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From my club team's experience, 3-2 zone can be a detriment (compared to M2M) if you're going up against 1 or 2 good shooting guards and the OD on your SF (defender) is shaky, as you basically go from playing a matchup guessing game in M2M to having your worst outside defender get consistently shot on. And it's pretty bad against drives and obviously there's the overall inside defense penalty. So while I don't think it's an awful defense, i don't think it'll make sense in many of the tactical situations we can expect to face.

The research out there on 2-3 seems to suggest that shot blocking is the glue that makes it come together. Our roster isn't strong on shot blocking. Therefore, I don't feel comfortable with 2-3 for our team.

1-3-1 has no practical use in a LI-driven world.

1) I'm running because I feel I have sufficient managerial (in an organizational management sense, not a BB tactical knowledge sense) ability to organize the great rolling circus that is an NT.
2) I think I'm the best candidate because I'm willing to focus on the strengths of our training program (dedicated managers in a position to improve their club team with rounded players and players that are salary efficient but can create mismatches and score points at a world class level), instead of fretting about the weaknesses.
3) Bad breaks in terms of schedule timing & results luck, compounded by RL.
4) I don't think the "problem" needs a drastic fix, as I think the major negative results of last season weren't something directly controllable by the NT manager.

1. Because there needs to be more managers from the offsite in the running.

2. Am I the best candidate? No. But I am on BB night and day and I would do everything in my power to turn the NT around and get back to one of the top teams. Also, our NT is a few seasons away from really being competitive again and I am prepared to take all of the weight on my shoulders. I will take the blame for not being the best NT out there because I know while I am getting blamed for failure that the NT will be getting set up for success in the future.

3. We weren't prepared enough for the future. I feel we felt like we had some of the best players in the nation and it kept us from trying to really get better. We didn't think much about long term a couple of seasons ago and it really hurt us. We are starting to think straight though now and are preparing for the future and that is what it takes to be successful on the NT level.

4. How am I going to fix them? Well, it ultimately comes down to the willingness of owners to train these players as well as keeping the high salary bigs on their teams. The NT manager, whoever it is, can only do so much because we cant control what the community does with the players but i will definitely motivate the owners of players to keep up the training of these players. A lot of people dont really realize that when you have one of these types of players it really helps your team compete.

So if jfarb is the key to bringing about interest in the team and you are hoping he will keep doing the things that he has been doing, then my question is what role to you exactly see yourself playing? Yes as the coach you have to make call ups, final tactical settings, and research opponents, but this is all facilitated through the offsite discussion that the coach participates in.

I notice that part of your platform is that you are wanting to focus your efforts on the NT regardless of the impact on your club team. You are wanting to train bigs to help solve part of our personnel problem, but this could be accomplished without being NT coach. You are very qualified and have a great BB track record over the seasons. You are close to the NT and part of the offsite.

What I'm getting is this: What makes you uniquely qualified to be the NT coach? What do you plan on doing as the coach that will help us reach the ultimate goal of winning Worlds (that you couldn't do if you weren't the coach)?

I appreciate the candid responses.

My ideology is that without jfarb, our community involvement would take a big hit and thus the interest level as a hole would as well. Would it cripple us, no, but it wouldn't allow us to achieve our goal either. Player development is a huge part of reaching our goal and player development is driven by community involvement and the will to invest in the training of World Champion level US players by US managers. I am excited that you are taking this step and looking to help out with the cause. I was not implying that you were just discarding your club team, but I also know that the salaries you are willing to take on can make it challenging to field a roster that will continue the winning tradition of the LMA. However, I do feel like we need a coach that is willing to go out in the community and help the interest in the NT grow. To continue the upward trend of involvement and to encourage those capable of training NT players to do so....and being successful at it. Basically, we need someone with jfarb's skill set in this manner. Is that person out there? I dont know. I appreciate your honesty with this topic. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to draw Joel out of retirement, but I do see what can be accomplished with a bit of luck and lot of work in the community. Was a semi-final appearance mediocrity? I wouldn't think so. Heck being top 8 in the world is pretty darn good, but to get over the hump we have got to reach out proactively to those in the US. If I had the complete answers I would run, but I don't. That's why I'm hoping someone else with this skill set will eventually come to the forefront in future elections.

