The SIM doesn't give you the answers up front. Some of us have never learned its ways. It took me about ten years on this site, including a four year break, to make any kind of progress as an owner. Through repeated trial and error, I accidentally came across a way of building better teams that may have been glossed over in the early days of the SIM.

One question I keep hearing from experienced owners: if I drafted so many rebounds, why am I getting outrebounded, and/or why are my turnovers so high?

Let's revisit ashamael's classic thread: "Usage - How do I use this stat to build teams?"

"From the knowledgebase:

Usage% is the player's possessions (FGA + FTA * 0.44 + Turnovers) per minute as a percentage of his real-life team's possessions per minute. This value indicates how often a player either shot the ball, drew a foul, or turned the ball over. The SimEngine uses this value in relation to the other 4 players on his team to determine how often each player gets the ball."

We have three elements in the usage formula:
1. FGA
2. FTA
3. Turnovers

Ast% makes your FG% higher. Rebounds give you more FGAs. Turnovers work against your efficiency and FGAs. All of that is common knowledge.

In an uptempo offense, you're going to take between 80 and 100 shots in most games. However, you've asked the SIM to speed up your offense beyond its real life numbers, which means you don't have to draft quite as many. The SIM will turn the ball over for you a little more than in real life, but you'll make more shots. With stellar rebounding, you can take and make enough shots to win ball games. That's been the standard of success for most of my time on this site. There's also the State Farm hack, but it's a delicate build, and is almost impossible to pull off successfully in a draft league or progressive.

All of this is standard. So, what am I doing here? After all, my W-L% is .492 and I've never won a championship. Who the heck am I? (Answer: my W-L% has been steadily increasing for the last couple of months since I tested this principle. My Buffalo progressive team is 67-5, easily the best record I've ever posted. I finished 1st in the West in DH's $52 million league without a first rounder. I'm playing better than ever).

This is what I learned:






We already know a few things about shot distribution, such as:

a. Threes are good. Less than 400 made 3s leaves you vulnerable to defensive positioning.
b. You can see a player's real life shot selection in the top left corner of the player's profile.

Here's what we might not have considered:

Rebounds are almost always a result of FGAs in real life. Occasionally, a player might get a 1+1 leading to a rebound, but the vast majority of rebounds, both in real life and the SIM, come from missed shots.

How does the SIM determine who gets a shot? Usage is the primary number that determines who gets the ball. That player will either shoot a 2, shoot a 3, go to the line, or turn the ball over. The estimated percentage of two point shots is determined by adding the percentages in the "midrange" and "paint" categories in the "Shot%" area of the player profile. The estimated percentage of three point shots is determined by the "perimeter" category in the same area.

FTAs are related to FGAs. The less your player shoots, the less likely he is to get to the line. If you want to know how often a player gets to the line from a shot, I would suggest going to basketball-reference.com and looking for a stat in the "Advanced" section called "FTr," which is the ratio of FTAs to FGAs. Dwight Howard will often give you 8 FTAs per 10 FGAs. Steve Nash probably won't.




Is there an ideal ratio of FTAs to FGAs? Does it matter whether a player takes an FGA or an FTA, so long as they score?

From my findings, it does matter. Usage in an uptempo offense will increase the number of possessions for your highest usage players. Going back to someone like Dwight Howard, he won't necessarily get all of his real life FTAs. He'll see a slight increase in FGAs, but he won't take 20 per game like a lot of players in his usage range. As far as the SIM is concerned, someone has to take the shots Dwight won't take. This is why, regardless of the number of FTAs, you need someone to take a lot of shots to go with someone like Dwight. '77 Bill Walton's FTr is only 35.2%. His rate of shooting is 19.7 FGAP48, which is high. '72 Kareem's FTr is only 36.3%, but his usage is 29.1. His FGAP48 is 27.0.

'72 Kareem and '77 Walton have similar scoring profiles. '10 Dwight, however, is another story. His usage is 24.0%, his FGAP48 is 14.1, his FTr is 97.8. There are only 13 seasons in the SIM which feature Usg% above 22 and FGAP48 below 15. Three of them belong to Dwight Howard: 06-07, 09-10 and 12-13.

