making trades during the draft would be a good option

[paseo85]

do anyone else think so.

[pierralban]

yes, would be cool ... like trading my 3rd pick for athe 6 pick and the 35pick ... or for a good player and a second round pick ...

[username2004]

I was just going to make a topic about this. With all the moves that teams are making prior to the draft, how come we can only trade our draft picks during the season?

If you want a lotto pick, you have to look at the rankings at midseason and hope that the worst team at that moment remains the worst so that you can trade for their pick before the deadline. What this offseason should show EA is that we should be able to trade our picks throughout the entire offseason.

On a related note, rookie scouting should be improved/evident in this game. I don't want to trade for a lottery pick, just to get to the draft and they all suck. I should be able to know well in advance who's hot/not, and make my moves based on that, not waiting until the draft to see who's there. If they have a practice mode in season that is interactive, you should be able to invite rookies to workouts before the draft.

Rookies also should not be so terrible. As previously stated, there are steals, and to draft a rookie at an OVR 39 is incomprehensible, because at 39 you wouldn't be in the league.

Players should also be able to keep improvements if you spend points to train them, its a waste if they suddenly "unlearn" all that you taught them during the season. Perhaps for every game if you earned a certain amount of experience then you would "level-up", and remain at that level until you reach the next level.

Jeez, I didn't mean to go on this long but when you get in the zone...

[Andrew]

I don't have much to add except to say yes, absolutely. Trading picks and players during the draft, as well as the ability to sign free agents after the trade deadline are two features that would definitely improve roster management in NBA Live.

[wangster]

It is actually in fact realistic to draft a player with overall 39. Relatively speaking, it happens all the time in the real NBA. But the catch here is that players who get drafted don't necessarily get a contract. If the team sees that he's not ready, they will not sign him right away and might send him to NBDL, Europe, etc, or maybe even completely ignore him. Obviously, this much detail can't be asked for Live 2005, but I would hope they give you a option to sign the player or not after the draft.

[Andrew]

I agree with that too. It would be great to be able to hold the player's draft rights, so that you could then sign them or trade their rights, or even relinquish their rights so that any team may sign them.

Other restrictions such as not being able to trade players for a certain duration of time (I believe it's generally 60 days) as well as restricted free agency would be good, but I don't expect that in NBA Live 2005 and there are other improvements and additions that could be made first.

[wangster]

Overall, and I'm sure anyone who's played Madden 2004 would agree, Live needs to make its franchise mode EXACTLY like Madden. The franchise mode in Madden is just that good. Although it's not as advanced as giving you an option to make trades during the draft, after the draft is over, the players you drafted are not on you roster yet. You hold the rights over them and you can make all the trades you want here before deciding which players to keep. But even before that, they have a comprehensive Rookie Scouting feature that is done very well. There's several different stages and in each stage, you choose about 15 players from a huge pool of prospects ranked by their projected place in the draft. Scouting a player in one stage gives you information about them pertaining to that particular stage, and if you scout the same player again in other stages, you gain even more information about them. So if you stuck with scouting some players in all of the stages, you will have plenty of information about these prospects to help you make your decision in the draft, while if you only scouted some prospects sporadically, you won't have as much information. I thought this was a terrific system.

Furthermore, unlike Live's annoying 7-step off-season, Madden's offseason is very open-ended. You have the choice to do any of trading, free-agent signing, re-signing, personnel changes, etc. during a given time period. The given time period is 30 days (obviously with accelerated clock), and in that 30 days, you may do whatever you wish to try to improve your team. And negotiation is a key aspect in Madden's offseason, so if you offer a player or coach some contract, the player/coach will not sign with you right away, but weigh other options they have over the 30-day period. So obviously, the high-profile free agents get plenty of huge offers during the 30 days and teams basically have an auction. If you don't act quickly enough during the first few days, all the marquee players will be taken. Obviously, when the 30 days is up, the next season starts and if you haven't made all the moves you wanted to make, you've gotta make do with whatever team you have. Now, this, in my opinion is a way more realistic and enjoyable offseason than Live's franchise.

I frankly don't understand why Live should be in any way inferior to its EA counterparts. It's about time for the developers to step it up a notch.

[J@3]

I agree completely. I bought Madden on PS1 a few years ago, just because I wanted something new. I'm not really a fan of American football, and to this day I could play that game for 4 hours and still not havent the slightest idea of what's going on but even back then I was blown away by how in-depth the franchise mode is. There could be some improvements like any game, but the way it is in Madden is how NBA Live should be, there really isnt any excuse for the Live series to be lagging so far behind in this department.

[fgrep15]

The draft needs to be much better and deeper than it is right now, right now it's wayyy too basic, we need to have all the preparation and all the scouting etc instead of just going to the draft and making picks and thats all we have the guy for the next season.
We don't even choose to sign our second round picks or not

[Sauru]

in the nba all first round draft picks(over seas players excluded) are giving a 3 year guarenteed contract with a 4th year option. this is why they automaticly go on your roster in nba live.

[kevingarnett2121]

i always use some players who above 30-yr old with rating about 70 to trade for 1st round pick

[fgrep15]

in the nba all first round draft picks(over seas players excluded) are giving a 3 year guarenteed contract with a 4th year option. this is why they automaticly go on your roster in nba live.

I said second round picks

[Macca]

Wangster mate, you said just about everything I was going to express. Damn, you're absaloutly right to, and I agree with you that EA should really look into doing things like Madden. I've played Madden since 2003 and the management style of dealing with the draft is incredible, and I just couldn't wait for 2004. Now I can't wait for Madden 2005. The reason I can't wait is becuase Madden is killing Live in areas that Live have struggled to improve. EA Sports make both games- can't Madden lend Live any ideas, an insight on how to make the draft and overall- the dynasty better? This has been said numerous times and it just hasn't gotten through to those damn Live producers.

Wangster for Live Director/Producer 2004!

Macca