, great d, low usage, and tons of oboards.

very easy to build around.

Quote: Originally posted by monkee on 7/11/2009seriously though: winning the possession battle and being efficient with your possessions are tied for #1 in my book

And there are several components to the possession battle, some of which are more important than others. Two priorities for me in building a team are maximizing rebounds and minimizing personal fouls. Turnovers are also important, although more of a priority for some owners than for me - don't be afraid of a good point guard who turns the ball over a lot but contributes across the board in other areas. As for blocks and steals, they're a part of the equation also but in my experience less worth the investment than the other possession factors.

If you're dominant enough in rebounds and efg%, turnovers don't matter as much. You can average 20 topg and be the most dominant team in your league.

Of course, averaging 14 topg and having all of the same is nice, too. It's just much harder to do (and impossible using all the typical cookie-cutter parts).

Agreed on all points.

It would be nice to see a major (even if temporary) shake-up of the sim that reduces the holy importance of efg%. There's a long list of historical greats that are virtually unusable otherwise - DeBusschere, Cowens, R. Barry, etc. Even Russell is falling out of favor, despite his rebounding charms.

Yeah, you can piece together lower-minute, higher efg% guys with similar advanced rebounding percentages and (apallingly) higher blk% with less tov%. Of course, fouls are insane with most of those guys, but there's always a balancer.

bumping, good discussion for new owners here.