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Update is back a page.Veryslightlymad posted:So I drafted Captain America. Mina Kimes, ESPN Senior Writer Just looking at his raw numbers, scouts were baffled at how Steven Rodgers got so many blocks in college, especially at his position. Upon watching a game, however, scouts saw a unique take on basketball. Steven carried into games a nearly three foot wide shield, emblazoned with red, white and blue. Once or twice during a game, the opposing team would be on a breakaway, and on an uncontested layup, he would throw the shield across the court, blocking the shot and neatly returning his shield to him. When asked for comment, Oklahoma's coach said, "We looked in the rulebook, and we couldn't find anything against bringing a shield onto the court, so we just let Steven do his thing." Oklahoma made it to this year's Sweet Sixteen, but was knocked out when Steven missed the game, instead rescuing twelve people from a burning apartment complex. Pundits questioned his commitment to basketball, and whether his shield would be allowed in the NBA, which led to Steven sliding into the second round. A+ potential typically means 90+, so depending on his development (and future contracts), Steven has the potential to be an All-Star that the Honu could build around. I understand the reasoning, but I'm still annoyed that in order to see a player's exact potential, unless I'm missing something, you have to use the Edit Player menu. If I can see a player's exact steal ability, why not show me their exact potential too?
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Aug 5, 2020 14:36
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Largepotato posted:Did Steven Rogers lead the way in Summer League blocks? No, but he was top five in steals. His ceiling, according to my scouts was "Metta World Peace", which, to be fair, is a lot of player's ceiling, but it's nice to have a big body SF defender. He has a secondary position of PF, so I assume college used him there. The sad thing about his high potential is it will be next to impossible to get him to reach whatever it is before he peaks. He's a 68 overall to begin.
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Aug 5, 2020 16:42
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I believe in Steve
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Aug 5, 2020 23:54
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I am, it seems, an idiot. Five current or former Honu will be in the All-Star game, zero were put there by me. EDIT: Looking over Draft prospects, I see Loren Mathies, the Dutch guy I edited that got drafted by the Sonics, is not on the Sonics' payroll, and, in fact, is able to be drafted again. What the hell? Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Aug 6, 2020 |
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Aug 6, 2020 06:22
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Chalk it up to NBA2K20 being the giant clusterfuck that it is and go from there!
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Aug 6, 2020 16:44
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Guthix Curnir posted:Update is back a page. Yes. Yes. YES. I demand that this be made canon. Anything less would be a goddamn travesty, I tell you!
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Aug 7, 2020 02:44
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 Oh my god. The game finally developed a good-looking draft class (unless that changes throughout the season---which, honestly, it might!) and it's the draft class where we have three first round picks all of which are likely to be better than our own, original pick. CHAPTER 18, 2032-2033, Part 2: Until All-Star Break The '32-'33 Season opens with a lot of promise being shown from one of our new young players, Michael Torres:  (along with a surprising number of assists from Gheorghe Eminescu, who has quietly become a much better passer) Early games with Torres are such that I check the Player of the Week standings, and while he doesn't make it, I do notice that an old friend did:  And Torres' early momentum gets cut off, albeit, very temporarily:  (This injury is short---in all this was maybe 6 games without Torres? If that?) Mike is still a little out of it on his return, coach opting to have him come off the bench for Dylan Windler.  He also gets a front row sit to our star dropping 30 on the Grizzlies, and getting some good scoring out of our pass-first point guard, without losing the pass half of that. Garland's been great for us. We have an early match against our own Jacque Cisse (not to mention a previous finals opponent)  And Jacque gets the better of us with a masterful performance. We also get a glimpse that the Pacers somehow acquired former Honu rebound god, Ralph Miller, having an off night.  Somewhat bittersweet to see guys wind up on these rankings after never having done so with us. How good were those championship Honu teams? A little bit later, Eminescu drops 10 threes on Dallas.  This is the current season-leading total. Iunno who is starting SG for the Mavs, but they gotta close out faster. That's not gonna get it done.  Here's a not-particularly impressive game from Bol, but it's enough above his scoring averages and there's a couple others nearby that combine to one of these:   We also get a fairly good game out of Francis and Garland.  Followed immediately by one of Francis and Bol, six blocks between the two. Just little combinations of dudes playing well together. This iteration of the Honu has me feeling pretty optimistic for the season. Everyone just plays off of each other really well. And we still have our euro-stash guy coming over, and three first round picks coming over in what looks to be the best draft class since I've started simming... I'm starting to have the very enviable problem of "having too many riches", and unlike all those other times, none of my dudes are complaining about touches, yet. This is a squad that just sort of feels right together. For now. Anyhow, since I have three draft picks in the first round, it seems a little silly to hold onto this year's second rounder, meanwhile, another team that's been struggling is desperate to add some youth, so I get a bit of an IOU in return.  Standings: West:    East:    Well, I would say that the league expansion was an overwhelming success. Both new expansion teams are at the top of their conferences, and the bottom tier teams aren't overwhelmingly bad. That Bulls swap pick we have is looking really juicy. Anyhow, the league announces the All-Star Teams:  Team Luka and Team Ja. Look at all those former Honu. Oh, yeah. I'm actually watching this game. I'll try to showcase the boys. Some notes: ~ Memphis's big two are insanely popular. If they weren't starting, neither one would be here. I'm a little annoyed a team that won't make the playoffs gets two of these slots. They also wanted two for Orlando on the bench, and gently caress you, 2K AI, not on my watch. ~ Spencer Person (SG, Sonics) is the starting point guard of the Seattle Supersonics. He's been a near-all star several times now. This is his first selection, and he was added manually to replace Devin Booker. Person's Sonics are the top team in the entire league, while the Suns are currently 11th in the west. Also Person is currently outperforming Booker in the following metrics: Points per game. Rebounds per game. Assists per game. Steals per game. (Fewer) Turnovers per game. Field Goal Percentage. Three point field goal percentage. Player Efficiency Rating. Efficiency. Pure point Rating. Estimated Wins Added. +/-. In short, everything except.... ..>checks notes< Blocks and free throw shooting. ~ J.P. Reece (SF, Lakers) was manually added and is a first time all star. He replaces Nikola Jokic. I really wanted Jaxson Hayes here, who I never thought would get to this point, but he's injured. Reece is also putting up an all-star caliber season, though, so whatever. I'm a little surprised the Lakers are doing poorly. ~ Donta Greene (PF, Hornets) was added by the AI. He's averaging something like 20/8/4, which... oof. Maybe he had a point about touches. ~ Jacque Cisse (PG, Pacers) was added by the AI. He's... also having a career year for Indiana. He's currently second on race to the MVP. (Though, to be fair, it's a rather distant second) ~ Harry Francis (C, Honu) was added by the AI. He's also having a career year, but at least he's still playing for us. ~ Courtney Banks (SG, Voyageurs) was added manually. This is his third All-Star selection, but should be his fourth. gently caress you for undoing last year, 2k. He's the league leader in +/-, and one of the most efficient shooters going. He replaces Collin Sexton. ~ Randy Butler (PG, Raptors) was added manually. This is his second All-Star selection. He replaces Richard Morris. LOL to the game thinking I was going to give either Magic player an all-star berth with their record. Morris' year is nowhere near as good as his last two, either. Butler has remained stellar for the Raptors, though. ~ Walter Curtis (PF, Clippers) was added by the AI. Good for him! ~ Craig Payton (SF, Clippers) was added by the AI. He's not playing as well as Curtis is, but the AI seemed to think they both deserved