GM/Owner interactions

[daltontr]

As someone who plays strictly as a GM, I'd like to see more interactions with the owner during the season. Like, requests for a budget increase or maybe inputs on a trade that was made, comments about how the team is playing, etc. Also, the owner is too focused on a couple demands. I understand the purpose of the owner demands, but they are a bit myopic and I think it would be great if the owner could see the bigger picture.

For example:
This past season the owner demands were get a four-star player and make a deep playoff run. As far as a four star player goes, there are only 32 four star and above players in the league and they all command $30-40 million per year, unless they are on rookie salaries. That kind of money is virtually a third of the salary cap, which is also something of a conundrum, because the owner hates going over the cap...even a little. I was $283k of my staff budget and a mere $7m over the cap, but the owner was extremely angry?

That doesn't make a lot of sense, because there are only two teams under the cap and they both ended up in the draft lottery with a combined record of 46-118. We had the fifth lowest salary and still won fifty games. Speaking of wins. In the past two season we have gone 105-59 and made it to the second round of the playoffs in both years, but my job security dropped to 80% and now 40%.

I get that the NBA is a "what have you done for me lately" league, but two NBA titles, five Division Titles and a 245-165 record should count for something. That's pretty damned successful if you ask me and it shouldn't get trumped by something as immeasurable as not having a four star rated player and a ubiquitous playoff demand. I just think that if the owner weren't so focused on a couple of demands, it would feel less canned and more realistic. A the very least, it would be nice if the owner got excited about an NBA title or two. ;-)

Just my two cents.

(What exactly is a deep playoff run anyway and why so vague?).

[Gary Gorski]

Well you shouldn't be getting fired if you win the championship - I think that was something I specifically addressed in the code but the point of the challenge mode is just that - its a challenge working for an owner with a specific set of demands. You happened to get an owner who apparently wants one star player to put some butts in the seats and doesn't want you to spend much of anything else on the rest of the team. Now would you or I run a team like that? Of course not - but not every billionaire who buys a team cares about winning nor is every billionaire reasonable - in his world it might be perfectly believable that you could have a team with one star, under the cap and get to the conference finals or something. Again therein lies the challenge - can you build a team like that.

That's why there is a sandbox mode where you don't have to worry about this kind of thing but the challenge mode gives you these unique challenges which maybe forces you to play a little different than you normally would - you might luck out and get a Mark Cuban style owner where you can spend whatever it takes and he just wants to win a championship and that might play right into how you prefer to GM but you have to remember that in challenge mode you're working for the owner and kind of has to do what he wants as with any job.

Also you do have the opportunity to interact with the owner at the end of the season to try and get those goals changed. During your phone call you can try to set his expectations lower for the team or say its going to cost a little bit more on the budget and if he agrees with you then the goals will change for that season.

[daltontr]

I've been thinking about this a lot and I now have a different perspective. I expected the owner to recognize my efforts, but much like the real world, it doesn't always work like that. I just recently quit my job because I simply got tired of being pissed off everyday. I'm fifty-five and have never quit a job in my life. Leadership simply wasn't qualified or capable of performing their jobs. They were inefficient, wasteful and made some really questionable decisions. Like, replacing the production manager with a bail bondsman. Good guy, but he didn't have the faintest idea of how to run a thermal spray/machine shop...but I digress.

In hindsight, my demanding owner is doing quite a good job of emulating real life. I just needed time to come to that realization. My owner is demanding, pig headed and just as ignorant as the people I used to work for. Once I came to grips with that, I realized that just like the real world I either had to give him what he wanted or walk...or eventually be fired.

In the real world I walked, in game I decided to try and give him what he wanted and see if I could keep from getting fired. I did manage to keep my GM position, but I had to ask for more time and I'm 100% certain that if I had not met his demand of a four-star player I would have been let go. Currently, I'm at a lowly 20% job security, but I decided to try your advice and lower his expectations. I told the owner that we'd be a playoff team, which he wasn't exactly happy about, but when I said I'd keep the salary under the cap, he seemed thrilled...and...the expectations changed accordingly. I guess I didn't realize I could manipulate the owner's demands like that. Lesson learned.

Also, I found this kind of interesting. After I initially retained my job, I saved the game and went back to the same moment in time and replayed the scenario. I gave the exact same responses and was fired three consecutive times and retained on the fourth attempt. Seemed appropriate, because I was certain it was going to be a coin flip on whether or not I kept the job.

[Gary Gorski]

I'm glad I was able to better convey what is going on with the owner and that you can see that your interactions with him can impact things... or sometimes not if he's a pig headed stubborn ass