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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:Can't wait for Bol Bol to get hosed by 2k and fail to get into the HOF or have his jersey retired. I already threatened 2k with burning down the studio if it didn't happen. I hope Bol Bol gets in.
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Dec 21, 2020 18:42
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| # ? May 24, 2024 20:32 |
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I’m glad everything’s going well! And excited to see this going again!
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Dec 22, 2020 05:38
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Chapter 23: 2037-2038 Part 5: End of an Era The injury outlook going into the playoffs is just interesting enough.      Popov is arguably a top 20 player in the league (and probably is top five for OVR), Person's Seattle's star player, Payne is the best defender on our team*, Patton does good work on the wing for Indiana, and the Greene/Geiger combination is a horrible loss for the Celtics, but 1-2 weeks could be as few as "One game". *Actually, Jemerio Kraemer is, by attributes and size, the best perimeter defender on the Honu and a better interior defender than Payne by far. However, when Kraemer is assigned to a good offensive player, he gets absolutely bodied, and when Payne is stuffed on one, he actually grinds them down a little. Our best interior defender is B.J. Lawrence and it isn't even remotely close, although, bizarrely enough, Hugh Andersen has the best oFG% on the team, as well as one of the lowest oFGA numbers in the whole league. For whatever reason, people don't even try to score against him, and... uh... I have no idea why. None of his skills bear this out. Maybe he plays dirty.  High drama. Probably the most talked about first round match-up going into the playoffs, for a number of reasons. The Suns and Honu have built a pretty strong rivalry over the last several years, they're close to evenly matched by record, and after "disappointing" the Honu, Michael Torres has become an absolute monster for Phoenix. Kraemer, a somewhat disappointing understudy, is itching for a chance to prove himself. He doesn't. Torres averages like 30 points on the series. However, the rest of the Suns are the same buncha nobodies we've been grinding under our boot for years, and with the exception of one game where Torres goes off for 44 (Thanks, Kraemer), the Honu run these scrubs out of the gym. We get some great performances in particular from Reeves, Wang, and Sonnet (who is brilliant for most of the playoffs).  Here's a closeup shot of Reeves after an and-one dunk (that.... honestly didn't look like a foul, or I'd have screen grabbed the dunk). I couldn't get a good shot of it because audience resolution is bad, but I actually followed his fingers here to see where the hell he was pointing, and I saw a middle-aged lady with curly hair in the audience wearing Honolulu Seafoam Green next to a similarly aged man in the same. But don't get any scandalous ideas. Look into Frederick's eyes. That is a look of humble gratitude if I ever saw one. I think like, one of his grade school teachers came to his big playoff debut game or something. Meanwhile, Denver is actually a good team even without their on-paper best player (who is somehow the third best guy on their team), and Seattle without Pollard is a far cry from the championship team they were, and without Pollard or Person is probably an odds-on favorite to win the draft lottery. Person does return and help the Sonics get two games, but it's too little too late. Utah, on the back of Vladimir Olic, manages a stunning 5 game upset over a reasonably loaded Thunder team. San Antonio laughs Houston out of the playoffs. Out East, Boston gets its stars back early, which is bad news for the Pacers, who get crushed in 5 games. I haven't played for months and completely forgot the Celtics also have Jackie Dudley. Goddamn the Cs are stacked. New York stuns Montreal, the world, and myself by winning their series. Cleveland beats Memphis so bad the Grizzlies had the five lowest +/- players for the whole playoffs, which I will assume is their starting lineup. Dwight Dixon does former MVP things and at least makes for a semi-interesting 6 game series before succumbing to Atlanta and Radu Constantin, who begins a playoff performance for the ages.  Jesus the Nuggets are good. How the hell is Popov's backup so good? I have no idea how we match up so well against these guys, traditionally, when, seeing it all together like that, I really feel like we're worse at every single position, with the exception of Shooting guard, which we win on depth. I'm a bit stunned when we blow them out by like, 20 in game 1, but games 2, 3, and 4 are all losses. Denver has a good across the board team, but one guy in particular is a big, big problem.  This dreamy mother fucker again. We get a rare playoff hiccup from our own star in the same game  And that's when I decide I can't possibly win; I basically need Sonnet to play big, and there's maybe 3 point guards in the league that he's going to struggle against. With Payne being injured, and Kraemer being completely useless, I have no way to stop Dunn. I even experiment with my Wang (  ) a bit and stick him on Dunn, but no dice. Wang is a horrible defender, but his athleticism and effort have him on the leaderboard for Blocks among shooting guards. I've been bamboozled. In a seemingly hopeless situation, I decide to give our hero one last start. I didn't make the poor man play 34 minutes or anything crazy, only his usual 14-18, I just put him in the starting lineup. To give him a proper sendoff. .....................shockingly, we won that game. Bol plays merely OK, but exhausts himself to the point Coach asks me to bring his minutes down to 8, and I acquiesce and move Beasley back into the starters. Holding on just that one game, though, is enough for Adrien Payne to come back from his injury, still hurting, but playable. I attach him to Dunn and he manages to hold him under 30, which I take as a victory, largely because we actually loving win the series.   Out east, I lose my mind when New York beats the Celtics in their first game, but reality reasserts itself and the Celtics win the next four. Cleveland and Atlanta goes to a thrilling 7 game series, with one side having the insane tandem of Dakoulas Balidis, (the highest OVR player in the league) and Darrell Logan, one of the best Centers. (Not to mention Reed Gibson, who is legit) The other side has Radu Constantin.  Maybe next year, Cleveland. Oleg's brilliance is enough to get a game off of San Antonio, but the real story of their series is in game 4, when, after playing 29 minutes:   Oh, you're simply without the MVP of the entire league just in time for our series, you say?  I'm pretty cocky going into this. Just, all around excited about the promise of possibly getting Bol to go out on top, one last championship run. I'm not thrilled with the idea of sticking Payne on Constantin, but I think I can take the rest of the Hawks if I held him to like, 35 or something. (Constantin would average 38 points per game in the playoffs)  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I promptly got swept. What the hell happened? So, remember the last time we played the Spurs and they absolutely crushed us and made us look stupid? Yeah, they have most of the same players, who, it would turn out, match up extremely well against the Honu. Though, in game 4, they got Petersen back, which almost certainly gave them an enormous shot in the arm. The big problem there was Noel Vaughn, who is a 6'10 small forward with something ludicrous like 14/14 averages. Just this big, beefy lad that completely outmuscled Kraemer, and honestly, also my bigs at times because Vaughn also plays minutes at Power Forward. But it wasn't just Vaughn, we got out-sized everywhere. Ford and Solomon muscled the hell out of me, too. B.J. was fine and could hold his own in the paint against these ogres, and Morrison's agility and athleticism was great in the beginning of the game, but by the end of the game, he was just beat the hell up. Bol is/was way too old, Andersen's excellent defensive numbers that look like a fluke, it turns out, were probably legitimately a fluke, and he had to play extensive minutes at small forward, because other than him and Kraemer, our next biggest "not suicidally insane" small forward option is Su Jun Wang. Even most of our guards, who are all stellar, are still a bit short. The Spurs beat me up and took my lunch money. Out east, the terrifying Celtics got Radu'd. Did I mention he averaged 38 points in the playoffs? This gives us a finals of San Antonio vs Atlanta. Which was an exciting back-and-forth affair that gremlins ate my screen shots of. It went to seven games, with Atlanta getting an early start while Petersen took two games off from his injury. Being out part of the series makes it all the more impressive when he wins Finals MVP.  Though, for my money, it should have gone to Radu, I don't care that he was on the losing team, he averaged 40 points in the NBA finals. Not to take anything away from Petersen. He came back from a scary injury, eventually worked himself back up to League MVP, took another small injury in the playoffs and heroically returned to win the championship. It's a good story. Congratulations to the Spurs. .....I guess it's time to look at player retirements.  ....no one cares about any of these scrubs.  We're here to remember someone else. Seeing Bol's old running mate listed right after him gets me right in the guts. These two guys won four NBA championships together.  Of course, Harry and Gheorghe each won five.  Sasha was there for the first two, so long ago. It feels like my whole dynasty retired. Seeing them all together like this, visualizing the banners... it was a dynasty. Maybe they weren't all back-to-back years, but what else can you call a run of six championships with mostly the same core?  There were some regrets along the way. Guys I gave up on too fast. Slaughter is a "5" year vet because he floated around the G league, working his way up to a very effective starting-caliber NBA player. As for Steven Rogers.... well, I think back to not signing him in the off season, and wonder what might have happened if I had his big body to go against Noel Vaughn. He could have been the answer, but now he's moved on to play basketball in China.   