Looking for tips from experienced players

[yrkomm16]

Hello! I recently bought the game, because I am really a fan of manager games. I am Football Manager veteran, but after "The Last Dance" I started to search for it's basketball counterpart. So I am here. Few questions I need an answers for:

1. I don't watch NBA and even Basketball matches, but I know the roles and I have some basic knownledge about the game, but strategic options (for team and for players) are not really informative to me. Can someone explain tactical styles and what some options are doing?

2. What's the point of using "Yell" and "Work" buttons during the match? How to use "Timeout" option efecttivly?

3. Changing tactic during the match is good when I am loosing or it's better to just chill and wait for the final result? FM teached me that statistics can tell me how to answer where I should make changes in tac, bit I dunno is going to help me in this game.

4. Last question - Draft picks. Can I, for example, get multiple picks on one year, if I trade for them with other teams? It's worth to give up on picks to get better players?

Appriecate any help!

[hansmellman]

Hey dude, I am a massive fan of the FM games too and fairly new to this myself i terms of the game but have watched basketball for a few years so thought i'd try to answer some of these for you!

Although i mainly play as GM and leave all the coaching etc to the AI.

1. So as far as 'Offensive strategies' i'll list a brief explanation below :

Balanced
This is a as it says, favouring no approach over another. Suiting players with a wide array of skills.

Pace and Space
Pace and Space is an offensive philosophy that revolves around pushing the ball up the floor as much and as fast as possible, while also spreading the floor with 3pt shooters in as many positions as possible. Suits players who drive and pass/drive and shoot with a supporting cast of players who are able to knock down catch and shoot 3's. This will not help players who are strong in the post and rely on post offense for their game.

Perimeter focus
This is similar to the above but without pushing the ball up the court so fast and also not as detrimental to players who play in the post. Also a higher dose of pick and rolls are used to create shots/mismatches in the scheme. Players with good outside shooting again benefit.

Post Focus
Pretty much as it says, suits teams with strong scoring PF and C, relying on their strength and skill close to the basket to get the team going offensively. This tends to be a slower form of play too.

Grind
This is the grit n grind style, the slowest form of offense with an emphasis on ball movement, favouring no particular shot location just the best available to be taken. Less driving by players and more ball movement, helps to have good passers.

Seven Seconds
An offense made famous by the Suns under Mike D'Antoni, this is the fastest in terms of pace of all the offense, as the name would suggest, the idea being that a shot would be taken within the first seven seconds of the possesion. The point guards job is to drive the ball up the court and either get a shot off himself or commit a couple of defenders and then kick it out to a shooter waiting on the perimeter. When the Suns used this in real life they started using smaller players to play in their front court too, to aid the speed of the game. So it suits PG's who drive and score/pass with high IQ preferably, like Steve Nash. Then good shooters/rebounders.

These are my understandings of these offense based on the sliders shown below them in the game and also what i understand from 2k and my basketball knowledge anyway, so it may not be to the letter but thats the gist of them all.

2) I never play as coach, so im not sure about the 'shouts', timeouts are generally used when you want to make a change if a player is tired before their rotation change is coming up but the real reason to use them is to halt opponent momentum and to gain court position late in game.

3)Im not sure if about changing strategy during actual games but its worth keeping an eye on your stats to see what they tell you about the tactic you are playing. If you have a great player in the PF or C spot offensively but you are playing something like 'Seven Seconds' their stats should show that they are not as effective in this offense and it may be worth considering on that suits that attributes better. Same thing for perimeter players, its all about looking at their attributes and comparing it to their production shown in the statistics, if you've got a player with great attributes but his stats are not looking very good, maybe its time to change it to an offense that suits him better.

4) Yes, you can make trades for more than one draft pick. Teams use picks all the time as capital in trades for players and even for picks themselves. If your team is not playing well and you finish with a poor record, your team will have a higher draft pick which will be worth more value and the opposite for a well performing team. In terms of it being worth trading picks for better players, it really depends on the draft that year and how you view the talent that is coming in Vs whats already available in the league. Just think of it as players in the league being more of a 'known quantity' and players coming in through the draft being more of an 'unknown quantity' that can work both ways though and be good or bad! So it's all up to how you view each situation and most of the stuff ive learned is through just making trades or drafting players and learning from my mistakes/successes!

Anyways, hope that helps somewhat.

Tom