shots and I have a hard time disagreeing. Bol, Greene, Cisse, Francis, Payton. These guys all played together at one point. It probably never happened, but it's not inconceivable they could have all been on the court together for weird stretches (since Payton is an SF|PF and not an SF|SG) You wanna know why we won all those championships? We had five all-stars, apparently. So yeah, I'll grab screen shots of that game if the jerseys load and anything interesting happens. Before that, I thought I'd post the season stats for our players: Note: Bolded stats will indicate an average on pace to tie or better their best season to date. (When referring to turnovers, a bolded number means fewest) Name~ Pts/Reb/Ast/Stl/Blk/TO/FG%/3p%/FT% Bol Bol ~ 17.6/7.1/.8/.6/1.5/1/.531%/.422%/.843% H. Francis ~ 13.2/8.9/1.2/.8/.9/1.5/.496%/.000%/.831% D.Garland ~ 11.6/1/5.8/.5/0/1.1/.551%/.464%/.883% G.Eminescu~ 10.2/.2/2.2/.6/0/.9/.462%/.440%/.864% (Not shown: Eminescu is on pace for twice his career best PPR.) M.Torres~ 9.4/3.1/4.1/1.1/.1/1.4/.478%/.370%/.847% (Torres's Assists per game lead all Small Forwards, or at least, all primary SFs. I believe Ben Simmons is PG|SF, and he's definitely behind Simmons) S.Thornton~ 8.9/2.3/1.8/.8/.6/1.4/.477%/.344%/.884% A.Sonnet~ 8.6/1.1/2.5/.8/0/1.4/.492%/.364%/.915% (This is only Sonnet's second year) D.Windler~ 6.7/3.7/2.7/.5/.2/.9/.457%/.386%/.930% L.Morgan~ 6.6/1.1/1.5/.3/0/.8/.586%/.545%/.774% (This is only Morgan's second year) T.Vaughn~ 5.1/5.3/2.5/.7/.4/1/.415%/.204%/.652% (All of Vaughn's numbers were actually better on his rookie season, but he played a total of 5 games. This is his second real season.) BJ.Lawrence~3.9/3.1/.5/.4/.5/.6/.503%/.000%/.607% (Lawrence seems like he's under-performing, but he gets less minutes than anyone here. His per 36 numbers compare favorably to last year. I'm still happy about what I paid him, but I'm not above trading him depending on what happens in the coming legendary draft) AJ Boyd, J.Early ,S.Rogers, B.Lawrence are prospects or bench filler. Our best defenders are, in order, Eminescu, Thornton, then, somehow, Windler, who really has just come a long way and evolved into a complete basketball player. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Aug 7, 2020 |
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Aug 7, 2020 04:31
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Memphis Grizzlies, 12th in the East with a 22-30 record. 2 All-Star starters, and another player with 2 player of the week awards. Also a new example of 2K laziness. In the Playground Daily Spin building there is the Daily Pick'em for guessing the winner of NBA games. Each correct guess was 100 VC. 2K was too lazy to update this for the games from the NBA bubble.
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Aug 7, 2020 18:43
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Largepotato posted:Memphis Grizzlies, 12th in the East with a 22-30 record. Saric has easily been their best player on the season, and it's frankly weird that their record was/is as bad as it is. What once was a team with depth is a three-headed monster and very little else. CHAPTER 18, 2032-2033, Part 3: All Star Weekend and End of Season All-star Festivities open up with a win by the World team over team USA (not pictured), with Alain Sonnet acquitting himself nicely, with double digit scoring and 4 assists, but certainly not the star of the game. Want yet another example of why this game is a garbage fire?  I become aware of this injury leading up to the all-star break. And yet....  The game doesn't bother to replace players for the non-game contests in the all-star break. So...... the implication here is that Luka Doncic won the 3 pt shootout with a broken wrist. Or maybe he shot with his offhand. And won. Stuart Thornton was in the Dunk Contest again, but once again didn't win. Not pictured the all-star game defaulted to both teams wearing the same color jerseys (great game, 2k. Well done. Really earning that billion dollars.), I had to manually switch one (and technically did the wrong one. Oops) Also not pictured, Ben Simmons got a minor injury and chose not to attend, either. Jacque Cisse replaces Doncic in the Starting Lineup, but as the off-ball guard, sliding Trae Young to the Point.  Replacement players are weird. That doesn't look like an all-star to me, but hey, maybe he had a few triple doubles or something.  the other replacement is considerably less weird. The 79 OVR (as if that ever mattered) is lower than you'd expect, but the actual production is pretty good for an injury replacement all-star. As I said before, I am not in charge of those, I'm letting the AI go bananas. I tried to take good pictures of the all-star game. I didn't get many.  Some were OK. But it's hard to really tell everything that's going on in Screen Shots. They just look like stock basketball images.  See what I mean? I took this still image of Courtney Banks because I talk about him fairly frequently, and this was a really impressive play. It's.... a shot. Just a catch and shoot jumper on the move, went from running a full sprint without the ball to a pull-up midrange jumper (that he made). I never really looked at Banks' badges before this game, but apparently, he's got hall of fame Catch-and-shoot and his one defensive badge is a gold pick-dodger. So apparently Banks is something like a Reggie Miller or Rip Hamilton. If 2k properly modeled screens at all, he'd be one of the more fun players for me, personally to watch. God drat I miss Rip sometimes.  This is Donta Greene successfully out-rebounding both Clippers and Zion with his off hand. You know it's not the most exciting all-star game when one of the highlights is a drat rebound.  Here's that (now gold) Chase down artist at work. Cisse sprints down the floor and scores a block over one of the best finishers in the league. Well, one that isn't himself.  Top of the key on a miss-match against DeAndre Ayton. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander rotating to help. What's our old pal Jacque do?  Nifty little ball fake to get Ayton off his feet. Take a little bump in mid-air (And yeah, he's in air at this point. Not even facing the basket yet.).  Child's play. Easy layup. And one. Ayton's disbelieving face (and Jacque's own poo poo-eating grin) say it all. This little sequence almost makes the attempting to screen-grab all-star highlights worth it. But other than that, the all-star game was kind of boring. Jacque tried, but team Luka (I actually and without criticism do like that it's still called Team Luka) was down by 30 at one point. How boring was this game?  Team Ja's head coach fell asleep, and the assistant coach, LaMarcus Aldridge got to coach the third quarter.* (How is he the assistant for Ja's team? That should technically be "East" and Aldridge is the assistant for the Sonics.... wait... can't think about it too hard; the nosebleeds are returning....) *(not really. He kept dropping his head in shame at blown defensive assignments) All Star MVP?  Our very own Bol Bol, who dropped 31. It was the last good game he had of the season. He didn't get injured or anything. Other Honu didn't really step up and become super dominant players that got higher usage. Dude just straight started to slump in the back half of the season.  Taking those four lines in context should give you a rough idea of how the back half of our season went. It went badly. Very badly. I was worried for a while about missing the playoffs despite..... .....so many positives. Standings: East:    The East feels totally different in the last few years. Very much a change in power dynamic.    In the end, we made the playoffs with a decent cushion, but I'd have liked home court advantage. Awards  Just a cool nine MVPs. (And a three point shooting contest with the off hand.) Nothing to see here. Can he make 10 before he retires? He's not even 35 yet.  This was a bad, bad year for rookies. Maybe some of these guys develop, but yikes. Meanwhile, next year, the one where we have three first round draft picks, looks like the best draft class since the thread started.   Giannis stops winning awards, his rotational relief starts winning sixth man of the year trophies. I think it might be time for the Milwaukee legend to retire.  The King returns to his throne.  Last year's #1 overall draft pick starts playing like one, finally.  Meanwhile, city of Montreal, you're welcome. Try getting that with Jared Henderson. All NBA First:  Nice work, Donta. I probably should have paid you.  Cisse fell off from his 2nd in MVP shares. I'm shocked Bol made an All NBA team with the back half of the season, but his averages for the year were still about 16 PPG, so the all-star break is deceptively further into the season than I thought. Very positive look for Philadelphia's future.  Harry gets some love for the first time.  Giannis hasn't fallen completely off.  I still can't believe the Magic didn't RFA match their previous #1 pick and he went across state to Miami. Rookies:   Just a really bad class, as I said. When it got near the bottom, it did the "Alphabetical by team" thing, and I had to track down the last two players. Herb Marion is 33 years old. EDIT Hit post instead of preview. Didn't have the table thrown up yet. 
