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What are your thoughts on shot blocking? What is your acceptable minimum and maximum? Does it vary by position?

My players don't have much shot blocking overall, but I do view it as an underrated skill. I find it's especially useful for guards and small forwards, because of the minimal effect it has on their salaries. It would be interesting to see what a guard with 20 OD and 10+ SB could do defensively.

As for big men, I view inside defense as a poor use of salary for my team, so naturally I don't have high shot blocking on my bigs either. However, it seems to be an important defensive skill. In addition to blocking shots, shot blocking can alter shots. This may mean that shot blocking could push an attempted shot below a given threshold, and turn what would have been a made shot into a missed one. I've also heard shot blocking is important in running an effective 2-3, so there's certainly some value in having good shot blocking.

I think it's worth buying guards with decent SB, and it's useful, though expensive, for bigs to have. Exact levels would vary by level of competition and how you're building your team.

Last edited by SM at 8/30/2011 10:35:11 AM

I view inside defense as a poor use of salary for my team.

Obviously in the NBBA you're talking about different levels than the rest of us. However, given the popularity of look inside offense, how do you stop it without high inside defense? Are you a proponent of the guards using their high OD to disrupt offensive flow?

In terms of salary management, it seems that ID, OD and passing are the places you really can't avoid spending on. The rest depend on how you build your team. I'd appreciate hearing advise from an NBBA team how ID fits into this. Thanks.

I just re-read the thread and saw your earlier post.

Last edited by Captain P-Dog at 8/30/2011 12:44:12 PM

OD is really a powerful skill against the look inside offense. It forces turnovers, it causes big men to get bad looks, it leads to last second shots from guards, and so on. Stopping outside scoring threats and preventing good passes inside takes away a lot of points. Not to mention that tactics slowly adjust throughout the game, so while the bigs may shoot very well early on, it usually evens out to around 50%. When the rest of your team isn't scoring, that's just not enough offense.

By neglecting inside defense, I gain rebounding and inside scoring, which allows for more possessions and more players that can score. I find that to be more valuable, especially considering how expensive it would be to have relevant ID on my bigs.

Thanks. To nail this down, I have starting bigs with ID of 14 and 12. Backups with 12 and 10. You would say no more ID training for them, right?

So assuming they have similar IS and rebounding skills, would you continue to train those areas, or focus on driving/passing/whatever for your inside players.

Given the ages of my players, I'm strictly in training bigs mode.

It's worth pointing out that for this strategy to work, you need to be able to post OD ratings that are *significantly* higher than your opponents' offensive flow rating. The reason heathens and SM have been able to pull this off is that they have/had multiple 20+ OD defenders, and passing has been relatively undervalued among high level players/clubs. I think if the rest of the NBBA started playing multiple 15+ PA guys, you'd see this strategy take a big hit. Problem is, those guys are hard to find, and harder to pay. They exist (and end up on national teams, which is why this strategy hasn't worked very well at the NT level, despite it being pretty easy to start 2 or even 3 20+ OD guys), but they're not yet prevalent enough to over come those massive perimeter defense ratings.

It's hard to put an exact number on it, but my guess is that for this to work consistently and effectively, you need to be able to put up a perimeter defense rating about 1.6-2x what your opponents puts up for flow, while playing m2m.

Thank you for the details. Just training more ID to counter other teams training more IS seems zero-sum. It seems that going against the flow is a path to long-term success and this tactic is intriguing.

That's probably sufficient ID for division III (of interesting note, you're in the same league that the Heathens and I once were), so for now I wouldn't worry about training it much higher. Since you're training bigs, those should be your main source of offense, so I would see IS and rebounding as a higher priority, and training secondaries is a great way to make your players more salary efficient and valuable on the TL.

I'd imagine there are several unique strategies that could have a lot of success, but most teams lacks the funds, time or creativity.

For example, one could design a patient offense with an offensive small forward (high JS/JR/DR/IS), and then buy a few high OD true point guards and some defensive bigs that could rebound and pass. A team like that would be great defensively, have great flow, an offense that would be a nightmare for most teams to stop, and be very efficient for their salary.