My rant on signature skills

[Sundown]

Quote: Originally Posted by caml17

Highlight Film this is essentially covered by dunk packages

Actually it's more of a tendency to use dunks in a dunk package. And I think there's a morale boost associated with it.

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Spot Up Shooter This is already covered by shooting ratings, and the "spot up" part is combining shooting ratings with the off-the-dribble shooting ratings

Spot up has nothing to do with off-the-dribble rating. It's actually the opposite-- it's a catch-and-shoot bonus.

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Lockdown Defender Covered by on-ball defense rating

As others have noted, Lockdown Defender specifically neutralizes offensive sig skill bonuses. On-ball defense doesn't and I believe only affects staying in front of a player (and basic shot contesting?).

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Tenacious Rebounder There is no reason this can't just a part of the rebound rating.

This affects HOW players get the rebound. I actually think they need more sig skills. David Lee for instance has Tenancious Rebounder which boosts boxing-out, but he never boxes out. Rebounding needs to be split into having a nose and hustling for the ball vs. boxing out, either with separate ratings or sig skills.

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POSSIBLE SIG SKILLS Here are some ideas for possible sig skills that are unique attributes that some players possess, that aren't covered by ratings -Pump fake Players who are good at getting the defender off their feet (Bargnani, Ginobli, Pierce) -Pass fake These players are more effective on pass fakes, they are able to get their defender to bite (Rondo, Nash, Rubio). Pass fakes should not work for everyone -Warrior These players are not as effected when playing through injuries -Rip-through These players are more likely to draw fouls on jumpshots when a defender has their hands in the cookie jar (Durant, Kobe, Wade)

These are good but "Warrior" already exists as a Emotion Badge called "Hardened".

[caml17]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sundown

Spot up has nothing to do with off-the-dribble rating. It's actually the opposite-- it's a catch-and-shoot bonus.

yeah that's what I mean, a good spot up shooter should have high shooting ratings and low off-the-dribble shooting ratings

totally agree, rebounding needs to be split into positional (duncan) and "nose for the ball" (hansborough) ratings.

[Sundown]

Quote: Originally Posted by caml17

yeah that's what I mean, a good spot up shooter should have high shooting ratings and low off-the-dribble shooting ratings totally agree, rebounding needs to be split into positional (duncan) and "nose for the ball" (hansborough) ratings.

A good spot up shooter doesn't necessarily have low off-the-dribble ratings. See Steph Curry. But I would really like them to split up ratings for shot types (assisted vs unassisted, off the dribble vs catch and shoot, wide open vs contested, etc) and use detailed data from STATS and SportsVu. I guess that's what all the sig skills (spot up shooter, corner man, dead eye, shot creator etc.) are supposed to do but I don't think they're applied with deep statistical analysis and there's no granularity with them. There's also the whole problem of raw FG% causing certain players to be overrated-- ie, the Kyle Korver (or Klay Thompson for that matter) being rated higher in 3-pointers than Steph Curry, when their shot difficulty and volume differ drastically.

The pick and roll maestro/roller sig skills are also done somewhat incorrectly. They shouldn't give magical shooting bonuses in those situations. Rather, for the PnR roller, there should be some minuses to catching, moving, and shooting immediately after setting a screen, offset by high hands, mobility, and good finishing ability in traffic for good PnR finishers-- or at least the sig skill should reduce those penalties.

Same goes for the PnR "maestro". There shouldn't be a simplistic magical shooting boost, but a good screen should allow someone with good off-the-dribble shooting or driving ability to take advantage of the screen. With the sig skill, the pass should have more accuracy, take a better angle, or have more zip with the sig skill (I think the first is currently true). Proper ratings probably also make the skill unnecessary.

The Currys of the League run the PnR well because they need to be hard hedged or doubled, and the Lins and Rubios of the league can run the PnR because of their dribble penetration. They all have in common the ability to time accurate passes, but the PnR doesn't work for them just because they get some magical shot bonus. In fact Lin and Rubio are mediocre and abysmal shooters, respectively.

While I like Sig Skills in differentiating player play styles, they are best used for things that are hard to quantify and are intangible. They've kind of turned into simplistic, binary shortcuts to get players to play a certain way without developing more nuanced ratings and getting them to work right. They're better than nothing but not always an ideal implementation.