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Aug 9, 2020 17:48
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Do you attribute the fact that both of the most recent expansion teams have #1 playoff seeds due to actual good AI decision making or pure freak chance?
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Aug 9, 2020 18:43
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JustJeff88 posted:Do you attribute the fact that both of the most recent expansion teams have #1 playoff seeds due to actual good AI decision making or pure freak chance? I actually attribute it to really bad decision making/programming, just, not on the part of the expansion teams' AI, on the AI of every other team. Every single Euro-stash player that was coming over for the first year of their deal was not protected in the expansion draft. So both teams got a bunch of really good draft-and-stash players that a real life league team would have protected against the expansion draft. They basically got a bunch of high quality rookies all at once, and a superb amount of free cash to spend on quality pieces. EDIT Next update Preview: 
Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Aug 9, 2020 |
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Aug 9, 2020 21:21
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Veryslightlymad posted:
Ok, between this and the ninth MVP award(which ties him for first across major North American sports with Wayne Gretzky!), I'm willing to declare Luka Doncic the greatest player of all time. How is he on the leaderboards?
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Aug 9, 2020 22:38
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Thordain posted:Ok, between this and the ninth MVP award(which ties him for first across major North American sports with Wayne Gretzky!), I'm willing to declare Luka Doncic the greatest player of all time. How is he on the leaderboards? It's a secret until he retires. But..... Mnf. Lemme put it this way: back when Lebron retired, you may have noticed some... Odd editing choices on my end.
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Aug 9, 2020 22:57
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Just a random little aside, a rant in the dark because I can't sleep, because "sometimes my sleep disorder paradoxically means I have insomnia" I wish the game didn't have positions for the players in the form it does. The "here is a primary, and (sometimes) here is a secondary position". When you go into the training screen, you see how compatible the player is with around a dozen different types of player at all five positions. This should be more interactive, and it should also be how both the actual players work, and how draft prospects work. I keep thinking about like, how Ben Simmons is a PG|SF, and how he was a power forward in July. I keep thinking about Boris Diaw, and how he was drafted as a point guard for the Hawks, and wound up being a Center on the Suns. With the training compatibility screen, it even seems like the game wants to do this too, but the feature, like so much of this game l, is forever unfinished. It will never be expanded on to the degree it seemingly promises. It would be pretty terrific if the AI sometimes evaluated a roster, and decided to experiment with someone out of position, and not just because it was their secondary tag. Also, maybe not make centers always have a lower OVR than power forwards. I would like to see the AI deliberately build guys into roles they are compatible with, even if it isn't their primary. Rather than me editing positions for the AI to develop a player a certain way, it would be nice if the AI could recognize certain combinations of skills and attributes and yes, tendencies, and decide, say, "yes, I could develop this player as a power forward" and just do it.
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Aug 10, 2020 09:43
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CHAPTER 18, 2032-2033, Part 4: Playoffs and Early Offseason Injuries going into the playoffs are as follows:      The big ones there are Murray for the Knicks, who is one of their best passers and definitely their best perimeter defender, and the Nuggets' injuries, if only because that's two quality depth players. The Clippers and Heat are probably fine, since those are very short term injuries. The Ravens also lose a quality player.  Well, I can't say that I am happy with the seventh seed, and I can't say I'm happy to play against Simmons/Baldwin. Tony Finley is definitely capable of lighting me up, too. In the first game I get some no-action action shots of a few of our newer players.  Here's Torres (front) and Thornton (back, blurry) together  And here's Alain Sonnet (that's pronounced "so nay"), one of our stars during this series. In this photo, he's approaching the line for his third And-One opportunity of the game. I'm very interested to see if he develops a badge for drawing fouls in the off season, because, it really seems like he's good at it, and yet, he still has 0 badges. A player we've already seen, but has been shining for us in this series is B.J. Lawrence. Here's a sweet little block he had against Finley, who is a good finisher inside.  But wait!  There's more! It's a take away block, where you just yoink the ball out of the sky. I've only ever seen Bol do this for the Honu, and even then, it's usually from a mid range shot or an ill advised floater. I've never just snatched a rebound like this. The Kings beat us in game 1, in some part because I'm an idiot and left on default assignments, and there's no chance in Hell Garland can guard Ben Simmons, so coach makes an adjustment on his end, to start Eminescu instead of Thornton, and I make the adjustment to assign Simmons to Eminescu, our best defender.  It works and we win game two. In game three, the Honu also lose, but at least I get this gorgeous perfect shooting night from Dylan Windler  No misses, a point a minute and some other goodies. Coach starts Windler in Game 4, which we also win. We would go on to alternate games with the Kings for the series.  Sadly, I meant the entire series. The Kings would go on to eliminate us in the first round. Our best performers were B.J. Lawrence and Alain Sonnet. While I'm big on both guys, that's not gonna get the job done. We made it a very close series, but in the end, we just didn't have the juju this time. The Nuggets, as predicted, get swept in the first round. The Clippers get their two players back while the Ravens do not, so they win in Six. The Suns pull out a fairly shocking upset of the Sonics on the backs of Both Devin Booker and Dana Fletcher going hog wild, although it takes a full seven games. Back east, every single series goes 6 games, as the now-mortal Looking Knicks fall to the much more well rounded Heat, the the Hawks having way too many offensive weapons for the Wizards to deal with, getting 20 point games from every starter at one point. Jacque Cisse and William Floyd have a nifty little duel that sees the Frenchman's team win out, and finally, the other #1 seed is upset by Detroit, largely on the back of Fabricio Nunez averaging about 26 points a game in their series. The Voyageurs' point guard is very good, but apparently doesn't play defense. The Suns' hot streak continues as they push the MVP's team to 7 games before finally succumbing. Meanwhile, the Clippers are back up to full force, and the tandem Craig Payton and Walter Curtis finish the Kings off in 6 games. Nunez keeps his hot streak alive and winds up being one of the playoff leaders in points, but it's not to be for the Pistons, as Bagley III goes off in the series, bringing the Pacers back from a 3-1 deficit in yet another (presumably) thrilling series. Atlanta grinds out four wins in six games against Miami, as before, getting multiple 20+ point games from several different players. In the conference finals out west, Craig Payton drops a couple of 30 point games on the Mavs, but there's no stopping Doncic's run to the Finals, as they close out the clips in 6, but they're late to the party, because Atlanta's relatively balanced team swept out the now exhausted Pacers.  Luka's resurgence is partially caused by getting some young blood on the Mavs roster. He's desperate for a back-to-back to match Honolulu's earlier feat. Meanwhile, Atlanta's starting 5 is stacked to high heaven. Trae isn't really that young anymore but hasn't lost his handle. Radu Constantin is one of the most exciting young talents in the league and easily would have been last year's Rookie of the Year if Randy Butler didn't take a detour through the G-league, Jarret Culver's a capable Swiss army knife swingman every team needs one of, Rabiu Udoh's a nightmare on both offense and defense, and, as stated, I've tried to sign Donald Powers myself, he's just a tremendous scoring threat from the C position. The Finals is yet another 7 game series, that's advertised as a duel between Luka Doncic and Trae Young, his understudy from this year's all-star game, but that's all smoke and mirrors. Trae's fantastic, but he's not Luka. No one is Luka. But the real kick in the rear end is, at the end of the day, basketball is a team sport, friends:  And Trae had more help.  I said "help", though. It's still his team, I guess. (Actually, a little surprised this wasn't Udoh or Constantin, but, hey, you do you, NBA2k) This is the Hawks' second ever championship, and first championship since moving to Atlanta. It breaks a 75 year dry spell, their last championship coming when they were the St. Louis Hawks all the way back in 1958. There are a couple of shocking retirements announced.  