Oh God. Even Coach retired. Something about this just feels right. Of what use is a father, when all his children have gone?  My ranting against this game has had some people questioning if Bol Bol would make the Hall of Fame.   His accolades require you to scroll down in order to read them all. Bol ends his career as a 6 time NBA Champion, including a 4 time Finals MVP. A twelve time all star, and 9 time all-nba player (1 first team, 7 second teams, and 1 third team), and he kicked off his era of dominance with a Most Improved Player award, when an unlikely new franchise decided to bet their entire future on the kid with potential. It would go down in history as one of the greatest payoffs.  Of course he made the Hall of Fame. This is a guy who went against the GOAT almost every year, and actually won most of their confrontations.  Here's a paradox for you: More people have worn a #10 Honolulu jersey than any other team number. Yet only one man will ever wear it. Somehow, both of these things can be true. I am remiss though......I feel like a real team would have retired at least Floyd and Francis's numbers, and very arguably Eminescu, too. Nonetheless, we did get the one that mattered. What's weird to me is Newton's number got retired. I think it should have been, do not misunderstand me, but he was only a 1 time all star, somehow. His accolades are indisputably fewer than Harry Francis's, and very arguably fewer than Floyd and Eminescu, who, again, won four and five championships with our team, respectively. For those of you hoping that I'd post some career leaderboard stuff---well, I will. Just not today. 2k doesn't update all of the leaderboards immediately, some of them require the next season to start for whatever reason, so I am holding off before I post. One last remark on Bol for now though:  This is sorted by +/- . In his final NBA game, though he lost, Bol was the only player on his team to post a double digit +/-, fully double the next best player on the Honu. He also scored 13 points in 13 minutes. Hell yeah.  Alas, no rule changes. The bar to pass a rule change is pretty high, as evidenced by the draft proposal failing despite a 25-9 vote. I'm tempted to expand the league the final time just so proposals have to have double digit dissent to fail. Yes, I'm weird. A full 13 team lottery would be wild. I'm all for it. Only morons tank anyhow.  Speaking of draft lotteries and why tanking is stupid, the Lakers move up from 12 to 1 with a lucky bounce. This will give them the rights to select the best 23 year old available. >_<  Voting Time The Honolulu Honu have the 25th and 59th picks in the 2038 NBA Draft. Bol Retired, Beasley ain't coming back, and Kraemer and Wang are up for contract negotiations. Luckily, everyone else is locked in for at least another year. We went an entire year with Kraemer being the sole actual small forward, and played way too small, and it eventually got us beat back in the playoffs. At pick #25, there's pretty much just one guy who might, might fall to us that would be worth picking that isn't an immediate positional need, a very high potential 21 year old (which is as young as this hellworld will let me draft) Center that is a legitimate 7'0. How he's slated to go around Honu's pick is beyond me. Our depth is rock solid at guard. We have guard on lock. I am bringing back Wang, so we are 6 deep in the back court, with 6 guys who are all exceptional and all different. We easily have the best guard rotation in the entire league. We also have two excellent centers, between Morrison who is an all around player with high effort, and BJ Lawrence, who is a hard-nosed monster in the paint, one of the very best interior defenders in the league, and a top 4 player for rebound rate. Q1: Pick 25 A: Take the best potential player available (This will be that Center if he still is on the board, or the highest potential Forward otherwise.) B: Take the best overall player available (This will be a Forward, and size will absolutely break perceived ties. I will not strictly use OVR.... I will take college aggregate stats into consideration.) Q2: Pick 59 A: Take the best potential forward available B: Take the best potential player available, regardless of position C: We need size. Take the tallest motherfucker for his position D: We need size. Take the strongest motherfucker for his position E: We need size. Take the fattest motherfucker for his position (For choices C-E, listed wingspan will break all ties.) In addition, the Honu find themselves coachless and adrift in a scary league without Bol Bol. There are plenty of high quality coaches I could make a competitive bid on, but rather than get in a bidding war, I'm gonna do my own thing. The way I see it, there are 3 choices.  A: Wyatt Zimmerman Our current Assistant Coach. Wyatt is only slightly worse than the best "Balanced" coach that I can hire without having to dramatically overbid about 8-11 other teams. (There's Trent Pederson, but he's been in the league for 26 years, so I would imagine he'll retire very soon.) +Coach Walker used a balanced system +Coach Zimmerman has seemingly over-performed in Summer League. +He's already our assistant. +I could dispose of him later if something new and exciting comes up. It could be good to have a short contract. -He's the worst candidate by aggregate scores. -He's never going to get better. -His contract was deliberately structured so he would cease being an assistant next year, when we can hire Bol Bol as an assistant.  B: Pete Thorpe +He's got the best combined offense/defense of the three candidates, and of most available candidates without bids in general. +His "B" in defense is the best defense score for any coach candidate available that isn't absolutely horrible on offense or would require a bidding war or that plays a system we're completely unsuited for (Grit and Grind, Defense) +We have an elite, smart, all-around center and a king's ransom in fantastic guards for him to kick to. This system could really make Morrison shine. +By taking Vancouver's general manager and making him a coach, which he is far better at, we embarrass our thread rivals. +Potential doesn't directly influence how high coaching stats will go and he has 0 years as a coach, there's a very good chance his already stellar stats go even higher, possibly into "Coach Walker" territory. +I like the name Pete Thorpe -Our other post position, Power Forward, is extremely questionable. Questionable to the point that I am giving serious consideration to sliding Morrison over to PF to start both him and BJ Lawrence, especially if I get that Center I mentioned earlier. -It's very probably a galaxy brained take to look at a roster full of amazing guards and say "I'm running my offense through the post". It would work, but is it the best use of the resources? -He looks like Mrs. Potato Head had an illicit affair with Lex Luthor. Wait, maybe that's supposed to be on the + column. Hmm. -By taking Vancouver's general manager and making him into a coach, which he is far better at, Vancouver is more likely to get a good general manager.  C: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander +He has an A+ Potential as a coach, and very high starting stats. +He is a current real-world player, which the thread wanted to see more of. +As a rule, I value guys that do a little bit of everything well. And I do not employ dummies. I feel like this makes Honolulu extremely suitable to Tex Winter's Triangle Offense. -He has the lowest defense rating of the candidates, and the Honu are already weaker defensively than offensively. -I don't know if the A+ potential actually matters.... every coach has a secret stat that is "highest potential offense" as well as "highest potential defense" which are the true value they can be raised to, and it has nothing to do with the potential stat. I don't know if "potential" as a coach makes them reach these peaks faster, or if it does absolutely nothing. There's a chance, even with the A+, that this is as good as coach SGA will ever get. Though it's still pretty good -This motherfucker was a playoff rival for like, a decade. He used to play for the hated Nuggets. +One more plus. It might piss off the Nuggets. SHORT FORM Q1: Pick 25 A: Take the best potential player available (This will be that Center if he still is on the board, or the highest potential Forward otherwise.) B: Take the best overall player available (This will be a Forward, and size will absolutely break perceived ties. I will not strictly use OVR.... I will take college aggregate stats into consideration.) Q2: Pick 59 A: Take the best potential forward available B: Take the best potential player available, regardless of position C: We need size. Take the tallest motherfucker for his position D: We need size. Take the strongest motherfucker for his position E: We need size. Take the fattest motherfucker for his position Q3: Coach A: Coach Zimmerman B: Coach Thorpe C: Coach SGA
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Dec 31, 2020 12:07
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AAC
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Dec 31, 2020 13:18
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AAC and I'll put away the torch and pitchfork. 2k did something right.
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Dec 31, 2020 15:09
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ADC Thankfully we see Bol getting his due, but if 2k had somehow managed to botch that, what would you have done?
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Dec 31, 2020 16:17
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Unwise_Cashew posted:ADC It feels weird to say, but in this one instance, I had complete faith in 2k. Bol pretty comfortably exceeded the accomplishments of most the guys who got in already. Plus, he falls into their star fucker mentality. The Real Bol is still super raw and hasn't accomplished anything yet, so he's in a sense a 2k Darling. But...... To answer your question, screen cap it to show how awful the game is, and then save scum the finals until it worked.