The above is not me saying, "Coco shouldn't be the NT coach." Also, I am not discounting your experience or track record, conversely I think that makes you a safe choice (whether safe is right or not). I am just expressing what I think is imperative to eventually getting to the next level. If you are elected and do not win worlds in 2 seasons am I going to think your tenure was a failure? Absolutely not. However, the groundwork laid by this coach will definitely affect the ability for the US to win the S22 WC. That's why I am not as worried about the coach making the final call after facilitating tactical discussions as I am about the coach being able to solve long term personnel issues by increasing involvement.

Anyway, that's why I asked the questions. I enjoyed your responses and respect the answers. Very thorough.

I think nother thing everyone needs to think about is that we all have interest in the NT but how come Joel seems to be the one that is "supposed" to get more members on the offsite and work with the community aspect? This should be a team effort ran by both the NT and U21 coaches as well as the group of members already on the offsite. I think that seems to be one of our problems is we come up with ideas to try to get more people to the offsite but we never follow through. I think we need to be more successful as an offsite community promoting player building and involvment on the forums.

I am willing to do whatever is asked of me and I am confident that whoever is elected coach will be a leader in the US BB community. I will assist the new NT coach as necessary in PR, domestic scouting, etc. We will be involving others in the PR aspect this upcoming season, since SpF left we have not really had a real PR program, but we will. I feel there is enough leadership in the offsite community that certain aspects of the NT such as PR, mentoring, etc can be handled by that leadership and by the many great volunteers from the community that we have been lucky to have.

No need to worry about me as far as this debate is concerned.


Last edited by jfarb at 2/9/2012 2:23:06 AM

1- Is it your opinion that there is no counter we as managers/a community can implement against LI, and only BB intervention can change this dynamic?

It would take a massive community undertaking to be able to legitimately challenge LI. We would need players developed that were insanely loaded in outside skills PG-C. In order to challenge some of the top LI offenses in the world we would need a power forward and center, that could defend and rebound with the monster bigs in the world, but also be able to torch them from the outside.

2- If the BB answer your question with something politely along the lines of "It's not our job to continually adjust the game to counter what's currently in vogue, the tools are there and we believe they are in fact balanced, the community will eventually adapt and find its own counter to this, just like it did to OD, etc", then: what next?

Do you have theories on what the counters to LI might be, and how we might implement them as a county? Do we just politely disagree with the BB's and join the LI arms race?

Presumably even if we think we know how to defend a LI it may be a long process to get the right skills and players up to a NT level, just like it took a while for Ps to catch up to OD, but I think there is an important distinction between a NT manager who is playing the big man arms race while biding his time until we're ready to counter inside tactics, and a manager who truly believes there is no counter and only a change in the GE will solve the problem. So I think it'd be informative to hear where each of the candidates comes down on the LI issue.

With what we have right now as far as skills on our players we have a few options

1. We can get our bigs a couple of pops in primary skills to start to contend better with the other monsters in the world.

2. Get a batch of bigs coming that can defend and rebound with the turbatos and tapias of the world and exploit them in R&G type offense (think Alton Johnson on steroids)

3. Get a mix of normal NT guys and some trinket/specialty players that we can deploy against some of the more common matchup problems we face.

I think number 3 is the way to go, however its going to take some time to where we can get there. I know a few managers have talked about taking on the project of developing some of the specialty players which is awesome because as proved by poland, specialty players can pose problems but when push comes to shove the only way to make it successful is to still have the meat and potatoes type guards and big guys as a base and then mix in those specialty players to create the advantage they were designed for.

One other side note on this, if this 10% reduction thing is right we may be looking at a complete different playing field on the NT level in 6-8 seasons. The monster bigs may no longer be possible if having the secondary skills so low affects primary training the way it has been rumored to. Same could be said for the guards. If that is the case the first countries to realize this could dominate for awhile. We need to continue to gather data on the affects this is having on training and then exploit our findings as quickly as we can.