The first stunner is Ben Simmons. As a guy who watched the Kings up close and personal, I can tell you: Ben Simmons had more in the tank. This is a huge blow to Sacramento, who just can't seem to catch a lasting break. (Maybe he retired because the year had 2 threes in it and that was too many for Simmons) And...  ....The second is Dylan Windler. This blind-sided me. He had another year on his deal, man. He could have made 13 million dollars. But he decided it was time, I guess. This one's rough. This was my favorite player in the thread so far. This guy just inexplicably did everything. But, I suppose as far as memories go, there's something to be said about going out after a perfect game.  Another original Honu, Aaron Holiday also calls it quits. Longtime defensive stalwart Emanuel Terry got the championship with the Hawks he never did with the Sixers or Cavs.  Frankie never got his, though. Samanic and Curry each did, in the one season they spent with our team.  Some huge coaching vacancies just opened up, with Doc Rivers (who is actually good) and Sydney Lowe (who has won a shitload of awards off of Luka Doncic) also call it a day. And Scott Brooks, I guess. The Clippers lost their entire coaching staff at the same time. I wonder who they'll get to replace them.  A fairly sizeable Hall of Fame class is announced. And the numbers?  Oh, word, Pascal Siakam retired too? drat he aged poorly. Davis is yet another guy the Lakers would laugh about hanging up a jersey for. But most importantly: WHERE'S #14, YOU EVIL SON OF A BITCH GAME?  Sort of like Delon Wright, Dylan Windler's importance to this franchise was more than just his numbers, although, I would like to point out, those shooting percentages are Elite. I gotta start next season before I can see Dylan on any of the leader boards, but I assure you: He is on them. Windler was probably the most underrated player in the NBA for most of his career. Toward the end, though, on contract years, he would show up in other team's "target list" if I went into the team intel screen. So he was on folks' radar, eventually. He played every position for the Honu except Center, and that's without my influence. With enough injuries or foul trouble, if we didn't have a real point guard or power forward to sub in, the game subbed in Windler.  His per 36 numbers show off his versatility in a bit more clarity. Dylan Windler was one of the most elite rebounding small forwards in the entire league. He was one of the most elite passing small forwards in the league. His shooting was sublime. His killer instinct never left him. He learned how to be a positive defender. His athleticism never took an enormous hit, he was a four time champion, and he was Honu. This guy, more than any other player we've had, represents the whole building philosophy of my teams. A little bit of everything, just make a positive impact when you're on the floor. Undervalued his entire career. We could not have won our championships without him, I truly believe that. We could not have gotten his productivity at his price tag anywhere else. I can't show off some of the records, but I can show off Ben Simmons' individual excellence in field goal percentage for individual seasons, since those seasons have already happened.  Five of the top 10 slots ain't bad. Especially when several of the ones higher are DeAndre Jordan, who definitely played slightly different than Ben Simmons. Any time your name is on both ends of Wilt Chamberlain on a leader-board, you're in a good place. The draft lottery is held, and I finally get confirmation that I did the correct thing in my pick-swap trade, which I had secretly feared I did wrong the entire time.  And, of course, OF loving COURSE, while I was right, 2k is completely wrong and says the wrong thing. No, 2k, I didn't keep my pick which was higher. The Bulls' pick was higher, and I had the right to swap picks. So.... I did swap picks. This is the Bulls' pick. You loving dumbasses.  We do vault up to third though, on the backs of our Magic Pick. Three lottery picks in the most off-the-chain good draft class that this thread has seen. There's multiple guys out the box with over 80 OVR, there's at least 6 players my scouts think have all-star potential, and there's a guy that's got a ceiling of "Hakeem Olajuwon--All-NBA", (down from "Hakeem Olajuwon--Hall of Fame", but still Hakeem. I guess they worry he won't be as good for as long? Iunno. It's academic.) The Hakeem-like guy isn't even the consensus #1 pick (though, for some reason, one of the guys that is #1 on one of the boards is compared to Chandler Parsons......... who is definitely not The Dream. But.... on the other hand, he's essentially already Chandler Parsons, and an 80+ player is already a huge deal to draft young) I've never once changed draft strength from 40 in either direction. This is sheer dumbass luck, a VSM special.  This fuckin' guy almost got hired again by a team he wants to ruin, and I fire him and replace him with Chris Green, who was definitely the coach of the Sonics last year, like, the Head Coach, and not an assistant. You may remember him as the guy who fell asleep in the All-Star game. How the gently caress did the AI demote him? I can't demote guys. (Not that I'd want to. Our coach is really good) The Clippers have scouted their new head coach:  And, of course, I accept. I'm not a dick. Otis is gonna be missed, but he deserves a chance to lead his own team.  Honolulu hires the best guy available. (the players available that were better than Zimmerman were already head coaches at one point of time or another, and thus won't interview for this position, which they feel is now beneath them. Also, this is another part of what makes me sad about Jersey retirements----jersey retired players go into the coaching pool. If the game retired Delon's number, this would have been the year he became available in the coaching pool, and I would have signed him, stats be damned (I'm not convinced Assistant coaches actually do anything other than run their own weird system during the Summer League.) The Honu depth chart looks as follows: PG: Garland/Sonnet/(Morgan?) SG: Eminescu/Thornton SF: (Torres?)/Rogers(?)/(Probably Lawrence, he haunts me like a drat poltergeist) PF: Bol/Vaughn C: Francis/Lawrence/(Early?)  VOTING TIME The Honu go into the historic-looking 2033 NBA draft with 3 lottery picks. First thing's first: If somehow both Cleveland and Golden State are loving morons, I am taking the Hakeem guy. Hell, I'm tempted to make trade offers to see if there's literally anything that I can offer Cleveland to get the #1 pick to take the Hakeem guy. Hakeem Olajuwon is a player that in the real world was drafted over Michael Jordan, and you can't say Houston made a mistake (unlike Portland, who.... who did make a mistake) There are too many goodies to coherently ask "do this" or "do that" for all three picks. So instead: Q1: In general, do you prefer high current ability or high potential Q2: Please order the following by preference: Wing, Big, Guard Q3: If I see a very highly rated player (in either potential or overall) about to slip past me, do I take the player even if he's not the position most needed? (I say this because one of the early guys available has a comparison of Elton Brand, and it's honestly where I'm leaning with the #3 pick, but I know that with both Bol and Vaughn, I might not need him as much as a wing, which I desperately need now that Torres' contract is up and Windler has retired. But the flipside of that is, I do not think eight teams will pass on him. Similarly, several of the all-star caliber players are the same style of player, but one might get away from me if I'm unwilling to double-up. Also also, doubling up on wings might not even be a bad idea given, that, again, our actual SF depth chart is just "Steve Rogers" who shot like, 20 percent in his very brief appearances last year.)
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Aug 11, 2020 08:41
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1. Potential, but starting ability can't be too low 2. Wing, Big=Guard 3. Only if player clearly superior
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Aug 11, 2020 11:52
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Potential, with Bol getting up there, I think we're a little off from true title contention, so working on the next wave would be good. Wing, Big, Guard With the #3 pick, you should probably take positional fit into account, but afterwards, just take the very highly rated guy. Veryslightlymad posted:We do vault up to third though, on the backs of our Magic Pick. Three lottery picks in the most off-the-chain good draft class that this thread has seen. There's multiple guys out the box with over 80 OVR, there's at least 6 players my scouts think have all-star potential, and there's a guy that's got a ceiling of "Hakeem Olajuwon--All-NBA", (down from "Hakeem Olajuwon--Hall of Fame", but still Hakeem. I guess they worry he won't be as good for as long? Iunno. It's academic.) The Hakeem-like guy isn't even the consensus #1 pick (though, for some reason, one of the guys that is #1 on one of the boards is compared to Chandler Parsons......... who is definitely not The Dream. But.... on the other hand, he's essentially already Chandler Parsons, and an 80+ player is already a huge deal to draft young) I've never once changed draft strength from 40 in either direction. This is sheer dumbass luck, a VSM special. Any way you could sort of keep tabs on this draft class as our years roll along? The way you're describing this year's class makes it sound like we could legit be talking about an all-time legendary draft class on par with 2003, 1996, or 1984 and it'd be interesting to see just how this all plays out.
