Build a Franchise (Season 9) Discussion Thread- Announcement on pg. 56

[mpharris36]

Speaking Cling Kong as the 112 DEF player into existence

You got a stud in Jalen Johnson man.

[Strick]

Speaking Cling Kong as the 112 DEF player into existence

You got a stud in Jalen Johnson man.

He’s so fun to watch. He was great last year before he got hurt. This stretch of play without Trae has been pretty special. Looks like he’s taken another leap!

[Busta Bucket]

There's a good chance Davion gets a bump next season now that he's actually getting time and playing well.

Coming into this season he'd played nearly 7k NBA minutes (22 mins/game) and had a reputation since college, and yet I have 4 rookies (including 2 2nd rounders) who have higher DEF ratings. There are other weird ones too; Andrew Nembhard is a 60! A bunch of randos who are not known for their defense have DEF ratings in the mid-60s and above (*ahem* CJ McCollum ). I can only assume that either the programmers were drunk or that DEF rating doesn't mean exactly what we think it does.

[Capn'O]

DEF ratings in the mid-60s and above (*ahem* CJ McCollum )

This is helpful marketing. Thank you.

[Fat]

Who needs defense when you have offense!

[bishnykfan]

TRANSACTION

The Los Angeles Lakers have agreed to sign Daniss Jenkins for $1/4 years.

[bishnykfan]

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The Golden State Warriors have agreed to sign Torrey Craig for $1/1 year.

[bishnykfan]

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The Golden State Warriors have agreed to sign Daniel Theis for $1/1 year.

[Capn'O]

Bad news. Matt Hurt is no longer available. Potential candidates for Mecca's team to make roster:

Trentyn Flowers <---- Self explanatory funny name
Braxton Key <---- Mecca is probably a fan of Toni Braxton - I mean who isn't - so he'd particularly like this one
Zyon Pullin <---- When Zion Williamson lifts weights he is:
Trevelin Queen <---- Self explanatory funny name
RayJ Dennis <---- This name keeps getting funnier the more I look at it. Why is the capital J there? Potential relation to Rachel "RayGun" Gunn???

[bishnykfan]

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The Milwaukee Bucks have agreed to sign James Johnson for $1/1 year.

[bishnykfan]

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The Milwaukee Bucks have agreed to sign Jae'Sean Tate for $1/1 year.

[bishnykfan]

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The Portland Trailblazers have agreed to sign Jamison Battle for $1/1 year.

[bishnykfan]

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The Portland Trailblazers have agreed to sign DJ Carton for $1/1 year.

[bishnykfan]

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The Portland Trailblazers have agreed to sign Alex Len for $1/1 year.

[bishnykfan]

We have this talk all the time when the ratings drop about what they mean. I will say that ratings do fluctuate throughout the year based on play style, teammates and how well a team/player seem to be playing. They don't move a lot but the ratings at the end of the year are slightly different then what they start at. Best guess on my end is that this is based on the reasons stated above. I believe that a player with a higher potential has the ability to level up higher throughout the course of the year if they play well enough and are put in the proper position to succeed.

As for the initial rankings...here are a few words from Gary himself on how things are determined. It will never be perfect but in the end it is the system we have...and it has been pretty accurate these past eight years.

Spoiler:

First on the ratings they are all done from statistical calculations. I do not set any ratings for any players. I don't know why you are saying Jokic is represented as an elite defender in the game. According to what I am looking at he's rated as an 85 for defense, 42 for shot blocking and 80 for stealing. There are 20 players rated higher than him on defense. Guys like Wembanyama are the elite defenders in the game. I would also argue that Jokic is a very good defensive player which is what he is represented as. Just because he is not a freak athlete does not make him a bad defender. If you look at NBA career leaders in defensive box plus/minus you will Jokic is rated 2nd all time. https://www.basketball-reference.com/le ... areer.html

Gordon grades out as a 69 overall which is a "decent starter". Now this season he has been off to a better than average statistical start. He's averaging 20 PPG (although slightly skewed because its 8 games and he dropped 50 in the first one) vs 14.7 and 13.9 the years prior and somehow he's shooting 92% from FT and 46% from 3. Well above his prior averages and it looks like Cam Johnson is not simply going to be a different version of MPJ - Johnson has been a big disappointment so far while Gordon has picked up the slack. In a couple weeks I will do a roster upgrade to take into account how things are looking for this season in addition to the past. Its never an exact science to know how significant changes to a team will impact players or what kind of leap players young players will make (like for example an Ajay Mitchell who has been very good for OKC playing in every game when last year he only played 36 games and for 16 mpg)

Rating the players from stats gives a reasonable way to rate the entire league with no bias. If you would like to rate all the players and submit them to me we certainly can provide people that version of a roster but I don't feel there is an issue with how the ratings are generated so I'm not going to be changing it to do it all individually.

Also please do not take this the wrong way but I don't care what ESPN says. According to their list Derrick White is ranked higher than KAT, Maxey, Trae, Embiid. They ranked him 26th with Jaylen Brown 19th - you would think with two virtually top 25 players Boston would not be 6-7 at the moment. The ringer top 100 has Alex Caruso a spot ahead of Austin Reaves. In what universe is someone taking Caruso over Reaves? But this is why I held off on adding OVR ratings to the game for so long because they're really meaningless in the game and people get stuck on them. They literally don't matter. If in the game you have the Thunder then Caruso IS a better player for you than Reaves because you don't need what Reaves does - you need what Caruso does. That is the brilliance of this game - roster construction matters and players can play a role and it is not just the 5 highest OVR players will win.