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Dec 31, 2020 19:13
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AAC
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Jan 1, 2021 19:07
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Glad to see this back! BBC
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Jan 1, 2021 23:57
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SPECIAL BONUS UPDATE: A Bol Bol Dynasty Retrospective We had the great fortune of building a dynasty in Honolulu that's been to the finals more times than quite a few teams in the league that are 50 years older, and has won the championship more times than any team in the league except the Lakers and Celtics. I'll go back and recount, but I think we're tied for third (all time!) behind the Celtics and Lakers, although the tie for third should be Honolulu, Chicago, Golden State, and now San Antonio, and off the top of my head I can't remember if Philly is there too now or if they only have 5. I believe Dallas also now has 5. So I'm gonna share some all-time boards to give you an idea of how special Bol was, but also, how fortunate Bol was, to be surrounded by guys that were great. Bol's most important running mate was probably William Floyd, who we'll also see on several of these leader boards, but there's a few other stand outs.   Floyd would find himself as one of the top 60 scorers in NBA history, although, because such a high percentage of his shots were threes, he's lower on the list for actual field goals.   Bol would be several places higher on both boards, ahead of such big man legends and hall of famers like Zion Williamson, Karl-Anthony Towns and even Tim Duncan.  Where Floyd would have an edge would be in all time three point shooting. Although Bol finds himself toward the very top of the list, a top 20 all time, just behind the underrated scoring machine that was Ciro Reyes, and ahead of other shooting Bigs like Tatum and Bagley...  Floyd would actually crack the top 10. .....................William Floyd was never an all-star. I sometimes suspect that, if Honolulu had been a large market team, he'd have been a Hall of Famer, himself.   Both men made the all time per-game scoring list, too.  Bol of course would also have the advantage in rebounding, as no other long time Honu would crack the list. (Although, Rudy Gobert should be higher. I didn't capture any stats for him, Darius Garland, and Aaron Holiday, who cracked a few boards. In retrospect, I did Holiday a disservice here. My reasoning was not showing off guys who weren't with us all that long, although Holiday spent quite a while with the team and was one of our original crew.)  For instance, I believe Holiday found himself higher on the all-time assist board than Floyd here, and I know Garland did. But Floyd still had a very respectable top 100 Assist total.  Of course, the real stud here was Gheorghe Filimon, who managed to get all the way up to the top 40. Filimon's passing is all the more impressive because he's not on the top 100 Turnover board.  And he's even higher up when you look at the per-game numbers.  While never known as a fantastic defender, Bol nonetheless 32nd all time in blocks. If he played another season, he'd have cracked 2,000.  His per game numbers back this claim up.  Three Point shooting is the bread-and-butter of the Honu dynasty, however. With the star of the show being one of the best all time, but several other key figures being even higher. Under Bol and Coach Walker, we were always gunners.  Dylan Windler is another guy on this list. He was so crucial to our team, accepting contracts well below his worth, and always being incredibly solid, no matter how big of a role we needed from him. While he's definitely not the highest Honu for his career in shooting the long ball....  Windler, who retired a while ago, holds two of the top ten all time seasons for three point shooting. Half of Arcidiacono's top 10 season was also with Honolulu. I've mentioned it before, but I'm still really impressed he managed that figure while having to change systems halfway through a season.  Backcourt ace Gheorghe Filimon also made the all time shooting list, and this one is really incredible, because when Filimon joined the Honu, the one knock on his game was that he was an inconsistent shooter.  Short term Honu player Herbert Curry found himself ahead of a much more famous Curry, but the star of this show is Gheorghe Eminescu, one of the top ten shooters of all time. Only six men would be more reliable from the arc, and none of them was as good a defender as Gheorghe was.  ....although one of them was William Floyd, the best 3 point shooter by usage ever, and third best overall. (Also of note: Al Nelson was a power forward.)  Eminescu was also one of the most reliable free throw shooters you'll ever see, but he didn't get there all that often.  A guy who got there quite often, and was truly an all-time great? Dylan Windler. Now you know the secret, why I was so high on this kid for his entire career. He was insanely efficient for a low contract. If the game let me pick who went into the front office pool, I'd give this man a job for life because I feel guilty (it's a simulation, why do I feel guilty?) about how little I paid him when active. Shout out to Stewart Hampton. Sorry we only had you at the rear end-end of your career.  Though he never seemed like he committed that many fouls, Bol has the dubious honor of being on the all-time foul board, too. But then again, I would argue, "If you are one higher than John Havlicek at one career anything, you're probably in the hall of fame"  No Honu made the triple double board, obviously, since only one Honu has ever scored a triple double. But William Floyd managed to make 40 points enough times to be recognized.  But Bol did it 10 more times and is 10 ranks higher, just shy of the Dream. (Shout out to R.J. Barrett. What the hell?)  Bol shares some rarified air (along with our new coach) of players who managed on four different occassions to post a fifty point game. But I'm gonna close on this: There was one knock on Bol Bol as a player, both coming into the league as a rookie, when Honolulu took him in the expansion draft, and then throughout his career. There wasn't a lot of room to criticize a player as great as Bol was. But it always came up: He had nagging issues with his feet. He had nagging issues with his hands. He was too skinny. He was weak. He was fragile. And internet trolls in 2038 still talk about it, as though it invalidates all the things he managed to accomplish.  ..................but if he's so brittle, how the gently caress did he make top 50 for number of games played? Injury prone? Unreliable? Get the hell out of here. Bol Bol was unstoppable. What a legend. His biggest perceived weakness was one of his greatest strengths. There will never be another Bol Bol, and we have been blessed to witness his greatness.
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Jan 2, 2021 01:37
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I honeslty didn't think that Bol would retire with the Honu, but I am glad that he did. Did he have his number retired or does that happen later? I can't remember and I don't trust this game to make obvious decisions. I also can't remember Bol's kit number, but that's as maybe. I know that this is a sim, but it make me furious in real life when people slag off athletes for being "fragile", as if it's a personal failing and not bad luck. If someone had cancer, went into remission and then it come back, I would be villifed, and rightly so, if I criticised them for being soft or frail. It's one thing to, say, not to draft or trade for someone because he has a history of injuries that could easily worsen, but people genuinely act as if it's due to some inherent character flaw.
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Jan 2, 2021 02:38
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Sure did! Even this dumb game agrees: ...................................but for my money, I'd retire Bol, Floyd, Windler, Francis, and Eminescu in roughly that order.
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Jan 2, 2021 03:11
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I'm really glad to see such positive retrospective on Windler. He was always my favorite back at the start, not the flashiest player, but just reliable and notable in my heart. Godspeed, dude. I hope that you've got a great job in the industry offscreen somewhere that 2k20 just forgot to show us.
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Jan 2, 2021 20:10
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Bol is the only Honu lifer that I know of, but are there any other current or former (now retired or not) Honu players that should go to the Hall and/or have their Honu number retired? Bol was such a "face of the franchise" that anyone else who was key for the team seems in his shadow even if they had immortal careers.