FGAs are a part of the Usage formula. The formula described in the knowledgebase is not just a breakdown of what the usage stat reflects, but also a breakdown of how the SIM treats players. There are only so many shots, there are only so many turnovers, rebounds and assists in any given game that the SIM can handle, both on average and at most, and Dwight Howard rarely shoots 20 times in a game, if ever. Teams with lots of rebounding and not enough FGAs have suffered in similar ways for this reason.




How many FGAs are enough?

I've had the best results drafting between 82 and 90 FGAP48 for each lineup. I don't use total FGAs because a) pre-merger basic stats are inflated and b) total FGAs doesn't account for each lineup.

How many FTAs are enough?

I like to have at least 1200 FTAs in my starting lineup. If you have three guys who went to the line a combined 2000 times in real life, you're not getting all of those, because a player almost never gets his real life FTAs.

This is where percentages come in.

There's efficiency in having good distribution of FTAs and FT%. For example, if you draft Sidney Moncrief, Kyrie Irving and Dwight Howard, you might be on to something (although you'll need more passing). Moncrief gets to the line a lot on few shots. Kyrie takes a lot of shots and shoots over 85% from the line. Dwight is a more efficient Moncrief in terms of his scoring profile. If you drafted that trio, you could still get 1400 FTAs from the three of them, but you would increase your team's FT% and scoring. If you draft 2500 FTAs in the starting lineup, but Shaq and Dwight combine to go 50% from the line, you're not getting all of the FTAs, AND your team's FT% will plummet, AND you might commit more turnovers and grab less rebounds, because your two highest usage players don't shoot the ball enough.

Different ways of scoring help you get the most out of your players without drafting redundancies.





Is there any danger in drafting more than 90 FGAP48 in a lineup?

I'm hard-pressed to imagine a team with 100 drafted FGAPG getting all of their shots and getting to the line a lot. If you draft 100 FGAP48 in a lineup, the SIM won't give you all of those. I tend to think you'll end up with more than 115 Usg%, which is risky by itself.

Having just checked two of my leagues, no team in either league is averaging 100 FGAPG. You could try it, but I wouldn't recommend it. Two of the three teams I looked at that were close to 100 FGAPG were below .500 W-L%. There are obviously other reasons that teams will be worse than .500 W-L%. This is one of them.

Efficiency is still important, right?

Of course. If your players make the most out of each shot, you'll score more points than the other team. It helps to have a rebounding advantage, low turnovers, etc.

Lately, I've considered two stats that might be of use to you:

PP48 is the overall reflection of the player's offensive impact per minute.

TS% is the overall reflection of the player's efficiency. For accurate estimates after the merger, go to basketball-reference.com. For more accurate calculations of SimLeague stats, search for a "True Shooting Percentage Calculator" on the Internet, and type in a player's stats while drafting, during your season, or at the end of your season. Here's the one I use: https://captaincalculator.com/sports/basketball/true-shooting-percentage-calculator/

TS% is directly correlated to PP48. The more efficient a player is in eFG%, FT% and FTr, the higher the TS%. The higher the Usg%, the more the TS% matters. If your two or three highest usage players have a combined TS% is below 58, you're unlikely to have one of the best offenses, because another team in your league will be more efficient than you. You can make up for it with great D, rebounding, low fouls, low turnovers, blocks and steals, but those things matter less when most of your team's scoring comes with a TS% above 58.





That's pretty much it. If I think of something else, I'll put it here. Essentially, you should draft a lot of CReb%, but you should also draft enough shots to activate your rebounding. Just as there is a certain rate of FTAs the SIM likes, there's also a certain rate of FGAs the SIM likes. If you're below or above that number, the SIM can and will mess with you. All of the usual rules of drafting still hold, as far as I know.

One question I keep hearing from experienced owners: if I drafted so many rebounds, why am I getting outrebounded, and/or why are my turnovers so high?*

experienced owners wouldn't put it this way - also the rest of your extensive thesis doesnt really seem to address the question - it's not a matter of counting stats, that's not how rebounding in the sim works - the appropriate question is better summarized thusly:

if my opponent has a creb of 30/80 and I have a creb of 45/100 and he missed 55 shots and I missed 55 shots** and we took and made the same amount of FTAs** why did he out-rebound me? and the answer invariably is - "THE RANDOMNESS!!!"