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Aug 11, 2020 13:23
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Veryslightlymad posted:(But, for those of you familiar with this game, if you select it on the "select picks" screen, you select "Swap best", and then, when you go to the negotiations screen, you'll have your offered pick being listed as "(HON) swap Worst", which is what you want to be giving to the other team, which then, when you look at your assets, will say "Swap Best Bulls". 2k programmed this to be almost as confusing as humanly possible. I had to watch youtube videos to make sure I got it right. This game is a garbage fire on almost all levels) Veryslightlymad posted:And, of course, OF loving COURSE, while I was right, 2k is completely wrong and says the wrong thing. No, 2k, I didn't keep my pick which was higher. The Bulls' pick was higher, and I had the right to swap picks. So.... I did swap picks. This is the Bulls' pick. You loving dumbasses. For once, the game is correct. You owned Chicago's pick, and you had the option to swap back to the Honu's pick, if it was higher. So you did not swap. The game does continue to be a trash fire though, in that the default AI sees sees swapping worst as better than swapping best from their side. (Which further adds to the confusion of which should you trade, best or worst) Suppose you had the expected number 1 pick, and wanted to find a trade worst. I've seen the AI think it perfectly acceptable to give you trade best back, with two future first rounders. Then when the lottery rolls around, you get your number 1 pick back, and the AI's left with what they stated with, minus two picks. It's dumb at best and exploitive at worst, especially since they value the trade worst properly after they have it. If you swing a trade to get the trade worst back, possibly even with the additional assets they gave in the first place, you can do the whole process over again with another team.
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Aug 11, 2020 15:03
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I think that you should try and trade up to get Hakeem Mk 2. Bol2 is getting on in years and this new chap is perfectly timed to replace him. I don't think that even the AI in this game will be foolish enough to let him drop to #3. You may have more needs to fill than I am aware of, though, and you would probably have to give up your #3 pick and one other 1st rounder.
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Aug 11, 2020 15:34
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MagusofStars posted:
Believe it or not, I am such a dipshit weirdo, I have started tracking classes, and am probably due for another round of tracking, since the last time I checked was five years ago. Of the first seven draft classes 2020-2026, the best one was 2021, which had 10 players I have brought special attention to*, three of which were all stars, three of which were all nba (but one of the all nba guys wasn't an all star), and so far the only generated rookie I am certain is going into the Hall of Fame. The worst class from that period was likely 2025, which had Daryl Baldwin, Donta Greene, and.... That's it. At least the #1 pick was good, and might even be another hall of famer. *Gheorghe Filimon, Herbert Curry, Dorrell Mills, Andre Petersen, Ciro Reyes, Bryant Lowe, Dimitrias Dourekas, Sasha Golob, Ralph Miller, Brook Teague. This is quite a few more than other draft classes so far.
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Aug 11, 2020 17:59
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I'm an idiot, and I didn't post the Rules Changes, and there were two. Both are effective immediately, meaning the draft lottery results I posted were after it was determined that only the top 3 picks would be chosen by lottery. The trade deadline going away is somewhat irritating, as it was frequently something I used as a stopping point for my updates, but, eh. All in all, somewhat annoying. Also annoying is more teams want an even slower league than we already have. What is wrong with these fictional owners?
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Aug 12, 2020 04:16
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Wait, what does that second vote even mean? How are lottery odds determined if they aren’t based on final record?
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Aug 12, 2020 04:58
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Emergency Vote Michael Torres is a restricted free agent, and really good. The Honu do not have a real Small Forward coming out of the draft (I drafted one with good potential, but he was a stasher, the other guys I drafted are a bit incorrectly sized for the position, either too small or too slow. Torres will want a lot of money. Like, a lot of it. Like, 35 million dollars/year a lot of it. If I do not sign Torres, I have something like 13 million dollars to spend on a free agent small forward, plus possibly a Mid Level exception. There's a chance that 13 million somehow IS the MLE now, but that seems crazy high when last year's was about 7, so I'm assuming that's my space if I renounce the rights to Torres. Torres is also the best fit for our system among all free agent small forwards (that we can afford) He is only 23 years old. Do we: A)Match Torres (For what it's worth, he's the most promising of our young players, except for maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe Sonnet, but is already much more well developed. I cannot give an adequate description of our draftees because we just drafted them.) B)Let Torres walk and sign the highest potential free agent (Assuming I could convince one) drat it, Dylan's early retirement has put me/us in a bind. (In the draft I selected 1 big, 1 wing, and 1 guard, but the best wing available was a stasher. EDIT: I drafted them in that order, too. This enabled all three selections to have A+ potential, as I was told to favor potential) Next season, the guys I would have to match would be Steve Rogers (nothing so far), Stuart Thornton (an OK defender and good shooter, but nothing that wows me), and Teddy Vaughn (Shows flashes that remind me of Donta Greene, who I probably should have paid instead of jerking around) At some point, we're gonna have to commit to one of the young players as the inheritor of this team. Torres, a former #2 pick (that should have gone first) wouldn't be the worst call. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Aug 12, 2020 |
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Aug 12, 2020 05:33
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MagusofStars posted:Wait, what does that second vote even mean? How are lottery odds determined if they aren’t based on final record? The Lottery is currently tied to standings and not records. So the lottery odds are static numbers. So the #30 and #31 teams in the league have set percentages to win the lottery, even if, say, one of the two is only a game behind. The proposed change would mean that, say, they were 6 games behind, the team would accordingly have a higher percentage chance of winning the lottery.
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Aug 12, 2020 05:46
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Would it be possible to hold off on pulling the trigger until we see how this draft class is doing? Or will there not be much info gained from their rookie seasons?
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Aug 12, 2020 06:13
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He's an RFA right now, which is why it's an emergency. I really wasn't expecting Windler to retire, and Torres is also getting max salary attention in free agency, which doesn't surprise me, but I was hoping he wouldn't.
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Aug 12, 2020 06:49
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I guess it's time to pull the trigger on Torres, then. A and hope the other rookies don't end up people we'd rather have built a team around.
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Aug 12, 2020 06:57
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whowhatwhere posted:I guess it's time to pull the trigger on Torres, then. Well, young players are RFAs, so that means that, even if I can't afford them, I can afford them. I'm allowed to salary match even if it puts me over the cap. For what it's worth, of all available free agents, Torres is projected to be worth the third highest contract, behind only the two Indiana players, Bagley III and Jacque Cisse, both of which got MVP shares. Torres is an 85 OVR with more room to grow. (And he'll almost certainly be above 85 before the off season is over. Not that OVR means much, but the current highest player in the league is 94, for whatever that's worth) There's a greater than zero chance that, after progression, Bol (Currently 90) becomes lower than Torres (85, as said) EDIT Honestly, it seems pretty obvious, in those words. I guess the main reason not to would be if you thought maybe we should designate either Teddy Vaughn or Stuart Thornton as "the guy", and I'm not sure either is worth it, although Vaughn is starting to give me serious Donta Greene vibes. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Aug 12, 2020 |
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Aug 12, 2020 07:12
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A - We can always drop him later if one of the new draftees ends up better.
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Aug 12, 2020 08:15
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A I like Torres and he'll be a good bridge while we see how the rookies develop.