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Jan 3, 2021 01:30
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I highly doubt the game will retire anyone else's number for some time, since it didn't retire Francis's, and him and Torres were the only All Stars. I could see the game retiring Torres' number with us, and Torres has a decent shot at the Hall of Fame. In the new crop.... uh... Both Alain Sonnet and Hugh Morrison are really, really good. And I've started the next season (don't have time to actually update yet), and Morrison, in particular, has taken to the new Triangle Offense. There's a decent chance either or both might make it, but they're really young (27 and 25, respectively), anything can happen. Don't wanna risk jinxing it. But our future is looking pretty solid. EDIT: To whit, I have a file for the next update I titled "Morrison game 3" and another one I titled "Morrison Sonnet Game 3" Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Jan 3, 2021 |
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Jan 3, 2021 02:18
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Chapter 24: 2038-2039 Part 1, Draft to Midway Got halfway through my update and my browser closed for no goddamn reason, so I had to redo all of it. Before the draft, I hired coach Shai, and I have to say, it was definitely the right call, and I'll be looking to make him our coach going forward. He's managed to squeeze the best out of a lot of our young core, and if he somehow improves, man oh man. I also had to fire Jared Henderson again. God drat the AI in this game sucks. Whoever programmed the inherent "stickiness" into coaches really dropped the ball here. I can understand wanting a system where, say, Popovic never leaves San Antonio, and Erik Spoelstra doesn't leave Miami, but there's way better ways of accomplishing this.  While the drafts are old and weak compared to other drafts, the cream of the crop, like this guy, seem to be solid. This dude is already starting over Vlado Tomasevic, who could easily have been an all-star last season had the Lakers been any good. He has a maximum potential, so much like the last Lowe taken #1 overall, I wouldn't be shocked if this one made the Hall of Fame.  Early picks in these old fart drafts seem to yield a super high return in trade value. Here, the Nets get two high quality players for just one and a future second.  And here we see it again, only this time, one of the two players is a former 2-time MVP of the entire League. I wonder who they will get in return.   Can you imagine the blowback if an actual NBA franchise traded a two time league MVP for the draft rights to a 5'9 Point Guard out of China? At least this trade is reasonable. Here we see what's on paper an even trade, although Miller is a better player. I read this as Washington opting into next year's draft to get a better player now. Both teams stink, so I think Washington cleanly won this trade.  There's an argument that this trade is also pretty reasonable, given that both Bishop and Navarro (a former Buck) are pretty drat old by now, but neither is washed up, and it's one pick in a draft of senior citizens. What the hell?  The Center I wanted that was projected down by me is taken twice as high as any of the mocks had him going. Oh well. Turns out his potential isn't as high as my scouts said it'd be, so New Orleans is left looking really stupid instead of me only looking kinda stupid.  After all the moves to trade down to get Calbert Gordon in his original draft, the Clippers trade him and another first rounder for what would be an even lower pick. It's breathtaking. They've managed to get less value out of every successive trade in this sequence.  The 76ers pull a very realistic move to give up some picks to acquire an incredibly solid backup player to Dwight Dixon.  Finally Honolulu's turn comes up, and I'm thrilled to select this guy. Not only is he one of the youngest (still 22!) players available in this draft, he's also one of the few generated players I have seen with the archetype of "Point forward", which is a serendipitous acquisition when we just hired a coach with the Triangle Offense in mind.  We also nab this guy with our other pick---I'm a little worried about the size, but as far as potential goes, he's 4 years younger than the other guy at his skill level. Other than that, he was the best pick available in regards to rebounding and interior defense, and pretty solid in the offensive categories, too.  Mr. Irrelevant 2038 is Coby Spencer. I don't think he got signed, but I've definitely seen worse.  I pick up all my player options because duh. Paxson is solid as hell as a fringe backup. Reeves trades starting duties with Payne and is a terrific outside shooter. With Beasley gone and Bol retired, Hugh Andersen projects to be our starting power forward for the season, and I need to see some growth out of him. He's been quietly very solid for us in his first two years, though, so I have quite a bit of faith in him stepping up. I've been pretty carefully nursing him so far.  I also extend our qualifiers. Wang I'll probably offer my own contract to, but I'm bent over a barrel in regards to Kraemer, and will almost certainly wind up overpaying him.  And boy, did I. The hated Mavericks offered him this monster deal (to play either backup or to play shooting guard!), and I had no choice but to match. What's really irritating to me, is I also had offered him a deal he was 100% interested in, that was 2 years, 52 million. Way, way less money, but he really wanted the two years. I can see a real person signing this deal no problem, since of course they're gonna take what they think is the best money. But in the game, my offer was 100% as well. So I would really like to know which reason he went with Dallas. I can think of 4 explanations. 1)Dallas made the offer first, therefor, it was the offer accepted. I don't like this, as it would mean if you overbid, you won't get the guy. 2)Dallas is ahead of Honolulu in the order of teams. I really don't like this, as I'm behind every team except for Montreal and Seattle. I actually added Vancouver before Honolulu. 3)All things being equal, it's random. I guess I begrudgingly like this the best. It would lead to some shock moves for sure. 4)The interest meter secretly goes above 100, and the Mavs' offer was like, 125 because they were willing to ludicrously overpay. I like this in the sense that it's more realistic, but I loving hate this because there's no reason to hide that information from the player. Why wouldn't you indicate a relative interest? At any rate, as bad as that contract is (year 4 is a player option.  ), and how annoyed that I'm paying it when I didn't pay bloody Torres, Kraemer is a pretty tradable piece if worse comes to worst.As for Wang, I got market value on him. I only signed him for two years, because it said he didn't fit the triangle. However, what it meant to say was "he doesn't fit the triangle as a shooting guard". I changed him to a Small Forward to back up Kraemer. While his OVR only jumped 1 (usually changing people to SF makes their OVR go up considerably if they're either type of guard. No, I don't get it. Yes, 2k sucks.), his system compatibility doubled. So Wang hasn't dropped off at all, he's just in a very different role for us than he was last year. There's serious pressure on both guys to perform, now, though.  Dallas gives a monster extension to Craig Payton, and then sign the terrific Gerardo Catinella to play SG. This is why I think they wanted Kraemer as a SG. On paper, they have a very similar skillset.  The Raptors sign the best free agent available, Gilbert Swift, and another solid big man. Clearly, giving up on Randy Butler was a change in the office's mindset. They saw what they could get by leaning on a guard (usually lottery picks), now they're gonna shoot their shot by building around a pair of elite bigs.  The Hornets pick up one of the best point guards in the league and also do me a solid and take the piece away from the Spurs that's completely kicked my rear end in two of the last three seasons. I've had several key trades with the Hornets over the years. Between this free agency and those trades, they're probably my favorite non-Honu franchise. I kind of wish that there was a "inter-team relation" system of some kind, because some front offices really do seem to get along better than others.  The Lakers also pull away one of the Spurs' key rotation pieces to play their backup center. The Lakers' frontcourt is sick, with Cody Lowe, Sebastien Barber, Vlado Tomasevic and now Vitor Vitti as their big man rotation. That's probably the best front court rotation in the league that isn't anchored by an MVP candidate.  I also made an executive decision to extend Alain Sonnet, on the basis that he's our star player, and I got him to accept a front loaded contract with 5% decreases every year instead of the 8% increases he qualifies for. This is phenomenal value of a player of Sonnet's caliber.  Opening day against the Heat does not make me very enthusiastic about the season and that contract I matched for Kraemer. My guy, if I'm gonna pay you on average thirty some million dollars a year, you best be stepping up.  Another Early season loss shows us a 4x4 from Aaron Payne. What's a 4x4, you ask? It's nothing. It sucks. It's amazing how much one stat and then one more of everything makes a 5x5 incredibly impressive, but a 4x4 is just... "Well, it's OK." For all the poo poo I'm giving Payne here, he's been really solid this season. Actually, with a lot of lines that are kind of like this, and usually on games that we win, I'm starting to realize that Aaron Payne is falling into that Delon Wright role for the Honu, where he gives us some very solid defense and then does a little bit of everything, but almost never at a number that jumps out. Payne, like Wright before him, is a guy furiously plugging whatever holes he can find, and is a big positive for this team.  Cameron's debut is nothing spectacular, but 5 assists from a point forward is exactly as advertised. He's a fringe rotational piece this year, but I think he'll do good things for us going forward. Also notable about this game is that we got over 90 points from just 3 guys.  Around this time we start winning a lot more games, and we start seeing some eye-popping, monstrous figures from Hugh Morrison.  Here's one showing our other Hugh, Hugh Andersen, stepping up like we've needed him to. It's also a good snapshot of Jemerio Kraemer. I've given him a lot of poo poo this update, as well as the last several updates, and I am still definitely overpaying him, but he's had quite a few games this season with similar stat lines. I just haven't been snagging them, because they always seemed small compared to the screens of what I was getting from Hugh Morrison. Which, if you go down the list of players a bit more, you see an "off" night from Hugh right here, where he "only" gave us 17 points. (But then also gave us 11 rebounds, 8 assists, 5 steals and 2 blocks. My. God.) At any rate, not only has Kraemer actually improved most of his stats a little, he's also finally being the perimeter defender his A+ rating says he should be. Coach Shai has a much more flexible defensive system than Coach Walker did, and, while it's overall not as good, certain players, namely Kraemer and Hugh Morrison, have started to thrive on the defensive end.  Here's what an "on" night from Hugh looks like.  Here's an "on" night for Sonnet  Here's a monster triple double (just the second in Honu History!) in a loss to the Pistons  And.... is this a special game for Morrison at this point? I can't even tell anymore. Frustratingly, he scored zero player of the week honors.  The hated Nuggets make a move from offense to defense, and I have to think this is in direct response to the Honu, given how often we meet in the playoffs and the absurdity that I've been getting out of Morrison. Also shown, former Honu Jacque Cisse going to Miami. This makes me happy, because that mustache was made for south beach.  I actually thought Ciro Reyes retired. Also, holy poo poo, the AI uses its trade exceptions now.  