JR SMITH_5 wrote:wackbone wrote:Welcome!

Hey! Any suggestions/tips? I am extremely excited to get started. I used to play Madden/NBA2K a ton, and pretty much only did Franchise mode/equivalent. This is the closest thing I could find to that sorta thing.
Oh goodness you're asking ME of all people for strategy...

Yeah um.... I'd direct you over to guys like Madness, DerrickNoah, Hopping4Wiggins, Blazer50 and Damecurry for gameplay suggestions/tips.
But but just as a general guideline to follow. We'll have a rules section posted that will explain what's allowed and what's not. You pretty much just do trades, signings, waives/cuts to manage your team. We have playoffs, free agency and rankings. It's pretty simple! The most important things are communicating with your fellow gm's and having fun!
I'm heading to bed now.. thanks for signing up and ttyl.

Hey Jr, at least your self-aware mate.
First off, the most important thing you can do if you want to have fun and especially succeed at this game is dig into the old threads of past GMATs and just look and read through them. This will help you understand rules and gameplay obviously, which is not too complicated but is distinctly different and somewhat more complex than the franchise modes of video games. But more importantly digging through the old games can help you get an idea of trade value and general perceptions. This is the 1st gmat since the new season has started though so values will be very different, but it's important to just get a feel of how the game flows.
Secondly, here's some general advice. You probably already have an idea of what you wanna do, what kind of team you want to build, as you requested specific teams I assume you have plans with them. Stick to them. Pick a direction and pursue it, my biggest flaw that I still fall into in these games is trying to change directions mid-stream. Star power is really prized in these games, it's really hard to get ahold of proven stars and most GMs are interested in either building a contender, or a full rebuild, not anything in between so middling players and solid vets are not valued as highly as good prospects and cap-space. Everyone's going for the big fish whether that's proven guys or high potential guys. Sometimes you can take advantage of this and get a bevy of assets for a quasi-star but you wanna be careful downgrading in this game. The general goal is to just make the best team you can, whether that's a win-now or future team and regardless of the style and personnel. Obviously that's subjective but such is the nature of the game...
Anyway if you wanna do well, send out lots of trade offers, be open to negotiating, follow along with the developments in the forum closely and make sure you understand things like the cap minutiae and FA (free agency) thoroughly. If you don't already know such things Larry Coon's cba Q&A is invaluable, as is basketballinsiders (the general source most of us use for salary information.) Stay organized and be ready to commit a fair bit of time. It's more than a little work but hopefully for you, like me, it'll be way more fun and you'll stick around (I stumbled into these over 2 years ago as a total novice NBA fan and I've played over a dozen since and sign up almost every time a new one comes along, have even run a few myself. They're quite enjoyable.)