*largely unrelated to the question of rebounding per se
** important indicators! {indicates an equal number of equally weighted opportunities}

That wasn’t the question I was trying to answer. That was just one question I had seen. But, as we’ve discussed, rebounds do come from missed shots. Having enough usage doesn’t mean you’ll take more than 90 shots as a team on a regular basis. There are two other components of the usage formula, and it seems as though CReb% can be affected by FGAP48. The missed shots are recorded in the box score, which means that the majority of the time, those are your opportunities to rebound on the offensive or defensive glass. You might also rebound from a 1+1, but my point is that usage doesn’t necessarily translate FTAs to FGAs. Sometimes, a lack of FGAs translates into turnovers.

In other words, if your lineup isn’t used to taking shots at a rate of 90 per 48, how do you expect to take 90 shots and get free throws from at least 35% of your shots?

That wasn’t the question I was trying to answer. That was just one question I had seen.

odd rhetorical flourish to include in your introductory paragraph then - what question did you answer?

Posted by copernicus on 6/15/2019 9:59:00 AM (view original):

That wasn’t the question I was trying to answer. That was just one question I had seen.

odd rhetorical flourish to include in your introductory paragraph then - what question did you answer?

Well, it was a question that got me thinking.

The primary question, I guess, was whether or not there was an ideal balance between FGAP48 and FTAP48 for a lineup, and whether or not usage turns into turnovers when there aren’t enough FGAs or FTA

yes, so as an offensive engine Kareem is more valuable than Shaq in as much as he's a lot more likely to actually hit his usage number than Shaq is due to the fact that the sim under generates FTAs

Right. We know that. Shaq still generates a lot of offense, but he’s not as likely to get you to 90 in an uptempo offense. That’s why FGA/FTA balance is a good thing. If you’re not getting to 90 in the box score, it’s doubtful you’ll draw 30 FTAs or grab 50 boards. True?

Posted by copernicus on 6/15/2019 1:52:00 PM (view original):
yes, so as an offensive engine Kareem is more valuable than Shaq in as much as he's a lot more likely to actually hit his usage number than Shaq is due to the fact that the sim under generates FTAs

In that incredibly specific vacuum, maybe.

Shaq costs less per minute due to how TS% affects salary and simultaneously doesn't hurt you as bad with his poor ft% for the same reason (sim under generating FTAs). At the same time, most of his seasons have higher efg% and higher paint%, which in combination with the strength of balancing the perimeter, equates to even more value. So, depending on what you're actually after, Shaq could be much more valuable than Kareem. YMMV

but in terms of a player actually generating something close to his actual usage?

I have zero issues with guys generating their actual usage; it's just distributed a little differently. Spreadsheets dating back to 2012 show no evidence that the extra couple of fgas in place of ftas are causing extra turnovers or lackluster shooting. If people aren't getting their usage, you're likely spending more money on usage than necessary, playing a progressive where everything is whack, or just using funky settings that are screwing you up.

Posted by ashamael on 6/18/2019 4:12:00 PM (view original):
I have zero issues with guys generating their actual usage; it's just distributed a little differently. Spreadsheets dating back to 2012 show no evidence that the extra couple of fgas in place of ftas are causing extra turnovers or lackluster shooting. If people aren't getting their usage, you're likely spending more money on usage than necessary, playing a progressive where everything is whack, or just using funky settings that are screwing you up.

Just catching up on the forums. I was going to chime in with the same thing here but it looks like you beat me to it. I have been playing SLk for like 10 years at this point and I was just staring at the first post here and thinking: wtf?

Experienced owners have problems with lots of rebounds and not enough FGAP48 leading to turnovers.

I have no evidence that players “aren’t getting their usage,” but I do have evidence that the SIM overcompensates when there isn’t a balance of FGAP48/FTAP48. If the SIM can only give you so many FGA and FTA in a game, it stands to reason that every team should have to meet minimum requirements to avoid overcompensation by the SIM. If a team drafts very low FGAP48 and ends up with one of the highest team FGAPG in the league and more turnovers than they should, what do you think happened?

put another way: if the SIM won’t let Dwight average 20 shots per game, those shots in the box score have to go somewhere.

Don’t be rude, Rob. It’s unbecoming.

Posted by bds9992 on 6/21/2019 2:31:00 PM (view original):
Don’t be rude, Rob. It’s unbecoming.

Dude. No one is trying to be rude. I can entirely disagree with you post and find it irrelevant. It has nothing to do with you. I didn't even realize you wrote it at first.