Anybody care to tell me why this team is so awful? Topic

It's the Under 40 Defense League, every player has a defensive rating of 39 or worse. So FG% defense does not matter much as almost every player has a defensive rating in the mid to high 30s. Cap is $45M.

So it's about offense and rebounding. So far we are 0-4 with the closest game being a 7 point loss. My average game is a 135-119 loss. I'm shooting 51.6%, my opponents are shooting 56.5%. We are 35% rom 3, opponents are 42% from 3. We are the worst team in the league by a lot. The first 2 games I played n uptempo offense, the last 2 half court.

Here is my team - https://www.whatifsports.com/nba-l/stats.asp?teamid=627634

Here is the league - https://www.whatifsports.com/nba-l/manage.asp?teamid=627634

Okay guys, fire away, how did I <profanity>fuck</profanity> up so badly?
9/10/2024 2:34 PM
initial impression so take it for what it is worth- you have only one player with useage above 26% and if i recall alot of other clubs are using that same player in the league (bernard king) so it becomes a wash. i would advise you to look at the successful squads and compare to yours to see what is different between yours and theirs. not much you can do at this point as you have started the season other than trying different line ups and settings.

i hope this helps but it seems to me you are stuck with the squad you built so chalk it up as a learning experience.
9/10/2024 3:08 PM
I am not in the league so I don't know what the other teams look like but I can give my two cents based on only your team.

Usage? At first glance you are good there.
eFG? Looks ok there. Kinda have to compare this stat to the other teams but it looks decent enough for the era of players that are playing
OReb? I know you mentioned its a low D league but rebounds are still going to matter because players are still gonna miss shots on their own and you are bare minimum here
DReb? Here I think is your biggest weakness. Your starters only have a combined 74.4 DReb%. That's not gonna cut it to compete even in a low D league. See my above point as to why.
Ast%? Are you running up tempo or half court? If you aren't running up temp you really need to be with those low Ast numbers. The bare minimum to have no penalty for low assist is 60 (cumulative Ast% on the court). Your starters only have 58.8. You are probably seeing a 5% penalty to your FG% because of this but the bump from up tempo should balance that out. But your still are having as good FG% as you could because you dont have at least 60 ast%
Tos? Actually pretty good here from what I can tell
PFs? They are a little high for me. your starters average 19.2 PFper48 which isn't good.

That is just my two cents on it.
9/10/2024 3:15 PM
Thanks guys. I thought that as long as your total usage of guys on the floor is over 100% that you are good. Why would it help to have a guy or two over 30%?
I would think if you go too far over 100% on the floor that you are taking away shots from your best eFG players.

So basically I am way too low with rebounding and assists which is costing me possessions and hurting my team FG%.

I decided to go with a press defense to at least scramble the game some and hopefully create a lot more turnovers for my opponents. In the past when I had below average teams the press has been somewhat effective in getting wins over much better teams, but when it doesn't work you can get beaten badly.
9/10/2024 5:31 PM
Okay, I am getting 72% of all the available rebounds on my defensive side of the floor. I guess I should be getting closer to 80% of those?

My opponents are getting 78% of all rebounds on my offensive side of the floor.

9/10/2024 5:37 PM
I have another team starting in an open league as soon as we get one more owner.

https://www.whatifsports.com/nba-l/stats.asp?teamid=627605

The def. rebounding of my starters here is 94.2%, and Wilt will be playing 45-46 minutes a game. Could not quite afford 66-67 Wilt so I got 68-69 Wilt. Never used that season before. Big dropoff from my starters to the subs, especially with rebounding. Never used Curry or LeBron before.
9/10/2024 5:47 PM
The Open league just filled so I'll know soon if this team is any good.
9/10/2024 8:40 PM
9/11/2024 3:21 AM
We finally won a game and are now 1-6.

My Open League team won it's opening game.

https://www.whatifsports.com/NBA/boxscore.asp?GameID=10720967&nomenu=1&teamfee=9.95
9/12/2024 9:50 AM
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Posted by savoybg on 9/10/2024 5:37:00 PM (view original):
Okay, I am getting 72% of all the available rebounds on my defensive side of the floor. I guess I should be getting closer to 80% of those?

My opponents are getting 78% of all rebounds on my offensive side of the floor.

The answer to the rebounding question is always more. If you fixed the total rebound problem you would be at the plus side of the equation on point differential alone. The assists are a real problem as well.

In a league where defense isn't as important, turnovers become a little less prevalent. This is why I bit the bullet and took Mark Jackson in this league. I would also say that King should have been your starting SG and a better solution at SF for rebounding would have been nice. Ainge could've backed up Barros all the same. Cassie Russell doesn't belong in this league. The low everything hurts a lot. He doesn't rebound, doesn't pass, doesn't shoot well, and his almost 23% usage makes him higher than the typical player in the lineup. You could've found a better solution that fit your structure better, especially considering you draft 21k minutes. I was kicking myself for drafting barely over 20k. I didn't do a great job with assists either, but I shored up my rebounding considerably well, and that is what is keeping my team competitive.
9/17/2024 8:16 AM
Posted by PBandJ on 9/17/2024 8:16:00 AM (view original):
Posted by savoybg on 9/10/2024 5:37:00 PM (view original):
Okay, I am getting 72% of all the available rebounds on my defensive side of the floor. I guess I should be getting closer to 80% of those?

