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Its not arithmetic that i'm arguing... I have a theory that I'm testing with Cottrell... thats why i say as of now no.

if there's some new theory you've got, that's a different point. excluding things like elastic effect/cross-training/new theories that can make training effects non-linear, coco is right... training fits squarely into the linear systems analysis world of math/engineering.

now, what can change is the number of weeks you have to play a guy out of position on the way to those goals (doing the out-of-position training later means you devote more weeks to it). which certainly makes it harder for you club team. so to make this a question-- given this point, there's a trade-off for club teams for when to work a guy's secondaries:
(1) early (fewer out of position weeks, delayed salary increases, but longer until they become good)
(2) late (pay an expensive guy to play out of position, which may not be a huge problem with defensive switches)

which strategy would you recommend to managers who draft potentially valuable trainees? #1 obviously hurts the u21 to some degree, so do you have separate instructions for NT prospects vs u21 ones, as magiker alluded to? or do you think one of these is unequivocally better?

What is your suggested fix? FYI, in case you are questioning the fact, Bronson sold for 500k more than a nearly identical player the day before and 1M more than a similar (but higher-salary) player within the same week: bitching about this is well justified.

Deductive reasoning time!

It's a fairly well accepted fact that home country NT players cause a merch bonus equal to 15-20% of their salaries when they play serious minutes. So, for Bronson, that's $45-60k per week.

My experience as I've converted from mostly foreign to about half and half suggests that baseline merch is also improved by having US based players. My baseline merch has gone from ~10% of team salaries to ~15% of team salaries, and it's my understanding that Machines (darykjozef) is near 20% in my league, without any NT players (darky, please correct me if I'm wrong). So, that data seems to suggest that just being a US player causes up to 10% of their salary in merch bonuses, or an additional $30k per week for Bronson.

So, depending on how you want to estimate, Bronson pays back his extra transfer cost compared to a foreign player at a rate of $45-90k per week. At $500k extra cost compared to a "nearly identical" foreign player, this implies a payback window of 6-12 weeks.

So, it seems logical to me to conclude that if you think a $500k extra cost is too much to buy Bronson instead of buying foreign, then what you're *really* saying is that, even for an NBBA team, a monster guard isn't worth keeping for a full season. So, if that's the case, how are we ever supposed to expect that our monster players are going to stay in good GS? Should we really sink all of our eggs into a strategy that apparently will only pay out if we can get the entire NBBA to make a gentleman's agreement to be salary inefficient and lug around NT monster players? (And simple game theory points out why that will be rare at best -- such a gentleman's agreement is basically a Prisoner's Dilemma with no enforcement mechanism between players, so the players should all be expected to "cheat" and avoid the monsters).

I am very glad that Southpaw, Azariah, Smallfrie and others joined the race for the NT because of the great debate that is materializing. It may seem like a pissing contest but these are topics and debates that are vital to the growth of the USNT. I would just like to thank all of you for participating as it will be very beneficial for our future.

My question may be time consuming, but I'm going to ask anyway.

What skills will be required (in a starting 5) to compete for a Worlds gold? Yes I know luck goes a long way, but give me the skill sets, salaries, and type of offense they will be geared to in order to allow us to compete. Also include a description as to why these players wold allow us to compete. Since it is only 5 I am encouraging you guys to build a team suited to the offense/defense you deem most advantageous for us to be successful. Include why you feel these players are financially sustainable as well.

Yes I know there are far more variables, but I am very curious what skills you guys think are necessary to get over the hump.

I am very glad that Southpaw, Azariah, Smallfrie and others joined the race for the NT because of the great debate that is materializing. It may seem like a pissing contest but these are topics and debates that are vital to the growth of the USNT. I would just like to thank all of you for participating as it will be very beneficial for our future.

This.

Speaking in generalities primarily over a concern of keeping specifics to the offsite...

My hope would be to build a "tactic neutral" team offensively that has a pretty good cross-section of JS, DV, and IS at all five positions. Defensively, I think we need a good representation of ID at SG and SF, and as much OD as we can get lucky to draw on our PFs and Cs.

Overall, I think one of the NT coach's biggest roles is to shape and guide the discussions that develop the training vision for the NT community. But I'm gonna hafta weasel out and say I haven't really completely developed my vision much beyond a strong belief that monsters are both not required and detrimental to the future of the NT & its community.

Valid point.

If all of you post on the offsite is that against election rules?

Anyhow, let me ask a less strategic question. What skills have we been under utilizing that may allow us to compete with the best in the world? Also, I am very intrigue by SM's view on ID. Do you agree or disagree and why?

These are for all candidates.

I couldn't disagree more. (I've actually had this argument with wozz back in season 17: we were discussing whether or not SM should buy a C or a guard for the B3 elimination round (SM ended up buying a guard, I thought this was a mistake and wozz was on the fence: I think it clearly proved to be a mistake))

SM's strategy is to shut down your team with OD. This works with most NBBA teams, but the thing is: enough passing, and you can work around the monster OD: so you are left with soft interior defending. It hasn't worked all that well against top tier inside teams (though there is some room for debate here), and it doesn't work *at all* against national teams.

Outside of the brief period where I bought a guard for B3, only to waste his skills playing LI in the hopes I could draw VS into playing man to man, I've always maintained a salary under 700k, lately around 650k. Generally I've held an average to below average salary in the NBBA. I don't feel that most would consider that top tier. Yet, I've won two cups and managed to twice make it to the B3 elimination round (coming in 8-0 as the 5th seed in my B3 debut), without ever having owned a player that has more than prominent ID. There's no doubt that my team would improve if my bigs had more ID, but in my view it isn't an efficient use of resources.

As for the strategy, my long term plans for my team design (when I'll have a salary more on par with top teams) won't be complete until midway through season 21, so until that point I'm more concerned with saving money than competing with the elite LI teams of the world. Anything above that this season will be a bonus.

That said, there's no reason to minimize the collective salary of an NT, so my philosophy on ID is irrelevant. I will say that high ID/SB on our guards, what you might expect to see on a SF, would be extremely useful in stopping LI.