The Golden Era | A Golden State Warriors Dynasty (NBA 2K20)

[trekfan]

Like what the Celtics did with that trade -- not sure about the Lakers top pick, they played it too safe I think but maybe Mercer has a higher ceiling than reported. Not sure what's going on in Phoenix (is their starting center due for a new contract soon? Because this screams "Sarver doesn't want to pay" and they drafted a rookie-scale dude to replace him).



Golden State with a solid pickup at SF.

[marshdaddy]

Quote: Originally Posted by trekfan

Like what the Celtics did with that trade -- not sure about the Lakers top pick, they played it too safe I think but maybe Mercer has a higher ceiling than reported. Not sure what's going on in Phoenix (is their starting center due for a new contract soon? Because this screams "Sarver doesn't want to pay" and they drafted a rookie-scale dude to replace him). Golden State with a solid pickup at SF.

One of the reasons I like having the CPU draft is stories like this start playing out where I wouldn't have done that if I were drafting for them. Nice little bonuses that we get.

We need more wings. We're going to need young wings, which will be built out in a later article, but I always feel like you can never have enough of them considering SG and SF are so similar.

[marshdaddy]

[R1zzo23]

Quote: Originally Posted by marshdaddy

One of the reasons I like having the CPU draft is stories like this start playing out where I wouldn't have done that if I were drafting for them. Nice little bonuses that we get.

I was thinking of going 30-team control for the draft I just ran but then thought I would prefer CPU to do their thing and let the narrative play out that way. There was definitely picks made that I never would have made but makes for good story telling.


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[marshdaddy]

[R1zzo23]

Man, some very big, league-altering decisions about to be made in free agency. Can’t wait to see where everyone ends up!

——————

More of a user question: do you use 30-team control for free agency? If so, how do you go about figuring out who is offering what to who? Correct me if I’m wrong, but did you say you use some sort of program/spreadsheet to input players and teams to decide who’s interested and who gets to offer a deal?


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[studbucket]

Caught up after a few days away. Lots of exciting and good offseason stuff. A few thoughts:


Ty Outlaw reminds me of Ty Lawson: quick guard from UNC named Ty. Hopefully he has a longer career than Lawson, although Lawson had some pretty "high highs" before falling off a cliff.

The Bulls are definitely building an exciting young team, they are going to be internet favorites. How good do you think they can be this year? How about in 3 years?

Why did Griffin Hines fall all the way to #23?

The Bucks say they want to help Qualls, but I haven't seen a whole lot of rumors from them so far. Are they just in a bad spot? Or is the best way to get vets to help their young core?

Quote: Originally Posted by R1zzo23

I was thinking of going 30-team control for the draft I just ran but then thought I would prefer CPU to do their thing and let the narrative play out that way. There was definitely picks made that I never would have made but makes for good story telling.

I do 30-team control, but I draft in a way that I think stays somewhat true to the CPU. When I make the picks for them, I go to the selection board and sort players by Percent Scouted.

That puts all the players they have mostly or fully scouted at the top of their board. Then I apply a secondary sort of Overall (which is either a number or a grade) and usually pick the player from the top of that list.

If it's a tie, I use overall and/or team fit as the 3rd tiebreaker. This results in a draft that's different than what I would do, is informed by the CPU scouting (because I have that on CPU control all season) and turns out well. For instance, Jarek Kickert looks like a very "meh" #4 pick for the Knicks in the 2020 draft, he's not the guy I would have picked there, but my "process" led to it.

In case that's helpful.

[marshdaddy]

Quote: Originally Posted by R1zzo23

Man, some very big, league-altering decisions about to be made in free agency. Can’t wait to see where everyone ends up! —————— More of a user question: do you use 30-team control for free agency? If so, how do you go about figuring out who is offering what to who? Correct me if I’m wrong, but did you say you use some sort of program/spreadsheet to input players and teams to decide who’s interested and who gets to offer a deal? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

I used to do something else, but I amended it this year and liked the results much better. Bear with me cause it's a handful of different steps, but I think it makes for a great result. The first part I do for marquee free agents, so 84+, then I do a second one for regular free agents.

I start with doing what I call Likelihood to Leave, or LtL, which uses various factors such as previous season(s) success and roster construction to create a, shocking, likelihood to leave value between 1-20. From there I run a random number generator and if it hits those numbers, the player is definitely going to leave (I do the same thing for players under contract). If it doesn't, it just means that he can still re-sign. (i.e. a player has a LtL of 5, 1-20 random number is 2, player is definitely leaving. If it's a 17, the original team will be in the running)

From there, I do another formula, this time to determine preferences using a similar criteria as LtL, so previous season (only this time) success and roster. Teams get a ping pong ball for every player rated 83+, if they made the conference semifinals, if they made the conference finals, and if they made the NBA finals. So Golden State had six ping pong balls for players 83+, and making the NBA Finals (one ball for each round). The Celtics had five for three players 83+ and making the conference semifinals. But that's four, you're right, I also add some for legacy franchises or super stacked teams.