My opponents are getting 78% of all rebounds on my offensive side of the floor.

The answer to the rebounding question is always more. If you fixed the total rebound problem you would be at the plus side of the equation on point differential alone. The assists are a real problem as well.

In a league where defense isn't as important, turnovers become a little less prevalent. This is why I bit the bullet and took Mark Jackson in this league. I would also say that King should have been your starting SG and a better solution at SF for rebounding would have been nice. Ainge could've backed up Barros all the same. Cassie Russell doesn't belong in this league. The low everything hurts a lot. He doesn't rebound, doesn't pass, doesn't shoot well, and his almost 23% usage makes him higher than the typical player in the lineup. You could've found a better solution that fit your structure better, especially considering you draft 21k minutes. I was kicking myself for drafting barely over 20k. I didn't do a great job with assists either, but I shored up my rebounding considerably well, and that is what is keeping my team competitive.
So if you want to win you need to do unrealistic things like playing Bernard King all his minutes at SG and finding a big rebounding PF who can play SF at 100% to give you lots of rebounding that could never exist in real life because your players would be taking rebounds away from each other. You also find 2 PG types and have one play at SG to beef up your assists higher than they would be in real life. Okay.
9/21/2024 3:30 PM
I’m tied for the 2nd best record in that league and I’m starting guys who were (in real life) a PG, SG, SF/PF, PF/C, and C.

You have to maximize your salary and not spend extra on things with diminishing gains. We all get to spend the same $, so the best teams will be the ones who spend it most efficiently

The rebounding thing isn’t unrealistic since it uses REB%, not raw RPG. If I have more guys on the floor who rebound well, I’ll grab more rebounds. That’s how it works in real life too.
9/21/2024 3:46 PM (edited)
Posted by dBKC on 9/21/2024 3:46:00 PM (view original):
I’m tied for the 2nd best record in that league and I’m starting guys who were (in real life) a PG, SG, SF/PF, PF/C, and C.

You have to maximize your salary and not spend extra on things with diminishing gains. We all get to spend the same $, so the best teams will be the ones who spend it most efficiently

The rebounding thing isn’t unrealistic since it uses REB%, not raw RPG. If I have more guys on the floor who rebound well, I’ll grab more rebounds. That’s how it works in real life too.
But you are putting guys from different real life situations on the floor together in the same situation. If they were on the floor together in real life situations all of their rebound percentages would be lower because they all would lose some rebounds to their teammates.

So you're using an unrealistic input of rebounding skill to achieve and unrealistic output of rebounds numbers. The best rebounding team in real life last season averaged 46.7 rebounds per game. The worst rebounding team last season averaged 40.3 rebounds per game. A difference of just 6.4 rebounds per game from the best team to the worst team.

In one of my current leagues the best rebounding team is averaging 57.6 rebounds per game. The worst rebounding team is averaging 43.6 rebounds per game. That's a difference of 14.0 rebounds per game, more than twice what the real life difference is between best and worst.

That's what I am talking about. No way there could be that much difference in a real life situation. Same thing with assists. You take 2 guys who are both real life point guards who lead their real life teams in assists at like 10 per game, and play them together in the same backcourt in the sim. No way they could be in the same real life backcourt and both average 10 assists per game. But in the sim they can.






9/25/2024 1:14 AM
Posted by savoybg on 9/25/2024 1:14:00 AM (view original):
Posted by dBKC on 9/21/2024 3:46:00 PM (view original):
I’m tied for the 2nd best record in that league and I’m starting guys who were (in real life) a PG, SG, SF/PF, PF/C, and C.

You have to maximize your salary and not spend extra on things with diminishing gains. We all get to spend the same $, so the best teams will be the ones who spend it most efficiently

The rebounding thing isn’t unrealistic since it uses REB%, not raw RPG. If I have more guys on the floor who rebound well, I’ll grab more rebounds. That’s how it works in real life too.
But you are putting guys from different real life situations on the floor together in the same situation. If they were on the floor together in real life situations all of their rebound percentages would be lower because they all would lose some rebounds to their teammates.

So you're using an unrealistic input of rebounding skill to achieve and unrealistic output of rebounds numbers. The best rebounding team in real life last season averaged 46.7 rebounds per game. The worst rebounding team last season averaged 40.3 rebounds per game. A difference of just 6.4 rebounds per game from the best team to the worst team.

In one of my current leagues the best rebounding team is averaging 57.6 rebounds per game. The worst rebounding team is averaging 43.6 rebounds per game. That's a difference of 14.0 rebounds per game, more than twice what the real life difference is between best and worst.

That's what I am talking about. No way there could be that much difference in a real life situation. Same thing with assists. You take 2 guys who are both real life point guards who lead their real life teams in assists at like 10 per game, and play them together in the same backcourt in the sim. No way they could be in the same real life backcourt and both average 10 assists per game. But in the sim they can.






When you put 5 great rebounders together on the floor, they’ll all take a dip in their rpg/rebound % vs their real life output. But they’ll still outrebound a team that doesn’t have 5 great rebounders. This is also what would happen in real life.
9/25/2024 7:56 AM
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