Transfers

[chrismarieault]

Maybe a suggestion but I would have weekly or monthly reports about a player being unhappy about his minutes or maybe talking about family or people in his ears telling him he should get more minutes. Little hints throughout to give you the ability to upped his minutes to show you are committed to him. Especially an update weeks or months later if the player is happy or not about the turn of events.

[jfsolo23]

Here is my take on the first example above (just how I explain it to myself):

If I have a player rated as high as you mentioned and is a rotation player, but still only picks up only 6-10 minutes per game, then he leaves during the transfer portal. My thought is that he has people in his ear throughout the season, parents, friends or others telling him he should be starting. At some point, he listens to those people and decides to transfer. Not much I could do about it, but without penalties of the past of sitting out, the player just decides to move on.

It is one of those things that will never make sense to me in the real world, so .....

I totally agree with this, it's actually realistic for a lot players to work hard, not show any outward/public signs of unhappiness and quickly bolt at end of the season. It doesn't matter what they said during the recruiting process, all players want to play a lot, some will still be patient but these days quite a few players will not be willing to wait, and even if they are likely to get big minutes next year, they will still leave because of not playing enough the previous year.

I know that because it's a game a lot of folks want more clear indicators of the players unhappiness, but IMO it's a better game for there to be a very large degree of uncertainty/ambiguity.

[ezcar]

JHopkins.

Good post. Should be able to follow logic for the most part. I couldn’t imagine the coding to get that stuff 100% correct. But, even if that is 75%. Kids will be kids and act without logic. Some may just think grass in greener on the other side, saw a cute gal at that school, a friend goes there. Or just see writing on the wall.

A long way to say I see both sides.

[FredHoiberg]

This is a GREAT thread and I think its awesome how Gary takes the time to read our thoughts, digest them and respond. Good luck finding that anywhere else. Wolverine Sports truly is the best.

Here is my two cents on the transfer market.

I agree with above post about a monthly email updating and to "give us warning" would be nice.

OR, I feel like this would work.

In the NFL or MLB, during games, you get a limited number of challenges. In this game, why not a limited number of direct messages - let's say ONE per season - where you can send a "hearfelt note of encouragement" to the player with words of affirmation, encouragement, saying you are a big part of my plan, I can't wait for next year, please stick with me, etc."

Wouldn't that be cool - only getting ONE per season and having to choose the player you want to send to? Hopefully this would be the type of thing that would instantly boost their coach relationship by 25 points or something. Nothing that's a guarantee but gives you a much better shot of keeping a kid you want in the program and are worried about transferring.

Would add a nice bit of strategy on deciding when to use it/and on who, too.

I think this - along with the monthly email update on guys mentioned above - would be all that's needed.

As is, I think it's 80% perfect - I think this gets it closer to 100%.

Thoughts?

[Gary Gorski]

High 3 star, 250-350 in ranking. Playing time was his lowest concern while being recruited and on his player card as a freshman was "not concerned at all" about playing time. His parents weren't involved in the recruitment. During the season he played back up minutes, his coach and team relationship was at or near 100% throughout. He was involved in zero incidents. Then he transfers for more playing time. How am I, as a coach/leader of the program, supposed to know there is any concern?

I do agree about wanting some kind of information point delivered that maybe this player could transfer and I will have to see how I could effectively do that. On this particular case one thing I am interested in is who was in front of him? Not concerned with playing time is one thing if its a really good team and he is behind a really good player. But if the team is not good and/or the guy in front of him isn't that great even a not concerned with playing time guy is going to ask himself what is going on here - why does this guy play instead of me when he sucks and we keep losing.

If this is a case where it was a good team and he had a good player in front and then transferred because of PT maybe something fired wrong in a code check there but I am curious to know what the situation was to evaluate that.

[JHopkins19]

Hi Gary! My apologies on the delayed response. To answer your question, he was a freshman behind a senior. Roughly the senior got 30 min at PG and he was the primary backup with 10 mpg. He also played the 2 guard periodically. He would have been the starting PG as a sophomore.

As I’ve said a few times, the game is phenomenal, and appreciate your active engagement and overall conversation.

Happy to answer any other questions!

[RGSchulzy16]

The portal opened today and on the first day with a bunch of teams still preparing for postseason play 170 players already entered. I have already dialed the game back compared to what the number of real life transfers are and I really don't want to dial it back more (especially since the old method exists as an option still). It really adds a specific dynamic to the game where its an immediate rebuild option and in order to do that it needs a fairly realistic number of players.

Let me address your example - rising sophomore who is playing 10 mpg...if this kid has NBA potential you've absolutely already killed his draft stock because two seasons in and he's only a backup playing 10 minutes? Most scouts would feel he's obviously not good if he's a backup after two years still. Also who are you recruiting? If you've recruited someone with pretty much similar potential he's seeing a position battle with someone two years younger so while it might be your intention he starts how does he know he can trust that when he's hardly played so far?

Sometimes the transfer logic is harsh because you have a plan to develop a player and the players for the most part don't want plans to be developed. They want opportunity yesterday and a quarter of the game just isn't going to cut it.

I don't want to reveal the actual logic or what metrics you need to hit to increase your chances but definitely if you want to improve your chances of not losing kids you have to play them more - maybe they're not ready for it but the players think they are in most cases so you might have to try and get creative with ways you could protect a weaker guy on the floor or get him in minutes that probably won't do much harm or things like that.

As for recruiting guys back...I am not aware of this actually happening much (if it all) so far in the transfer portal. If you have some numbers to show that this is happening I will certainly look as an opportunity to add it in but so far it seems when players decide they leave, they leave.

Given there is already an option to turn it off. I’d rather this be scaled up rather than scaled back down. The portal is going crazy daily and shouldn’t this transfer portal option be the realistic one. As I just said the players that don’t like it can still use the old system?