I also do not know what more I can say about Jokic as a defender. If you think he's a bad defender you are free to change his rating but he's not. Is he going to stop SGA on a drive 1 on 1? Probably not - but if that is your criteria for a good defender virtually everyone in the league is a poor defender. I'm sure you would say Caruso is a good defender - how well will he defend Wembanyama in the low post? Wemby won't even have to jump to dunk on him. Does that make him a below average 1 on 1 defender?

It is not an athleticism rating - its a measure of the ability to positively or negatively impact things on defense and he's very good statistically and realistically at impacting things on the defensive side in a positive manner.

You can also edit Gordon if you feel he is too low. As I said when I update the ratings he is likely to get a bump to account for more of an offensive role since he seems to be the third option filling the MPJ role and not Cam Johnson who I would then drop in his ratings. I don't personally think Gordon is a top 50 player but the ratings aren't my personal bias - its stats telling a story and highlighting how strong or weak each player is in specific categories. That is what matters in the game engine - OVR is simply a displayed number from a statistical formula based on the ratings (and obviously as you can tell skewed towards scoring)

I do understand what you are saying about having 15 Jordans but that's a rather extreme example as there are no teams that have 15 Jordans or anything close to it and I pointed out Mitchell myself saying he would get a boost in an update because he's proving to be better than he was last season. I don't believe that he was this good of a player last season and OKC just decided they didn't want to play him for some reason. Generating the ratings from stats gives a great starting point for every player - then when I see players who are much better than the prior season (or worse) I can adjust but for the vast majority of the league its going to give a very accurate representation. Same for the rookies - nobody has any idea how good they're going to be or not be so I estimate what I think will happen and then adjust once I see some real data.

The top X lists are not based on anything objective. It's someone's opinions on what they see or what they think. At this point I think you can argue Wemby is the 2nd best player in the league in terms of just talent but is it him? Is it Luka? I don't think its Giannis but some will argue it is. If the best means one game to win who will win it could it be Lebron still? What is the right answer and how do we agree on that when its just an opinion? But again the OVR rating doesn't matter so I'm not concerned in terms of ranking players 1-600. Stats are at least somewhat objective. Are some bench guys better than the numbers show because they don't get enough time? Maybe - but in most cases their numbers are what they are because they aren't any better. A guy might get more PPG with more MPG but then would probably shoot a lower percentage in a bigger role. Payton Pritchard is a good example. More of an opportunity this year and suddenly his 3% is under 30 when he was a 40% 3 point shooter last season. Its a different game without Tatum there to draw the focus of the defense. There is no perfect way to rate players but I'm happy with the way I do it and at the same time I leave the game open so everyone can make their own edits or even their own roster files to make things the way they feel they should be.

[bishnykfan]

Ratings (Released so far)

OVR

1. Nikola Jokic- SA 100
2. Victor Wembanyama- Tor 97
2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander- Cha 97
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo- GS 97
5. Anthony Davis- Det 96
5. Luka Doncic- Det 96
7. LeBron James- Chi 94
7. Domantas Sabonis- Cha 94
7. Karl-Anthony Towns- Mia 94
10. Jayson Tatum- Cle 93
11. Zion Williamson- NO 91

Spoiler:

There are four additional 90+ rated players

SCR

1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander- Cha 100
1. Giannis Antetokounmpo- GS 100
3. Nikola Jokic- SA 99
4. Luka Doncic- Det 95
5. Victor Wembanyama- Tor 94
5. Anthony Edwards- Cha 94
7. Jayson Tatum- Cle 92
8. Jalen Brunson- LAC 90

Spoiler:

There are three additional 90+ rated players

DEF

1. Walker Kessler- SA 101
2. Alex Caruso- SA 100
3. Kristaps Porzingis- NO 99
4. Anthony Davis- Det 96
4. Amen Thompson- Tor 96
6. Draymond Green- Tor 95
7. Chet Holmgren- Det 92

Spoiler:

There are five additional 90+ players (3 that are 100+)

[Capn'O]

We need to send that response to Yelling Guy

Watch on YouTube

Ratings (Released so far)

OVR
2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander- Cha 97
7. Karl-Anthony Towns- Mia 94

Dang. Always a year late.

[mpharris36]

We need to send that response to Yelling Guy

Watch on YouTube

Ratings (Released so far)

OVR
2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander- Cha 97
7. Karl-Anthony Towns- Mia 94

Dang. Always a year late.

KAT was a all-star starter year he had a legendary offensive season. His defense wasn't good which got reflected but he had a monster offensive year for the Knicks last year.

[Capn'O]

We need to send that response to Yelling Guy

Watch on YouTube

Ratings (Released so far)

OVR
2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander- Cha 97
7. Karl-Anthony Towns- Mia 94

Dang. Always a year late.

KAT was a all-star starter year he had a legendary offensive season. His defense wasn't good which got reflected but he had a monster offensive year for the Knicks last year.

Sure. And I would have loved to have kept that pairing together.

[bishnykfan]

Teams should also be sending in their coaching strategies if they want to custom them. Otherwise, the sim will determine strategies.

Spoiler:

Team Offense:
1. Balanced
2. Pace & Space
3. Perimeter Focus
4. Post Focus
5. Grind
6. Seven Seconds

Team Defense:
1. Straight - (Basic man to man defense with no adjustments)

2. Switch - (Pick and Rolls will be switched nullifying the pick and roll while possibly leaving a poor matchup)

3. Attack - (Defenders will attack the perimeter helping to reduce three point attempts and allowing for more drives to your interior defense)

4. Passive - (Defenders will protect the paint area more by sagging off defenders. This will reduce drives and post passes but allow more outside shots)