All Stars are selected to play in Philly, with their hometown hero leading one of the two teams. And you're goddamn right that's two Honu as all-star starters. The fans know what's up for once. Also, the game didn't let me replace all-stars this time, I think I simmed too close to the actual game to replace any. The only real egregious one is Garry Gaines, who is Michael Torres' backup on Phoenix, and behind Torres in every single statistical category, even if you adjust to 36 minutes. I don't get it either. I'd have gone with a very similar lineup to this. Some notes: 1)Hugh Morrison is fantastic. Wow. After having "stagnated" last season, by merely being exactly as good as the season before, he's really taken the league by absolute storm. I know I envisioned an all-star player when I selected him, but he's currently second in the race to the MVP. (Lots of centers on the list, so there's a decent chance he's not even all-NBA at season end.) 2)Coach SGA was the right call. Maybe it's just development for our players, but he's gotten a lot out of just about everyone on our squad. The only person who has less production than before is Louie Morgan, and it's not significantly less. I read this more as "Welp. Guess I don't have to be the entire second unit by myself anymore." Since his efficiency hasn't gone down. 3)Hugh Andersen has been very solid for us at Power Forward, and has made me proud. He's currently first on the leader board for "Most Improved Player". Our stretch four takes just the right kind of pressure off of Morrison. They say history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. Once upon a time, our back court was two men named Gheorghe, and now we have two bigs named Hugh doing some beautiful things together. 4)As touched on before, Jemerio Kraemer really has actually stepped up, and while his numbers aren't what I would like for his contract, convincing Sonnet to sign the front-loaded extension took a lot of the pressure off. He's finally become our team's best defender in actuality as opposed to merely on paper, holding his opponents to under 40% shooting. 5)Su Jun Wang, thought to not be a fit for the triangle, changed his default position to one up, and is, by way of fact, an excellent fit for Honolulu. He is currently the league leader in true shooting, posting an absolutely absurd 72%. In real life, if this number held, he'd be good for 8th all time, but even that has a huge asterisk because most of that "all time" list is actually the 2020-2021 season, and will almost certainly fall by the wayside as we've played about 5 games in 2021. Then again, Wang's number might fall off, too. 6)If Frederick Reeves gave us a career like last season's off the bench posting his percentages, I'd happily take it. However, he's averaging 3 points a game higher than last year. 7)One person who is not a natural fit for the Triangle, but has remained productive, is BJ Lawrence. The system frustrates him sometimes and he's talked about touches, but I have corrected this issue by every now and then going into the gameplan and designating him our tertiary option on offense. Since he comes off the bench and I have no designated first or second option, as near as I can tell, this amounts to "run an out of bounds play for BJ Lawrence sometimes, eh, coach?" No one's production seems to take a dip when I do it, and it makes him happy fast, so why the hell not? He's actually up for a contract extension:  And will take that deal, which is slightly higher than what he'll want in the offseason, but slightly lower than what he's worth. Something like 9 teams specifically have him on their target list (despite him being an 83 OVR. I think it's the rebound rate), and he's traditionally caused me a ton of heartburn in the offseason, because he's got a badge that makes him prefer playing in places with a low income tax. We play in Hawaii. He does so much and is always so hard to actually re-sign and I have never gotten him to agree to an extension. So originally this was going to be a thread vote, but gently caress that. This is B.J.'s new contract. Sorrynotsorry. Standings, West:    Standings, East:    drat that's a bright future. Seamless transition out of a dynasty, yeah? Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 11:56 on Jan 5, 2021 |
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Jan 4, 2021 01:45
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Don't beat yourself up about Torres. Firstly, look how this year is going. Secondly, you know full well that he wouldn't have been that good for the Honu. Also, was Sonnet a Honu draft pick? I can't remember anymore.
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Jan 4, 2021 04:08
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Is it just me or are the standings in the East all messed up? Edit: vvv Thanks! vvv Average Lettuce fucked around with this message at 12:25 on Jan 4, 2021 |
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Jan 4, 2021 11:30
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Whoooooooooooooooooooops. Nope. Not just you at all. Somehow got some standings from a couple seasons ago mixed in. No Idea how I grabbed the wrong files to post there. Must not have waited for LPIX to load all the way, and I grabbed an 0076East2 and 0076East3, which would have been, uh, eight updates ago. It's fixed now.
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Jan 4, 2021 11:52
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Chapter 24: 2038-2039 Part 2, Remainder of Season Before the season ends, there's a few more trades...  ....the only one of note being the Fausto experiment already coming to a close in Philly, not even making it through a full season. In the all-star game, Sonnet and Morrison's team wins, but Radu Constantin drops 34 points to win the All-Star MVP instead of hometown hero Dwight Dixon, who posted some very impressive numbers himself. Our stars don't do anything spectacular, but they don't embarrass us either. In the Rising Stars challenge, however,  Frederick Reeves would lead all American scorers in a close victory over team World. While Boyd Slaughter is named the game MVP, the showcase is something of a coming out party for Reeves, bolstering his confidence over the next spat of games.  Shortly thereafter, he posts a career high 39 points against a very solid Brooklyn team.  It's a short lived career high as the very next game sees him dropping 54. Sadly, this was on either side of a weekend, so Reeves misses out on a chance to be named player of the Week. That'd have been fun.  At the close of the season, we get this excellent Sonnet game and a Morrison performance that is just good enough combined with one of his usual outings to be named the final Western Conference Player of the Week for the regular season.  These awards are weird. Looking at that, you'd say, "oh, yeah. There's a ton of league parity, I guess Dwight Dixon and Donald Powers were neck and neck for MVP?   nope. Hey, remember when I said that Morrison was second on the race for MVP voting? Well, 1)He fell a bit down to Earth to end the season and 2)It was never a particularly close second. Since last playoffs, Constantin has been on a different level from the rest of the league. Shame he represents #0, so Atlanta will never retire his jersey. I'll force him to wear a different kit if I remember, because that's a stupid glitch, 2k. Dame was enough. Cody is already a very productive NBA player, and can only improve from here.  Radu's immediate backup remains one of the best shooting guards in the league  Barry ain't giving up his DPOY trophy until someone dunks it clean out of his hands.  At least one of the Honu in contention for an award managed to snag one. This is well deserved by Andersen, who not only increased his raw numbers, but also significantly improved his rebounding rate in general. Despite averaging 0 blocks per game as a power forward, Andersen is somehow one of the better defenders on our team. No idea why. None of his stats or tendencies scream "defense!"  Atlanta's Cook wins coach of the year, giving them three trophies to take home. This is undeniably a better record than Honolulu, but I feel like Coach Shai got snubbed, because he really shined as a first time coach, and improved a record of a team that got to the conference finals. All NBA 1  Donald Powers is not in playoff contention... I wonder, if Constantin didn't exist, if maybe Morrison could have won MVP and still found himself on the All-NBA Second team.  Terrell Petersen is in the bottom five in the league (among qualified players) in turnover rate as a high usage point guard.All NBA 2  See. Second team. Which is still a huge improvement and the first All-NBA nod for Morrison. At just 25, hopefully, this is a sign of great things still to come. Also, Golden State missed the playoffs, so I have no idea how the game figures they deserve one all-NBA player, let alone two. All NBA 3  Sonnet makes the third team, for his second All-NBA nod. Darrell Logan missed a good chunk of the season with injury, which really hurt Cleveland's record, but also, it's pretty drat impressive he still made an All-NBA team. Michael Torres is nowhere to be seen, but he definitely did more for Phoenix than either Golden State guy did for the Warriors. All Defense 1  Same faces on defense as every year. All Defense 2  Actually, I take that back. Niko Sankovic is weirdly missing, despite having another very good defensive year. I was hoping Kraemer or Payne would make this list, but it wasn't meant to be. All Rookie 1  All these guys are scrubs (so far) except for Lowe and Sparks. Sparks, the number 2 pick, was a competitive candidate for rookie of the year, but Lowe's victory was clean. Shame Sparks is on the Timberwolves, because that sort of kills the entwined destinies narrative in the crib. All Rookie 2  These guys are better than the rest of the first team, but played less minutes. ........................I don't know where to include this in the update: Wang's shooting came back down to earth, so he's not at a record-setting year, but he's still an extremely respectable 7th in the league for True Shooting. His three point shooting on the season was a delightful .495, which isn't enough for a top 10 season, but it's definitely a huge positive for the Honu. Standings       I can name zero players currently on the Sacramento Kings. Dallas is without Luka Doncic, who, unless he signed there or elsewhere, is still teamless, but he's in his 19th year in the league and broken down. A sad potential end to the GOAT. Zach Cooper's improvement and the signing of Catinella is a big swing in their favor. If we match up, I'll try to keep track of who wins in the exchange between him and Kraemer. San Antonio suffered mightily from losing their two best rebounders in the off season. Out east, Toronto's strategy of going big paid off with a playoff berth immediately, and Randy Butler's new team misses the playoffs entirely. There's already internet trolls calling him a Fraud, but dude was legit averaging close to 40 points over the last four years. Honolulu is one of maybe three teams that stand a chance against Radu's Hawks, but anything can happen in the playoffs, and I've seen weird poo poo happen in 2k simulation games.  Top seed in the West. Not bad for a rookie coach. Can Honolulu handle the pressure? Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 11:25 on Jan 5, 2021 |
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Jan 5, 2021 11:21
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I've simmed through the playoffs and was ready to post a pre-draft update, but then the more I thought about it, the more I decided that maybe the best idea rather than a pre-draft vote would be a POST draft vote----- the Honu have 3 draft picks this year (not very good ones. Two second rounders and one very late first round pick) and 3 picks next year (these should be considerably better. Our first and two unprotected firsts) and we also have >Checks notes< Zero available roster spaces. Technically we'll have one, but I'll get into that. Essentially, I have more assets than I have space for them. So rather than trying to fill a hole in the team with the draft and have the fan vote, what I think I'm gonna do is run the draft, see what I'm able to get (shooting for Euro-stashers if there are any good looking ones) then have a vote regarding the results and our squad to see how to best pare it down. So it'll be a bit of a reverse vote. Update will be later today or some time tomorrow.
