The following is just my opinion, I hope it helps you win more games. Ash is kind enough to help with team building, so I thought i'd help with team playing. You need to know a couple of things, 1) SIM is basicly EVIL, 2) my dog is a better coach than SIM. So it is necessary to minimize SIM's options. How?

1) don't just set a player to 0 minutes, remove them from to depth chart and be sure to check the rest box.

2) try to use as few players as possible. Use a single player to backup both PG & SG, and a single player to backup PF & C. In some cases you can use a single player to back, PG, SG & SF and another to cover PF & C. This forces a rotation on SIM, and minimizes SIM loading the court with low %usage players and driving your team into penalty, thereby generating those 12pt Q's.

3) those 3 minute players you drafted, sit them down for 1/2 to 2/3 of the season then use them. It's hard for any player to help much in 3 minutes.

4) never double team a player, it does little to stop the opposing player, but it does pull your player off their primary assignment.

5) set all those game setup options to NEVER, these are mostly different way for SIM to screw-up your game. Only rarely has a team used low %fg 3pt'ers to beat my team, not once has a team fouled its way to a win in my games. Your bench for the most part stinks, why dump them on the floor, again another option for SIM. On occasion these setting are useful, but mostly the risk out weighs the benefit.

How you do it isn't important, but try to minimize SIM's options. I've simply given some ways to do just that.

Good Luck & have some fun. I'm off to see if my dog beat me again today!

I disagree with 2, 3 and 5. Go look at the team composition of my Unoriginal Bastard V team- #13 on the top 25 list.

You should have seen it actually. You're in that league.

hey Smokey, I respectfully disagree somewhat as well...especially about playing as few players as possible and not using players 10,11 and 12 (which you describe as 3 min players).  My teams have been fairly successful and I cannot recall ever having an all star.  That says a lot about having teams with balance instead of a couple all stars surrounded by weaker players.  Regards the minimum minute guys you mention, I have had some success spending a couple more dollars and getting good players to play 6-8 minutes every other game.  There are some very good $350K-$400K players on the draft board that give you the same stats/min as the stars but with fewer minutes.  These type of players give you a lot more advantage than sitting 3 x $239.000 guys throughout the season.  Thanks for starting the discussion smokey or should I say justdamn? 

Tad, you build the toughest teams I've played. Thanks for joining the discussion. I often write in the forum with the intent that a discussion comes about. I don't really expect or want agreement. When I first came to WIS info was somewhat hard to come by, so I started asking questions in the forums, everyone was quite helpful (thx all), but it seems that often times people are reluctant to ask questions. So this type of discussion gives them some useful information that they can use to be successful and enjoy themselves and hopefully stay with WIS. Btw, I do pay attention to everyones input and incorporate it into my game, thx for the help. See you on the cyberwood. GL

Smokey57 / aka-Justdamn

Tad, you have had an allstar, it was Jerry West. See I am paying attention. lol

Eeek!

1) don't just set a player to 0 minutes, remove them from to depth chart and be sure to check the rest box.

If you intend on resting someone, yes.  If not, no.  More later.

2) try to use as few players as possible. Use a single player to backup both PG & SG, and a single player to backup PF & C. In some cases you can use a single player to back, PG, SG & SF and another to cover PF & C. This forces a rotation on SIM, and minimizes SIM loading the court with low %usage players and driving your team into penalty, thereby generating those 12pt Q's.

I agree and disagree with this.  First of all, the engine does not handle multiple position rotation worth a flying ****.  Second of all, minutes cost extra money, so you actually get more bang for your buck by using partial-season salaries.  There are exceptional exceptions, however ('67 Wilt, for example).

3) those 3 minute players you drafted, sit them down for 1/2 to 2/3 of the season then use them. It's hard for any player to help much in 3 minutes.

Players actually perform poorly when they play a drastic amount more than they did IRL (based on total minutes divided by 82 games, not what they really played).  This means efg% drops and turnovers soar.  This is basically a bad idea.  I do encourage owners to sit these guys for a few games at the start to help with fatigue management, however.

4) never double team a player, it does little to stop the opposing player, but it does pull your player off their primary assignment.

I actually agree but for a different reason.  At one point I would have called this placebo, but I've seen it too many times for it to be placebo.  Double Teaming doesn't actually do a damn thing to impede a player's fg% or cause them to turn the ball over more.  If anything, it actually helps them shoot better.  I have no documentation, only experience, but a controlled experiment would almost be worth the $240 it would cost if WIS gave a **** and would fix problems when they are presented.

5) set all those game setup options to NEVER, these are mostly different way for SIM to screw-up your game. Only rarely has a team used low %fg 3pt'ers to beat my team, not once has a team fouled its way to a win in my games. Your bench for the most part stinks, why dump them on the floor, again another option for SIM. On occasion these setting are useful, but mostly the risk out weighs the benefit.