After every team has their determined ping pong balls, I use TheDominator's random event spreadsheet which I've customized to list all the teams with their correct number of ping pong balls to run the function. The list ends up looking something like:

PHI
PHI
BOS
BOS
BOS
CLE
CLE
CLE
CLE
CHA
DAL
DAL

I run the function 5-6 times (again, depending on how I'm feeling and the player on the table) to get the teams he is interested in.

Then (I know, keeps going) I do a second ping pong ball process to figure out how enticing each team is. This time, every team gets two ping pong balls as starters. After that, they gain a ping pong ball if: the Assistant GM (since GMs don't have ratings) has a Contract Grade of A-B; for every player under contract that is rated 85+, is All-NBA, an All-Star or All-Defense; if they had a top-four record; if they reached the conference semifinals. For GM grade, if the grade is C they get no extra ping pongs, if it's D-F they lose a ping pong. I'll also give some legacy cities an extra ping pong ball or two, like Los Angeles, New York, Miami, etc., depending on the class and how I'm feeling.

After that, I do another run using just those teams. So if a player has Philly, Milwaukee and Cleveland, his list would look like:

PHI
PHI
PHI
MIL
MIL
MIL
MIL
CLE
CLE
CLE
CLE
CLE

I run the function again and the team that comes up is the team he chooses.

For non-marquee players (83 and below), I first look across the league and determine team needs. Then, I'll go player by player and run the third part of the above (using GM grade, record, etc.) to determine where they sign. For non-marquee free agents, to give the original team an advantage and to prevent against constant movement, they get one extra ping pong ball for every season he has played for them.

So, step 1: determine if player is staying/leaving. Step 2: determine his options. Step 3: determine where he's going.

The first time I did it it took a little bit, but it created an incredible result. Players were going to situations that fit them, there wasn't just a ton of re-signing or a mass exodus, and it eliminated me having to make offers by all those teams, I just had to make the one offer and then move on.

If you or anyone else is interested in doing it, I can share the spreadsheet (after free agency, no spoilers) and would be happy to hop in a Google Meet or something to walk you through it. It's made free agency and player movement realistic and (relatively) simple.

Quote: Originally Posted by studbucket

Caught up after a few days away. Lots of exciting and good offseason stuff. A few thoughts: Ty Outlaw reminds me of Ty Lawson: quick guard from UNC named Ty. Hopefully he has a longer career than Lawson, although Lawson had some pretty "high highs" before falling off a cliff. The Bulls are definitely building an exciting young team, they are going to be internet favorites. How good do you think they can be this year? How about in 3 years? Why did Griffin Hines fall all the way to #23? The Bucks say they want to help Qualls, but I haven't seen a whole lot of rumors from them so far. Are they just in a bad spot? Or is the best way to get vets to help their young core? I do 30-team control, but I draft in a way that I think stays somewhat true to the CPU. When I make the picks for them, I go to the selection board and sort players by Percent Scouted. That puts all the players they have mostly or fully scouted at the top of their board. Then I apply a secondary sort of Overall (which is either a number or a grade) and usually pick the player from the top of that list. If it's a tie, I use overall and/or team fit as the 3rd tiebreaker. This results in a draft that's different than what I would do, is informed by the CPU scouting (because I have that on CPU control all season) and turns out well. For instance, Jarek Kickert looks like a very "meh" #4 pick for the Knicks in the 2020 draft, he's not the guy I would have picked there, but my "process" led to it. In case that's helpful.

Not totally sure why Hines fell to 23. It could be that the draft board was wrong about him - I always use JB's order and call that my draft board - so JB could have ranked him higher than the game does. It's worked in reverse a lot, like Ezekial Morrow was supposed to go at like 18, went in the top 10, in-universe I wrote it as a shock and then he ends up being All-NBA. It's nice to write it and be wrong, more realistic.

As for the Bucks, they've made some solid trades in the past two season, adding C.J. Blackwell (SF, 81) and Malik Hightower (PF, 83) using first round picks for the upcoming year, which end up being late lottery. The big mess up was trading a first to Charlotte which ended up being Robert Mack (deal was for Milwaukee to acquire the 23rd pick in the 2027 draft for Denver's 2028 first and Charlotte's 2029). Qualls is probably too good for them to bottom out so they'll need to acquire someone via trade, in all likelihood.