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Jan 9, 2021 20:10
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Chapter 24: 2038-2039 Part 3 Playoffs A #1 seed is always a good position to be in when you've started the playoffs. We also are injury free, unlike a few other teams:      Sacramento has a pretty diverse team, so losing out on any of their main guys is bad news for them. Atlanta loses their starting center unless they go to the finals. Memphis is out a solid rotational piece. Toronto is out one of their two bigs that they built their immediate regular season success on, and Cleveland is out what appears to be their sixth man, while two of their top three guys are still playing, but a little dinged up. Nothing too terrible.  Been a while, one time rivals we have stepped over on the path to greatness. The Ravens are legit. They aren't much of a threat to us, but they earned this playoff appearance. Antonis Giannou is nominally their star player, but does a lot of it by controlling the paint. The real dangers are the back court, where Stevenson is a big bodied point guard that is just a bit too strong for Sonnet to guard, but Balestrieri is a lighting quick shooter with some deep range. Both these guys can put up a lot of points in a hurry. Normally, so can Kolomak, but Jemerio Kraemer has been taking his job seriously.  Here's what Coach Shai looks like going over some observations with the team.  BJ Got two back to back And-Ones, and after the whistle blew on the second one, he let out this silly, poo poo eating grin I felt like I had to share.  Giannou did not control the boards in this series, which is one of the things they needed to have a shot. This was a sweep. I would have liked to watch the Suns/Mavs series, not only because they're two of our biggest rivals, but also because each team has a former Honu Small Forward as one of their main stars. (Being Craig Payton and Michael Torres) It also went to a decently exciting 6 games before the Suns pulled it out. San Antonio got an upset in 6 games over Denver, which I found troubling, because with as much trouble as the Spurs have caused me in recent years, I really wanted the loss of Noel Vaughn to break them a bit more than it seems to have. The inexperienced Kings also get upset by a much savvier Lakers team in a very close 7 games. Cody Lowe looks real good. Atlanta and Memphis laugh their opponents out of the playoffs. I feel like our own series against Vancouver, while also a sweep, was harder. While I never thought I'd lose, I felt somewhat threatened at points. These seemed like laughers. Toronto's philosophy of trusting their bigs runs into a problem when their opponent happens to be the best big man in the league, and he gets them the hell out of here after 6. Cleveland never quite gets off the back foot of its injuries, and while they also push the series to 6, Brooklyn bullies through.  Not a lot to say here. Their back court has taken a hit, but that's never been the reason these guys are threatening. Hell, the main reason these guys are threatening is Torres, and him being here is 100% our fault. Not that I would have necessarily done anything different, but, you know. Anyhow, Also of note is that Torres' backup, while worse than him in every way, was somehow an all-star this year, so we don't even get all that much of a break when he sits. Macy and Duncan are good.  As good as Kraemer has been on defense, finally, he's struggled mightily with Torres in the past. However, Kraemer's turned over a new leaf. I can feel it. Just... just slow Torres down a little, and we've got this one. Can the student finally overtake the master? (Also, I just noticed---I really like that we had at one point, a guy with #2 being backed up with a #22.)  ............c'mon, man.  ....oh. OK, you had an excuse. You only played 8 minutes. Both small forwards going off was what happens when you're not in the game. Well.... poo poo. At any rate, I activate Cameron, and, between him and Wang, we do not stop Torres, but at least we don't let him drop 40+ on us a game, and just sort of eek by the rest of the Suns in 6. Kraemer's injury heals before the next series. Also 6 games is the San Antonio Series with the Lakers, with the Spurs taking it. So I guess we're playing those assholes again. Terrell Petersen was, to be fair, last year's MVP and Finals MVP, so it's not a huge stretch that his team is still good. It's not like they lost him, just their oversized wing that was bullying us. Out east, the Hawks briefly look mortal, when everything clicks for two games for Brett Anderson and Loren Matthies, but the other four games in that series is all Radu. The Sixers also overcome the nets in seven games. I keep attributing a lot of these series to Dwight Dixon, since, you know, recent MVP and all, but a key component of Philadelphia's success is actually former Honu player Dedric Wesley. He hasn't quite ever lived up to his billing of the next Adrian Dantley, but he's consistently been a very good scorer for them. Man. Wesley, Payton, Torres. We just can't seem to find the right fit. Ever since Dylan Windler retired, and Windler was a backup for most of his career. But then, our backups are frequently out of the rotation, too. At any rate, Wesley's scoring acumen is the main engine of the Sixers' win over Brooklyn.  These assholes. I think that's the second time I've called them that. I do not like playing this team. It's always something new and lovely to deal with. They also are coached by Kevin Durant, and were last year, so add another championship to his resume. So. Noel Vaughn is gone. Vitor Vitti is gone. These guys are no problem, right? Wrong. Terrell Petersen is always a problem. J.P. Reece isn't near the defender and post menace that Vaughn was, but he's a high-energy scorer. He's a good enough scorer that I have to keep Kraemer on him. Maybe I can stick Payne on Petersen. That should work, right? Let my two best defenders lock down their two best scorers? WRONG. Their best scorer is yet another guy named Reece, Grant Reece, off the bench. gently caress THAT GUY. I put my defenders on the two starting threats, I get torched. I stick one on each Reece, I get torched. No matter how I try to structure my defense, one of these guys torches me. ...............but we still win out in 6, somehow. I feel like I lost all 6 games. I was just... incredibly frustrated by the end of this series. Of course, waiting for us early, like, really early was the Hawks. Philly doesn't have anywhere near the success Memphis does and what's a strong team on paper gets swept in the Eastern finals. Leaving us to matchup against the Hawks.  On the bright side, I get to show off the Hawks court. Long, long ago someone in thread asked me to change the Hawks to their old uniforms, which also changed to this old logo, too. They have Radu Constantin, who is the most annoying player to try to guard since Giannis, I am not kidding. He's "only" a 95 OVR, but all of Radu's abilities that happen to be maxed happen to be on offense. Players past a certain threshold in 2k may as well be an arcade game instead of a simulation game. I almost throw my controller a few times trying to watch a game. I had the best results for slowing Radu by assigning Aaron Payne to him, and then doubling him on catch. This got me to hold him to a modest 28 points. Once. Anyhow, you may note that I didn't post a screen grab of the series. I forgot to on game 1. I have done this several times, but just stealthily grab game 2 and post that screen, and no one is the wiser. I couldn't do that this time.  Hmm... something seems different.  ......................................  What happened? What do you mean what hap---were you not paying attention, like two seconds ago? Hugh Morrison got an injury at the worst possible time. Thankfully, not one that could permanently derail his career, but he missed basically the entire finals. He played half of game 1 and came off the bench in game 5. And it did go to 5 games. We won the one game that Payne and all the help we could give him held that utter monster to 28.  gently caress this guy. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Anyhow, I went through the draft and off-season. As I said, we don't have roster space, so I didn't have a vote. I was trying to find players to either stash overseas or in the G-league, and then possibly use them as trade bait partway through the year, because we'll have some hard decisions. So Player retirements, the draft, free agency, and our cap situation are all going to be their own update. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Jan 11, 2021 |
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Jan 11, 2021 08:58
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That was actually my biggest problem with 2K games in terms of the actual in-game play, as opposed to all the simulation bugs and so on: guys rated towards the high 90s are cartoonishly overpowered. A lot of people will argue that they should be, but it just takes the biscuit. One tendency I noted with 95+ guys like Jordan, James, Bird, Kareem etc is that they tend to have ridiculous first quarters all the time - 20+ points regularly - and then they cool off until the 4th when they go berserk again. Defence in these games is hard enough without the AI taking the piss.
