Potential

[d.flipside]

I love making my own draft classes but I'm having trouble with some of the ratings. Some of the rookies improve way too quickly. I wanted to know how the potential rating works, right down to the numbers.

[nogster]

the default ratings for a lot of players were too high.

i went over every player for the O.S outsiders roster.
tested and repeat...till the results were satisfactory.

remember potential doesnt only affect the players rating progression.
it also affects their trade value.
however, a young player with high potential. is more valuable than a higher rated veteran with similar potential ratings.

here is the scale i used generally speaking.

90+ : franchise players or geniune future superstars...only a select few should be this high.
kobe, lebron, wade, durant, dwight, rose, paul,....... dirk, nash, duncan, KG,[because of their age]
the younger guys could very well max or near max as their careers progress so you dont need rose, durant or paul or dwight high 90s. low 90s is certainly high enough.
only the bonafide greats should be maxed. [lebron and kobe]
for the record, blake griffin is 90 and even then i think thats a bit generous.

80-89: superstars. their stock is still high, and their ratings progression still very good. players mid to high 80s depending on age could probably get to the 90s in overall in a few seasons anyway. so be selective.

70-79: good players but not great players...a lot of these players rated high 70's [depending on age still have the chance to get mid to high 80s ratings]

60-69: these guys wont really improve much beyond their original rating.

50-59: scrubs. or players with really low trade value.

its better to be conservative than generous if you want realistic player progression.
so only give players a potential of 80 or more if you are sure they will have a long and prosperous all star careers.

[d.flipside]

So when making draft classes, my base are:

1x 90-99 Superstars
1x 80-89 All-Stars
2x 70-79 Fringe All-Stars
10x 60-69 Starters
rest 50-59 Role Players

I fluctuate those numbers every draft class
some years I make 2x Superstars and 2 All-Stars, some years I don't make a Superstar ... etc.

I also use a correlation between Age and both the
awareness ratings. Which makes sense in real life where the younger the player, the lower the basketball IQ one has. This will keep their overall rating low so their peak overall isn't too high or too low.

Age -> O. Aware + D. Aware
18 -> 100
19 -> 110
20 -> 120
21 -> 130
22 -> 145

The biggest problem is that I did some simming and I noticed the rating that gets the largest increase are the Offensive Awareness and Defensive Awareness. The other ratings only raise 5-6 points from rookie year to peak year.

I gave LeBron a 99 potential but at his peak his shooting ratings are still mediocore.
3pt Rating: 75 -> 77
Medium Rating: 80 -> 82

In 2k8, there was a coaches slider to boost a single area of ratings, this is no longer present in 2k9 so all ratings increase together and you can't choose a single area.

I really wish in 2k10 they work the potential ratings so that it's dynamic based on some variables such as injuries, playing time etc. or even add bust rating. I really hate how the potential rating is set in stone. You know Derrick Rose will become a 90-95 overall player all the time.

The tendancies are also a mess. 2K needs to also add more dynamics to these also. As ratings
increase so should their tendancies. For Example:

block rating = contest shots tendancy

[Vyaras]

If a player is 29 years old or older, you can drop his potential rating to 50. Once a player hits 29, the potential rating no longer has any effect, their value (contract...for the most part/trade) is based solely off of their overall rating & age.

[d.flipside]

Is 29 years old their peak? I always thought it was 30

[Vyaras]

Pretty sure it's 29 now. Think it was 30 a few years ago, though.

[infam0us]

Does 2k even edit the potential rating, busts like Marcus Williams and Gerald Green have still high potential which makes them difficult to sign for cheap.

To be fair though the entire salary system with the 2k ratings, Nate Robinson was making max money in one of my earlier associations. Antoine Wright was like a 74 and I was trying to sign him but he would only accept the MLE when in reality all he could get was a little over 2 million.

[Vyaras]

I don't think they really do anymore. You'll see some minor changes, but nothing big. I believe they still have guys like David West, Paul Millsap & Thaddeus Young at the same potential ratings they had when the came into the league.

Their whole way of assigning salaries to players in the game needs a lot of work. If the player isn't about 36 years old or less than 65 overall, you're more than likely not going to be able to sign them for the minimum. Hopefully with the new rating system in place for 2k10 they changed this up a bit.