No, no, NO!  Just about every one of these coaching options has a place.  It took me a long time to figure out some of them, but trust me, they're there for a reason.  I've lost far more games to my opponents wisely using these settings than I've won by not using them.  The bench option is there to save fatigue for your good players - something VERY helpful as the season goes on (and in the playoffs).  The 3-point offense thing is flat unfair and very abusable.  Seventhwest won several titles based on this alone.  Defensive matchups are huge if you use them correctly.  Slowing down at the right time when you're winning is extremely smart.  Positioning is the weakest thing in the game (and also the cause of many headaches for owners even though they don't know that it is at fault) because of the poor design and poorer implementation.

But I would advise minimalizing the number of changes you make.  People often tinker with things too much to their own detriment.  But this is something you really need to discover on your own.

As usual Ash, thank you. I will remove my original post soon, I do not wish to give new owner poor advice. This dicussion itself is valuable, and I appreciate the input. I have had a personal aversion wrt using partial season players. But after looking at Tad's, Sly's & Plumley's team structure and comparing it to my high salery cap teams, I see the structure is the same only. only at $55-57 the minutes are different. At the higher salery caps I bring full season backups and only use a portion of their mins. This created an illusion, that I find more palatible,but in fact is no different. The reason behind using a backup to cover more than one position is to stop SIM from rotating in your whole bench, I have literally seen 3 rookies, Rodman & Rondo put on the floor together with Rodman at PG. So, is there another way to keep this from happening and force a rotation that a sane coach would use? Also, if you have a player that played 35 mins per game for 25 games and sit them down and use them for 35mins per game in the last 25 game isn't this replicating their real season stats. Lastly I'm trying to understand these things and get better at playing on this site, thereby offering a higher level of competitor which I think benefits everyone. Thx again for the help.

Also, when I say pull a player off the depth chart and set mins to 0 and check the rest box I do mean to rest them. If you don't do this SIM will likey rotate them into the game. If you leave them on the depth chart and set their mins to 0 SIM will most surely use them. In short I'm trying to understand rotation stratigies.

The reason behind using a backup to cover more than one position is to stop SIM from rotating in your whole bench, I have literally seen 3 rookies, Rodman & Rondo put on the floor together with Rodman at PG.

Yeah, sub logic can be absolutely terrible at times.  However...

So, is there another way to keep this from happening and force a rotation that a sane coach would use?

You have to have a very flexible bench... almost every player on any bench I make is 100% effective at multiple positions.  Also, I try to match usage tiers as much as possible.  If I have a 2nd tier usage SF starting (91 Barkley, for example), I'll try and make sure his back up is also 2nd tier usage (11 Carmelo's 977 minute season, for example).  Sometimes I can't make them all have the same stats, but I can get close on most of them.

Also, if you have a player that played 35 mins per game for 25 games and sit them down and use them for 35mins per game in the last 25 game isn't this replicating their real season stats.

You would think so, but no, it doesn't work like that.  It's based on real stats as if they had played 82 games.  I tried this in a prog league once with 85-86 Michael Jordan.. every time I tried to play him even just 20 minutes a game, he shot 30% from the field and turned the ball over like it was his job.  His 12 game average was... terrible.  It's set up that way to keep people from abusing the players in the playoffs. 

$55-57 the minutes are different. At the higher salery caps I bring full season backups and only use a portion of their mins.

You're actually better served not spending money on extra minutes.  In a league where you don't get rookies, you don't want more than 20k minutes.  19,200 is perfect if you don't have any overtime.  You can do less if you don't mind a little fatigue (which IS okay).  I recently won a $55M league running 09-10 Lebron, 89-90 Jordan, 91-92 Rodman, 02-03 Big Ben, 66-67 Wilt.  I made the most out of what resources were available to me... something I talk about extensively in that new thread I made.

Let's actually break that line-up down a bit.

Lebron - really helped in all 3 facets (possession, shooting, fouls)
Jordan - same - all 3 facets
Rodman - really helped in 1 (possession), moderately helped in shooting (good defense, good efg% but low usg so that efg% wasn't that helpful)
Wallace - same as Worm; big help on possession, morderate on shooting (lower efg% but lowest usg% on team).  Also really low on fouls committed.
Wilt - helped in all 3 facets.

I had a smidge more usage than I needed (19 points total), but I actually milked out all of their RL possessions b/c of the way I did my rotation.

Posted by smokey57 on 1/9/2012 5:13:00 AM (view original):
Also, when I say pull a player off the depth chart and set mins to 0 and check the rest box I do mean to rest them. If you don't do this SIM will likey rotate them into the game. If you leave them on the depth chart and set their mins to 0 SIM will most surely use them. In short I'm trying to understand rotation stratigies.

they only get used if there's foul trouble, a kink in the rotation somewhere else, or in a blowout situation.  Or if the sim decides to.

Basically, the sub logic is terrible.  The easiest way to get the sim to sub like you want is to run a full 10-man rotation with one backup per position.  Even then it's screwy as hell.

That's not exactly the best way to build a team, however... Fussing with the depth chart is worth a little headache.

Remember, this post is meant for the Rookie / Casual owner. Some of the things we're discussing here is a bit advanced for those players, its great advice that they should build into their game, but I mean to help them at a more elementry level. Again thx for joining this dicussion.