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Aug 12, 2020 18:16
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A. Maybe a couple years from now, the rookies make him superfluous so we trade him off for depth/assets...but right now, losing a young star for nothing except cap space would be completely indefensible.
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Aug 12, 2020 19:30
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I think I can call it for Torres then. Of him/Thornton/Vaughn, I think he's the best piece, personally. It might be worth considering trading one of the other two.
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Aug 12, 2020 20:04
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I think that paying that much for any player other than a generation-defining player like a Doncic or Giannis is ridiculous, but given that it's resign rights and doesn't impact your salary cap to the tune of 35 million it is probably a good idea.
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Aug 12, 2020 22:12
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It impacts my cap, I just am allowed to ignore it for RFAs and extensions and other exceptions. 30 million now isn't 30 million from 2020, either The game adds in inflation and new TV deals and CBAs, but it's very opaque. Sadly, I no longer have a sense of what an "average" contract is, or what a high level player is actually worth. It's definitely gone up, possibly by a whole lot. Torres was the best player available in free agency who was under the age of 30, so I assume maxes are around what he was offered
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Aug 12, 2020 22:28
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Yeah, 33-35/yr is max (that is, without other perks/the supermax) for a first post-rookie contract. Chapter 19: 2033-2034, Part 1: Offseason A rich, fairly deep draft means a nice, uneventful draft. Lots of people wanted to keep their picks, and thus, there was literally one trade. (Not us. I couldn't pry that #1 from Cleveland regardless of what I plied them with)  Cleveland kicks off proceedings by taking the guy who is being touted as the next Hakeem. This is their second #1 pick in as many years, and last year's pick, Dakoulas Balidis is also coming into the league, as well. This is great news for Cleveland, as both players have the maximum 99 potential. It remains to be seen if either will reach that peak. So far, the league's floor has been raising, but the ceiling is lowering. When 2033 begins in earnest, the top OVR player in the league is Bam Adebayo, at a mere 92.  Check it out. No significant weaknesses.  My two directives were to value potential over OVR, and to value position as Wings -> Bigs -> Guards, and finally, to favor position of need (wings) over other considerations. When the actual draft struck, I noticed that all the wings that I was interested in were at the bottom half of the lottery or lower, with the exception of a guy named Ian Erikkson, who I was not big on because the ceiling was listed as "Chandler Parsons", but his floor was also listed as Chandler Parsons. This was the guy I intended to draft if Logan wasn't available. However, Golden State somewhat surprised me by drafting Erikkson, (who is apparently better than my scouts suggested), rendering the exercise and my third question as moot---There were several high potential small forwards in the back end of the lottery, but only one Center I was likely to snatch, so I took the center, figuring I could score 2-3 A+ potential guys that way.  Meanwhile, this guy gets drafted a second time. Hopefully he doesn't glitch out this time. He's going to be really good when he comes over. I've taken to calling him the Flying Dutchman, as he seems possibly fated to never actually enter the league, sailing the haunted seas of the draft forever and ever.  Returning to the explanation of my draft logic: taking Morrison might have turned out to be a mistake, even if it did net me 3 high potential players. By the time Pick 11 came up, there had been a bit of a run on wings, and I was left with a German draft-and-stash. He still has a very high potential, but I needed a new SF right now and didn't remember that Torres was in a contract year until after I had drafted. So, all my logic aside, I still hosed up, and I apologize.  And finally, I snatched this gentleman, a guard who has a huge ceiling, with my third first rounder. All things considered, I got quite a haul in this draft, but maybe not an optimized haul.  The sole trade this draft involves Memphis wanting in so bad, they were willing to give up two future 1st round picks. Who did they spy that was so good?  OJ Jeffries, apparently. I'll try to remember that name.  Mr. Irrelevant 2033 is Donovan Macy, who will undoubtedly use his excellent three-quarter sprint time to run straight the hell out of the league.  I have so many team options this year, but I opt to accept them all. (Not pictured: I also picked up Steven Rogers's option)  Early and Boyd are unimpressive as hell, so I really only wanted to potentially match Torres. I've been trying to not extend qualifying offers to Lawrence for some time, but the game keeps glitching them onto him.  But having a high contract offer to match finally, finally frees me from his curse. Note: Lawrence is, himself, a small forward, he's just not very good. Anyhow, this large contract offer was actually offered by the Hornets, which, I admit, was part of why I so badly wanted to match it. After Donta Greene worked out so well for them (and indeed, became the best player on their team), the thought of doing it again just made my blood boil.  The Cavs continue their nightmare run back to the top of the league, by signing Reed Gibson and Doug Simms, who are both excellent players, well above league average at their positions. Last year, they signed former Kings' point-man Dirk Schroeder, who is also above average (albeit not as much). With their two number one picks being a shooting guard (Balidis) and Center (Logan) the Cavs have very rapidly assembled a drat terrifying starting five.  The Hornets, spurned off of ripping away Torres from me, respond by taking the guy taken ahead of him in the draft from the Clippers. Claudio Navarro is a positive player (largely a defender, I think) that used to run with the Bucks, before losing his job to Dedric Wesley. Wesley, by the way, is now the best player on the Bucks  Oh, how the mighty have fallen.  The Jazz officially give up on all their attempts to draft a good shooting guard to replace the one they needlessly traded, and sign Donte Bishop, finally locking down a position they had locked down several years ago.  The Nets nab two different flavors of Power Forward, an excellent defender in Lowe, and easily the best distributor from the position in Smailagic. Given how the Honu tend to run offense from that position, Smailagic has been on my radar for quite a long time, but the situation was never right to make him an offer. Jalen Gardner is an excellent pickup, and the 76ers are stupid, stupid, stupid for letting him walk. The two best players available in Free Agency (by OVR, but also by performance!) were both Pacers: Marvin Bagley III and Jacque Cisse. So who did the Pacers bring back?  Neither of them. Once again, Karl-Anthony Towns shows up to an empty city all, "Where the party at", only to see a few moths flitting around a bare lightbulb.  The Pistons win the Bagley III sweepstakes. After playing with Cisse, he now goes to the team that's ran by Fabricio Nunez, taken just one pick after Cisse so long ago, the two drawing comparisons for their whole careers.  Someone finally offers a long term deal to Terence Teague  The Thunder grab a former Rookie of the Year in Wendell Park, the other long term deals, Ellis, Klein, and Jeffries are all positive value players I'm not surprised got a paycheck.  The Heat's other former rookie of the Year decided to sign with Minnesota for some reason.  And finally, Jacque Cisse decided to go to Golden State. I like to think he and KAT had a little bit of collusion going but completely hosed up their communication channels and this was the result. Progression isn't actually a phase, it's just a reminder. So..... Torres' 85 stays put (but is a jump of 2 OVR from last season), so he hasn't overtaken Bol for our best player (by OVR) spot just yet. (Interestingly, according to Badges, the team's leader is actually Harry Francis, even though Bol is higher in OVR.... there's something called an "Alpha Dog" badge which seems to imply team leadership, as its a badge that allows one player to rally their team. Francis currently has this badge on the Honu) Power Rankings  The Honu Endure.
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Aug 13, 2020 05:18
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Mini Update With the retirements of Ben Simmons and Dylan Windler, I figured a few people would be interested in any records they might hold, or rather, where they might actually stand in the record books. I posted some of Simmons's individual season records already, but you can't get career % records until the season after they retire, for some reason. As Simmons retired super early, he's of nowhere of real significance on the leaderboards for counting stats. Windler, of course, never played enough minutes/was enough of a star to be anywhere near those records, either.  Simmons easily holds the record for best career Field Goal Percentage. Shout out to Montrezl Harrell. Fans always clamored for him to shoot a three, but this record shows Simmons understood his role. It's impossible to look at the figures and claim "Inefficient!" without looking like an rear end in a top hat. In 3Pt%, I'm actually a little surprised how low Windler wound up being.  But! There's another former Honu who found his way into the Top 5.  Windler's best record for his career is in Free Throw shooting, believe it or not.  Free throw shooting in 2k is busted. Even with scaling it back bit by bit, it's just unrealistically high. And I can't find a sweet spot that makes it realistic numbers without making most of the league unreasonably poor at it.