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Jan 11, 2021 16:33
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I know it goes against your team building philosophy but one of these decades I'd love to see what we could do with one of these high-rating monsters.
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Jan 12, 2021 06:24
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It's not really against my philosophy, so much as "I haven't been fortunate enough to get one quite that lopsided yet." I'm not very good at whatever esoteric sorcery goes into player development. Lots of guys on the Honu have had 99 potential, only never to reach it. Bol, like Sonnet, seemed to max out at 91. Maybe Sonnet goes up more? I dunno. Maybe Morrison goes higher? I dunno! All three are fairly monstrous. I guess the only thing that goes against my philosophy about it is, "when I've had opportunities to get ridiculous players, it was very clearly at the end of their prime, when they've had 50+ million dollar/year deals still." And I don't want to be paying that much money to a guy who might drop 7 OVR in one season. I'm also kind of miserly with guys I have that I like that I think I have a great value on. This has caused the big issue of this soon-to-happen season, where I'll go into the season with 1 "euro"-stash player, an entire roster of guys I don't want to cut/trade/let walk, and then 3 first round picks. We're gonna have to make some sickening decisions.
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Jan 12, 2021 08:32
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How many real world players are left in the league at this point? Probably not much? I just want to know when all the players are game generated.
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Jan 12, 2021 16:48
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There's a few that are no longer on teams after the last set of retirements. The GOAT finally retired, but went a season without a team. I've got... screens for player retirements and some stat grabs. (Retirements will be posted on the update, as always) Shockingly, there's a sole survivor, though. One last real world player actually on a team this season.  (Though, astute readers will look at the stats and realize that while he's in the league, he didn't play a single minute of last season. The real world stars didn't go out with a bang, but with a whimper.) EDIT Jesus Christ, I sorted by age in the other direction and found two players that still had the age glitch going. I somehow doubt the one guy was an 8 year veteran despite being only 19 years old. I talk trash about the elderly draft classes, but maybe the league had the right idea if teams were starting to pick up guys at age eleven. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Jan 12, 2021 |
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Jan 12, 2021 17:34
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I totally get that Torres has been a monster; but man, if he can't even get past the Honu when you're essentially retooling, I think letting him go was the best choice. And oof, the injury bug hit at the worst possible time.
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Jan 15, 2021 01:33
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To be fair, this was one of the years I didn't have to set us as "contending", because the AI looked at our roster and decided we were legitimately contenders already.
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Jan 15, 2021 01:40
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Apologies if late despite having the necessary screen shots for uh, an entire week. My work, which I might not have for much longer (..........not sure if good or bad thing....) has had me on constant overtime, so I'm a little burned out. Chapter 25: 2039-2040 Part 1: Preseason  As stated, the GOAT retired, not even on a team. Leaving with an OVR of 77, equal to his jersey number. Former Honu Finals MVP Darius Garland also calls it a career. I'm a little surprised Sexton didn't retire on a team, either, because he was still pretty drat productive.  Tim Duncan retired a second time. We've been playing for a while.  I'm also surprised Colin Sexton's number wasn't retired with the Cavs, but I guess he never really got too many All-Star appearances? Zion and Doncic both deserved these, clearly. One thing that irritates me: 2k20 Doesn't have Dirk's number retired for the Mavs, because he hasn't had a ceremony yet.  Small hall of fame class, but it takes a lot of oomf to go the same year as the GOAT. Zion's career was rock solid. (As I said, I have screens for Doncic that I'll post as a bonus sometime when my life is not as... uh... precarious.  For now I'll just state that he was a nine time MVP, fully 150% the next most decorated player, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who "only" has 6. A 4 time champion and finals MVP, Doncic made 14 all-star appearances, but only because of injuries or a bad team record. He made 15 all NBA first teams and... hold on a second, can't scroll a screen shot (well I can, but it's a shitload of work)  ...only one All NBA third team. No second teams for Luka. Anyhow, he was also rookie of the year, because duh. And look, Trey Young is great. DeAndre Ayton is actually extremely promising. We won't talk about the real life Marvin Bagley III. Do I think real Luka will wind up this good? No. I don't think anyone is likely to. But holy Christ, did three teams (and especially Sacramento) completely gently caress this one up. This kid was an MVP, not "a starter" not "whatever their all-star equivalent" is, an honest-to-god MVP, as a teenager, in the second best league in the world. Not an "under 20" league. The actual loving Liga ACB MVP. As a teenager. No loving American college team is going to be competitive with the best Euro teams. These are grown-rear end men, many of whom could be rotational guys in the NBA. Or were. Or will be. It blows my loving mind that three teams, three whole teams looked at that resume and said "naw." That's just... the most unimaginably stupid own-goal this sport has produced in like 20 years. How can you justify picking literally anyone else in the 2018 draft? How broke-brained about Euro-ball do you have to be to think this kid wasn't a guaranteed (near!) future All-NBA player and MVP candidate?  The elderly drafts are eliminated, going back down to what we have today. That didn't take very long. I'm a little annoyed by that back court change. In the various playoff games, I watched Aaron Payne force three turnovers from forcing an opponent to step over the line. (And I think another three from forcing an opponent out of bounds. Payne commands space really well as a defender) Anyhow, the backcourt change is immediate, the draft age thing won't really go into effect until after this season.  Bit out of order here, but I wanted to get the draft and free agency at the end of the update. I took this screen because, if you recall, Philly was either last year's all-star game, or the one immediately before that. What's up with that, NBA?  The Honu have a late first round pick, an early second round pick, and a late second round pick. Ugh. Knowing I'm only going to lose Harper (who hates me for no reason!) from my roster, and not wanting to give up any of my players when I just made the drat finals, I make an executive decision to draft without thread input. I apologize, but I want to keep my core together, and without getting any decent value when I offer picks, I determine that there's exactly one strategy for this draft: 1)One, and only one of my players will be a Euro Stash. Because the game is a bugged and broken garbage fire, and while I'm supposed to be able to have three draft-and-stash players, I (and everyone else) can actually only have one. 2)One, and only one of my players will be a regular "I drafted this guy!" pick 3)One, and only one of my players will be a two-way contract. I'd make both second rounders into two-ways, but for some unknowable reason, they have to be taken really late in the second round (I think! I don't actually know what causes this, mechanically) for me to be able to assign a draft pick to a two way contract. Anyhow, By having one of each of these things, I am allowed to go through the draft without tearing apart my roster, which is my primary goal this season. Make sense? I want to say this was the first draft without any trades whatsoever, but I could be wrong. There certainly haven't been many years where that's the case.  The first guy selected makes a strong case toward "Name of the Draft" status, too. He's no Dick Steele, but he could double as both a porn star and an action star, so there's that. This big bodied small forward is one to watch in the future, between his superb size and maximum potential.  Meanwhile, Seattle nabs this guy. He's only tied for the shortest player drafted during this sim, but what's crazy to me is his weight. I'm (me, the human player) actually even shorter than this guy yet still have more muscle mass. Somehow. Unless his body fat was nothing, but he'd look gaunter if that were the case. This guy is gonna get bullied in the NBA.  Jay Hayes is another candidate for "Great name". Just say it. Say it a few different ways. It's fun. Don't try to argue.  Fish and Chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiips. Oh, man. What a great draft for names. Legend.  That height, that vertical leap, and a good wingspan would make this dude really fun to watch, if he were any good. Hopefully he is. Imagine the in game dunks.  Here's our "Euro" stash player I was able to find. Tiggs here is a decent potential power forward, which is... maybe a position of need. He's also got the size to potentially play at center, though it'll almost certainly make his OVR go down a little bit. Australian names in this game are.... I don't know what the gently caress they are. "Racist" certainly isn't the right word. But it's something. They're all weird names. They are weird names. "Boomer" and "Freddy" and "Grimes" and "Tiggs" and on and on. But the thing is, they're by no means particularly Australian. According to the top three heritage/ancestry/genealogy websites if you search surnames, they can't even find an incidence of the name "Tiggs" in Australia. So what the hell, Devs? Why is it there? Well, apparently, a real life player named "Kevin Tiggs" played a season with the Illawarra Hawks in the Aussie leagues. But he wasn't himself Australian. According to his wiki page, he was born in Flint, Michigan. Just.... I don't understand the naming pool here. Just use the American naming pool. Use more than the American naming pool-- or rather, expand the American naming pool, because it doesn't acknowledge Asian dudes. "Nguyen" is a top 20 Australian name these days. Tiggs isn't in the top one thousand.  .....Rant over. At any rate, Freddy won't come over until next year, which may still cause a problem, but it's something I don't have to think about for now.  Here's our You technically make this year's roster pick, a small forward from Duke (gently caress Duke). I like him. He's one Rude Dude. Seems like he projects as a solid 3 and D kinda guy if I remember correctly. I'll have to play him a few games to see if he's any good. We're set on Small Forwards for a while now. I could probably safely trade Kraemer if our season goes to poo poo, or maybe next season if I want out of his contract, as our Rotation is now Kraemer/Wang/Longley/Cameron/Dudley. I'm not sure if I can keep Wang long-term like I would like to, but we have our pick of three promising young players scrapping for that final spot. If we somehow lose both Kraemer and Wang, we're still pretty set here. I'm pleased.  And finally, we get our "I can give this guy a two-way contract" player. Rubens Viana has some real promising size for a shooting guard, which he uses to launch threes over smaller defenders. Apparently, he's a hell of a marksman, but my scouts hadn't actually watched any Brazilian games this year, this was a leap of faith.  Mr. Irrelevant 2039 is Travis Christie from Butler, who, hey, might actually make his team, because it's not like Atlanta even pretends to give a poo poo about its point guard position when the other guard is the best player in the league. Honolulu's free agency was very easy. Are you ready for it?  It's this. This and not picking up the option on Tyronn Harper, who inexplicably hates it here. Whatever. Dude played like, 3 games for us. Andersen and Reeves will probably need decent sized paychecks next year, and Paxson (currently) looks like he'll take a very enticing value pay check next year, so I'm pretty confident I can hold all three guys. It'll make me look hard at rotational pieces like Louie Morgan, BJ Lawrence, and Su Jun Wang, none of whom I want to part with, but I might not have any choice. Luckily, I have 3 first round picks and one promising "Euro" stash player next year. (In Wang's case, my concern is him becoming an unrestricted free agent. Obviously, if he plays like he did last year, I would like to re-sign him, but my gently caress-up in making his contract only 2 years instead of 3 keeps me from being able to offer him a contract extension. It led to him signing for less than he was worth, but I did pay a potential cost here in the risk that he walks) Other free agency moves weren't very exciting, but there were a couple things of note:  The Rockets are absolutely committed to this under 40% shooting empty stats lie of a player.  At least Greene here, while never shooting "good" numbers, at least hovers around 44% for his career. Which is pretty drat reasonable looking at everything else he gives a team, including defense. Actually, with Greene playing next to Niko Sankovic on defense, and the old but still really good Richard Morris running the point, the Magic are a dark horse candidate to make some serious noise in the East after years of mediocrity. You know, if a meteor falls on Radu Constantin.   That's an absolutely terrific value for Lionel Hodges, who was probably one of the best free agents available, but Hodges is a lockdown perimeter defender who struggles with scoring the basketball, but does everything else well. The Clippers are a team that is lead by Bruno Jukic, who you may remember also has an aversion to scoring. This team could have two players get a triple double in the same game, and the team might still score less than 100 points. I have no idea where they plan on getting points. My best guess is the rental point guard Gornev, up there.  Fresh off of winning a championship on the Hawks, but a little chuffed at being a seemingly unnecessary backup to Radu Constantin, Jalen Gardner returned to his Nets, which was enough to convince Todor Szomory to re-sign. This duo was dangerous in the past and could be dangerous again, though they're both a bit older. We were third on the pre-season power rankings, but it got eaten. Assume I posted that and the whole "Honu Endure" thing I usually do, but also eaten was my staff-signing picture: I signed Bol Bol as an Assistant Coach. He's bloody terrible at it. But that's OK, probably. I'm not sure Assistant coaches do anything. Maybe our player development or rotations or something will take a small hit this season. But Bol is a pretty drat decent scout. So next season, when my Scout's contract is up, I plan to slide Bol over to the Head Scout position, and since he's already employed by the team, he should, should be willing to accept the change in career. If not, we might have to consider just... not employing him, because he's seriously a bad coach. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Jan 18, 2021 |
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Jan 18, 2021 20:17
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Veryslightlymad posted:I signed Bol Bol as an Assistant Coach. He's bloody terrible at it. But that's OK, probably. I'm not sure Assistant coaches do anything. Maybe our player development or rotations or something will take a small hit this season. But Bol is a pretty drat decent scout. So next season, when my Scout's contract is up, I plan to slide Bol over to the Head Scout position, and since he's already employed by the team, he should, should be willing to accept the change in career.
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Jan 18, 2021 20:40
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Is it possible to import this dynasty into 2K21? I'm only being partially sarcastic when I say that, just maybe, it's a bit less buggy. I don't even own 21 yet because I always wait for the post-season 90% discount, but you might already own it.
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Jan 19, 2021 00:16
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Unless there's mod tools I have never heard of, no. I would basically have to do the entire roster by hand. I have an idea for a different thread, maybe some day, and who knows what version of 2k or a competitor or whatever will exist by then.
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Jan 19, 2021 01:33
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I hate to do this, but y'all deserve an explanation after a couple of weeks without any kind of notice from me, even though I've been fairly active on the forums: I'm back on Hiatus. There's a bunch of things going on in my life right now that is making me not want to do this, because it's an awful lot of work. I've had some personal tragedy, which is certainly a large part of it, but also, I'm working overtime every week because oh my god how is it that everyone still wants to travel during a loving pandemic what the gently caress is wrong with all of you. This thread is a lot of work, and I'm just too beat up by everything right now to keep up with it with anywhere near the regularity I would like. Updates can take me anywhere from 2 hours to 8. I somehow have 380 hours in this stupid game, to say nothing of time that is spent editing and posting updates. Everything is a mess and I want to come home and turn my brain off.
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Feb 3, 2021 05:42
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No worries
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Feb 3, 2021 05:52
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Don’t worry dude, you made an awesome thread, you don’t owe us anything. When I see you post in other threads I’m not like “hey where’s my update,” I’m like, hey there’s that cool dude, I hope everything’s alright. Sorry to hear you’re having a rough year. Hope it gets better.
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Feb 3, 2021 19:39
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Yeah, I don't want to use it as an excuse but.... I do want to turn my brain off for a while. And I'll come back to it. I won't let this nightmare game defeat me. I also don't think my dad would much appreciate it if I used his death as an excuse to quit something hard, but... mnf. I think he wouldn't begrudge me a break. Work being a long grind from the madness of people trying to travel during a pandemic of 400,000 dead (in just this country!) and then getting mad that the pandemic they are actively contributing to gets in the way of them doing the thing they shouldn't be doing is also.... probably not the best for my sanity.
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Feb 4, 2021 05:30
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Speaking as a reader, I think we'll all understand you taking a break.
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Feb 4, 2021 13:58
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Yeah, take a break. We already owe you for this being such entertainment during hard times, but your obligation is to taking care of your own headspace first. And sympathies, for what they're worth from a stranger from the internet.
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Feb 4, 2021 20:01
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| # ? May 24, 2024 20:32 |
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For Immediate Release Contact: Victor Sakamoto 555/777-6969 Honolulu, HI (January 28, 2040) - The following statement was released today by Vaughn St. Martin, through his personal attorney and business manager Victor Sakamoto, Chairman of Veryslightlymad Management Enterprises, Inc. ("VSM") located in Honolulu, HI in response to questions about his future career plans: "I'm back."
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May 20, 2021 21:15
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