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Aug 13, 2020 19:29
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Probably won't have time to update until the weekend because I have baby-sitting elsewhere all day tomorrow, but I simmed the first half of the season and oh my god, I'm completely in love with one of my rookies, he's just absolutely perfect for this team. .........it's the guy I didn't even draft, the incidental Euro-stash player I got in the Cisse trade
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Aug 14, 2020 06:23
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Veryslightlymad posted:Probably won't have time to update until the weekend because I have baby-sitting elsewhere all day tomorrow, but I simmed the first half of the season and oh my god, I'm completely in love with one of my rookies, he's just absolutely perfect for this team. Let's go mystery player!!!
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Aug 14, 2020 06:24
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Chapter 19: 2033-2034, Part 2: Until All-Star Break Lots of individual games I captured, so that's likely a good sign.  Game one of the '33-'34 season is held down by about who you would expect to for a Honolulu game, with Bol Bol and Harry Francis doing the heavy lifting. Those upset with the Torres signing might see his point total (cut off at the bottom) and chuff a bit, but that "Assists" number that's cut off is 7. Also, this is just game 1. Torres has, on the whole, been extremely valuable for the Honu this season, and is currently our second leading scorer and our second leading play-maker with 4.3 assists per game. His rebounding isn't what I'd like for a small forward, but remember, his default position was that of shooting guard. When Kraemer comes over, there's a decent chance that I slide Torres back to SG, depending on whether that seems like it'd help or hurt his game. Torres is in the running for MIP, though this seems likely to go to Steve Dunn, who went from "Rookie of the year" to "Miami isn't using me at all" to "Miami isn't using me enough" to "Scoring 20 points a game with 5 assists in Minnesota". Torres is not the primary ball-handler for this team, his 4.3 assists is very, very good in our simulation's slower-paced league. (I would have to double-check, but I believe it leads all small forwards) So yeah. Given that he has years left to develop, on the whole, I'm pretty happy with committing to Torres as the future leader of this team. We'll just need to surround him with players who can rebound, because he does everything else at a good-to-elite level.  Just for fun, I took a screen grab of Small Sample Size theater, because I love early season power rankings. Sacramento would go into the all-star break nowhere near this good, but also nowhere near as bad as the "32nd best team" they were apparently projected to be. I just think ^31 is hilarious to see, given that the real league only has 30 teams. They must have won by a lot, too, because I think otherwise the rational thing to do would be put them behind Honolulu who were at least expected to be really good. By the by, the Honu win the first 9 games of the season.  On the other extreme for Torres' scoring is this game. Where he also ticks the boxes of the other statistical categories.  Though he's aging, Bol is still a monster.  Stewart Thornton gets injured early, which I capped partly because it was gruesome, and partly because he would go out for so long. Honolulu needs wings. Eminescu would play admirably for this stint (he's been trading starting spots with Thornton anyhow), and this injury would give me a chance to play Payne who largely didn't see many minutes, but, nonetheless, this left me scrambling to fit guys into both SF and SG roles for much of the first half. I'm liking the idea more and more of moving Torres to SG once Kraemer comes over, because I'm not thrilled with the prospect of paying Thornton 20 million dollars a year.  Harry is also not yet regressing, despite being.... 33? 32? He's in the phase of his career where he's losing some physicality, but it's offset by gaining in mental stats through coaching. I wonder what the Honu would look like if we had a worse coaching staff. (Or.... trainer? I think Trainers are more about injury management, though.........)  This is closer (not quite at) the mean of a Torres game. A lot of Honolulu wins are starting to look like less dramatic versions of this. Maybe some of the bench guys play above expectation, so no one has a "wow!" game, but there's a lot of mundane very good games from our newly designated core.  Here's our two point guards keeping the pressure up against Houston for a game. This was a close game that Houston probably felt confident throughout of their ability to win, but I imagine it has to be really demoralizing as an opposing coach when one guy lighting you up sits and the guy who subs in as a replacement starts arguably having a better game. .png) Here I captured a loss because it highlights a nifty 6 blocks from a dude I want to talk about. I really like Bruno Jukic, guys. This is the dude that tipped the Jacque Cisse trade (where we also netted Torres and Garland) over the edge for me. Without Jukic, getting a point guard nearly as productive as Cisse, along with a swingman we could groom to being our teams new "guy", was already worth it, but I really liked the idea of having a bonus, "maybe they turn into something" player. Well, while draft-and-stash players in this game are brokenly good, I never expected Jukic to be quite as good as what he is. And I certainly never expected himself to be, specifically, what Honolulu desires at his position (PF). Jukic is an excellent rebounder (about 9.9 per 36 minutes, as a rookie, when rookies are notoriously poor rebounders, at least in this game), but more importantly, he's an extremely willing passer (getting about 2.3 assists per game), having a 76 on his "Pass to open man" tendency, which I didn't notice when we traded for him (I'm not going to look at tendencies for bonus draft-and-stash players....). And he must have a pretty good actual passing skill, because he gets low turnovers (And I mean it. He is second on our team to Darius Garland in PPR, and it's honestly fairly close.), and he hardly ever shoots. Which brings me to my final point, what I find most impressive about this guy----he doesn't loving miss. He either kicks out to an open player, or he scores. He's currently at 64% from the field. Though he has played about 20 minutes for the Honu a game, and has played every Honolulu game this season, he technically doesn't qualify for the league leaders in field goal percentage. If he did, he would actually be the league leader by four percent. He's decent on defense, albeit not spectacular. (EDIT: Incidentally, you know who is? B.J. Lawrence, who is currently the sixth lowest player in the league for opposing field goal percentage) This kind of selfless efficiency is exactly what I'm looking for at the PF position, given everything I can figure from watching Honolulu's stats from season to season. Coach Walker seems to like running plays through PF, and this guy is the platonic ideal of that concept. If he doesn't randomly drop off or change by the time his rookie deal is up, I expect him to be on the team for a long, long time. I don't even want to consider trading this kid.  Anyhow, I repeat: Bol is still a monster. This and a few games like it make me check the Player of the Week awards to see if Bol made it (he didn't) but I do find this absolutely bizarre thing:  Here's Darrell Logan earning Player of the Month honors for January, as a rookie, which is certainly living up to his hype. After a long time of stagnation, I think we're going to start seeing a serious sea-change in the makeup of the league, with this guy as the Headlining talent. Buuuuuuut:  He's not named rookie of the Month. For the same month they decided he was the best player in the conference, he wasn't considered the best rookie in the conference. As though the media just.... stopped deciding he was a rookie, or maybe because they wanted to share the love with their awards? It's pretty baffling. And while I might be irritated by it, I'm pretty sure the city of Cleveland is absolutely over-the-moon, because they have the two best rookies in the league at the same time, and they're in complementary positions to one another. It's a shame I'm low on faith of Cleveland matching New York's earlier Wayne Newton/Bryant Lowe success where they kept both players after their rookie season (Actually, both still currently play for New York!) especially because their contracts are up at the same time. Because, really, this is the sort of thing a GM looks at and thinks "Ten years from now, my team will be on top, and all I have to do is keep these two guys happy". But I feel like it's more likely the game will do something stupid, like Utah. (Who are irritatingly doing really well now that they have Donte Bishop and Donald Powers.... and I don't expect them to keep Powers)  I'll reiterate one last time going into the break: Bol is still a monster. Standings: West    East    With Dallas poised to not make the playoffs, I'm very interested in the MVP race. We might finally see our first generated MVP. We'll also almost certainly get a new face for MVP, even if it's not a generated player, since Giannis, Zion, and Luka are all probably not making the playoffs. Even if the eventual MVP is named Marvin Bagley III, I'd still find that really interesting. There's a greater than zero chance that Darrell Logan wins MVP on his rookie season. Todor Szomory might win MVP, and the only reason he's in the league at all is because I manually forced his original team to sign their second-round picks so long ago. If Charlotte can boost their way to the playoffs, there's a very good chance Donta Greene wins it, which would make me look stupid. If Bol does his usual "perform much better in the second half of the season" it might finally, finally be his year, (largely based on our record alone) but I doubt it, as he's fallen off quite a bit. Donald Powers could win MVP, and then I could see if Utah/the AI is smart enough to actually sign the guy just named MVP, drat the costs, or if they'd be stupid enough to just rent a guy for an MVP season. Make no mistake, if that last one happens, I am 100% moving these idiots to El Paso and you can't stop me. As for the All star game:  I wasn't kidding when I said "New Blood" or "Sea change" or however I put it. This is a year of something new. That is 11 (technically 12) new All-Stars. I only assigned one new guy (who is 33 years old now). Some notes: ~Team Richard----I really, really hope my keeping him out of an all-star game (two of them?) doesn't stop him from getting into the Hall of Fame, somehow. ~Walter Curtis (PF, Clippers) is apparently more popular than Craig Payton. They play about as well as each other on the Clippers, and while last year had both, the committee decided to only give the team one guy, and Curtis is a starter, meaning he was picked based on having one of the top 3 fan votes for Western Conference front court players. ~Ciro Reyes (SF, Heat)is only a first time all-star (should be second, since I manually added him before and then the game deleted all of my changes that year). He replaces Zion Williamson, who has been very good, but on a team well outside the playoffs. I also wanted to draw extra attention to the fact that the east has nine teams considerably above the .500 mark, one at the .500 mark, and two that are very close. There remains a hell of a lot of league-wide parity. (That Spurs record has wounded me though.) ~Frederick Silverstre (PG, Sonics) is not happy in Seattle and would be bouncing, except he's an RFA, so I'm really interested in what happens with him in Free Agency ~Rabiu Udoh (C|PF, Hawks) is no longer regressing in the off-season like he did the one time---remember when I said he was regressing really early? Maybe he had a bad injury or something, but it seems like it were a fluke. He's a big part of Atlanta's success. Note that last year's Finals MVP, Trae Young, isn't here. Young is probably like, the third best player on his team at this point. (Radu Constantin is really good and would likely be in this game, too, if he didn't get a bad injury to start the season) ~Jalen Gardner (SG, Nets) is someone I don't believe I've talked a lot about. He's currently second place leaguewide in points per game (behind Doncic). If the thread would have voted against Torres, he was someone I was willing to offer an enormous contract to (and would have failed at signing) ~Jesse Harrington (SF, Pacers) is a surprise, and the Pacers must be very happy with that big contract they gave him, because he's got some mighty big shoes to fill on a franchise that lost two MVP candidates in the off-season ~Donald Powers (C, Jazz) is the best offensive center in the entire league (though he's a bit unimpressive in rebounding for a center). I've talked before about him being someone I was willing to sign long term, I want to say, the last free agency, or the one before that. Currently, Utah is renting him with a 1 year deal. ~Casey Daniel (PF, Pelicans) is the guy that the Hornets let walk so they could sign Donta Greene. Greene is an upgrade, make no mistake, but it's a slight upgrade---both were named all-star Starters, afterall. Like, I considered the money Greene wanted too much, and it's interesting to me to think about if I'd have done what the Hornets did and take the gamble on Greene, or if I'd have just re-signed Daniel, or, quite possibly, neither. I'd like to think I might have done what New Orleans did, and sign the very talented, high potential guy who had bounced around the league after his team gave up on him, but I can't be sure I'd have noticed----Casey Daniel being in this game is an example of where one of the AI teams succeeded where I believe I would have failed. ~Bol Bol (PF, Honu) was added manually. He replaces Jayson Tatum. As the top Team in the West, I felt like I should have an All-Star (since about 5 of my players are playing well enough to deserve it), but I didn't feel right replacing Wendell Park, who is only slightly out of the playoffs and playing better than Bol is, and Steve Dunn is a guard, and I also didn't want to justify replacing him with Darius Garland (since Garland is probably the fourth best Honu player; arguably deserving of an all-star appearance, but it'd be a weird selection). Also, Park/Dunn both being previous Rookies of the Year for a team that misused both for years and then let them walk and then both being named first time All-Stars in the same year was a story too good to pass up. Tatum was on a playoff team himself, (and a high-seeded one at that) so I was very reluctant to replace him, but in the process of doing my diligence in checking players out for how they were actually performing, I spied that he was averaging 2, TWO rebounds per game. As a power forward. So gently caress the idea of that being an All-Star. I'm not even convinced Tatum should be a starter. He certainly shouldn't be starting at power forward, but since his team is so successful with whatever the gently caress they're doing, I'm not about to edit him. I will, however, replace him in the All-Star game. Bol and Torres have had very comparably good seasons, Torres might honestly have played a hair better, but I figure the committee I'm replacing would have been conservative and favored the more established star here, and that was my tie-breaker. ~Todor Szomory (C, Voyageurs) is in the running for MVP ~Dario Zagorac (PG, Voyageurs) is also in the running for MVP. Courtney Banks is no longer an All-star, but I believe I correctly said at one point that I really liked the Voyageurs signing him to give their young guys a legitimate star to play next to while they developed in their own right. Well, now they have. I'm a big proponent for the stability an older star could provide a much younger team. Sometimes keeping (or getting) a valuable older player is a must. Would the Honu be what the Honu are if we didn't have those early seasons with Rudy Gobert? It's pretty hard to say. ~Mauricio Cortez (PF, Nuggets) is a first time all star, but I've been very close to pulling the trigger on him a number of times for manually inserting him into games, and have largely resisted on the basis of wanting to share the love a little, and SGA being a staple of these games. He's a big part of why I hate facing his team in the playoffs. I haven't talked about that/him much because he used to be their sixth man. ~Wendell Park (C, Thunder) is someone I left in for reasons already discussed---he's having an excellent year, the Thunder aren't too far out of the playoffs where it's insulting that he's here, there's no big-time players he might be replacing. The story of both him and Dunn making it is pretty good. ~Steve Dunn (PG, Timberwolves) is having a fantastic year. Normally, I replace a guy like Dunn in all-star games, but, among guards, the only one that I felt like replacing him with was Darius Garland, and I already discussed that I felt kind of weird about that. (Devin Booker is injured) I guess I could have replaced him with Spencer Person and given another All-Star to Seattle, but... no, Dunn's had a really great season, is likely a lock to win MIP. (For all that I'm really hoping Torres gets it.... Jalen Gardner, mentioned above, might win even though he was already really good... for either to win, I suspect Dunn has to fall off) I'd be very surprised indeed if Dunn wasn't named all-NBA at the end of the season. If all of my predictions about him are wrong, well, whatever. For the start of the season, he's the best guard in the league not named Luka or Richard, which, not coincidentally, are the names of the All-Star teams. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Aug 15, 2020 |
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Aug 15, 2020 21:55
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I'm a bit gobsmacked by how much parity is in the league as well. Basketball is ludicrously prone to dynasties, and the fact that the team with the highest winning percentage in the league is only on pace for 55.76 wins just blows my mind. I somehow got it into my head that a #1 seed had to have 60+ wins or it just wasn't that good. VSM, what stats/ratings do you most use for evaluating talent in this game? I am terrible with advanced stats and their significance (I am better with baseball's) and I know nothing about tendencies as I tend to play every game myself, so please enlighten me. You have proven that OVR means gently caress all apart from perhaps players with a 95+, so I am all ears/eyes.
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Aug 16, 2020 00:33
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