Free Agents and Rookies

I'd like better FA signing stuff, their should be negotiations, but their should also be other factors rather than getting the amount of money you want and the teams record.

Let's say you want to sign Pierce and you have Tmac, he would decline because he won't feel he'll get enough playing time.
Free agents should also look at things like location, weather (included in location basically), Role on team like I just said, teams previous record, the practice facilicy, stuff like that.

So if you offer Mark Blount the same contract to go to Miami or Toronto he'd pick Miami because its warm and he has ties their. Players should be biased to their hometown too when deciding.
Let their be a offseason time period,the actual days of off-season, and obviously you can skip days but don't make it one screen that says sign player or whatever.
You have a time to offer contracts, if they're restricted FA's, their team has 30 days to match, and if not the player will get other contracts, and think about it, and you can do things to get the player but it'll take money, like bring them for visits and take them on tours of the city and all that garbage.



For the rookies, we should have to sign the rookies instead of have them just be on our team right away. Also for second round picks or players from Europe you can have the option to send them back to Europe or send them to the NBDL (this should be in the NBA soon).
What I would like is for their to be second round players once in a while who become good, or have a breakout rookie year.

Like said before their should be second round picks that get good or become rotation players once in a while.
They should also have a rating called work ethic, and one called dedication, and their could be a draft pick (second round mayb) who isn't that good but has like almost full in those and becomes really good when given the oppurtunity.

Great ideas.

For the rookies, we should have to sign the rookies instead of have them just be on our team right away.

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Absolutely. As we're limited to 15 players on our roster (whereas NBA teams do not have this restriction during the offseason), it would help if we could draft the players and then choose to sign them or renounce their draft rights. Not only would this be a realistic simulation of the rookie draft, it would also prevent us from forfeiting picks simply because we don't have the roster space.

or forfeiting because second round picks always suck

That too. A few more second round steals will make those picks worth using.

yup that is a good idea

Again, more my thoughts... But it's good to see that others have come to the same conclusion... Maybe my words have been haunting people in their sleep and they have found out that they are actually great ideas.

Again the old calendar model UI would make it possible for the free agents to have a thinking period and that restricted fa thing as well. It would be nice to see also who have made offers to which free agents and maybe even how high of an offer he's had from the teams... FA bias should also play a factor... Mainly cause some teams are ready to win and some teams are ready for rebuilding. And this is a huge difference in the team... I am playing a dynasty in 04 and I have Lebron, Tj Ford, Chucky Atkins and Jeff McInnis on my team... I have moved LBJ to sg to help ease the pressure on pg position and it has worked well. Ford is my starting pg... Atkins and McInnis are on their way down.

What we need is some sort of an experience rating as well... So that guys that get old and their stats start to go down... Leadership and veteran experience and their comfort on the court works wonders... And this should be apparent in the game as well. Like maybe the veterans make better passes out of the double team or get better shots off when they are pressured by defense. This sort of thing... And they should improve everyones performance due to leadership... They would act like the captain of the boat... Without the captain it would be hard to get anywhere. Pacers have Miller for example who is past his prime, but still he can make a huge impact in a close game.

And about the rookies... I've said this time and time again... These guys are young. They haven't been hurt too bad to get to this point. They all have almost as chiselled physique as they will ever have... This is reflected in the game nicely and has been by the fact that speed, quickness, jumping don't vary too much during a players career, but the created rookies are almost without exception too unathletic... Usually one of these scores is way too low and I'm talking about speed, quickness, jumping, strength. Strength comes with age, but jumping, speed and quickness should pretty much be there by the age of 20. So when you get your great 6'4" shooting guard with speed of 85 (he's fast), jumping of 70 (has good hops) and quickness 52 (low) and strength of 48... You start to think what is this guy. He ain't human! Okey he ain't the strongest player so he can jump pretty well that is ok, but if you are fast down the court you are quick as well... I haven't seen one player that would be extremely fast, but not quick or a player that extremely quick but slow. These things go hand in hand... Name me a player that with default rosters has a difference of 10 or more points between speed and quickness... And as these stats don't change too much during the career... Players like these are doomed in the game... And there needs to be steals in the draft... I usually try to draft two players, but at some point you get enough of the 40-42 rookies that regularly come off the second round... Atleast let there be some players that have great potential... Like this guy ain't too good now, but he could be in a couple of years!

Make the rookies better... Make the old timers worth something... As a player starts to recline in ratings, he get dumped by the player as he's no longer getting playing time etc. I want rookies to make impact and I want veterans to make their mark as well. Is Malone for Lakers useless? Is Ben Wallace overalled 40? Is Arenas overalled 50? (Wallace was never drafted and someone with Wizards said that he'd never be an NBA player, Arenas was a second round find). Guys that are undrafted in the game have overalls that start with a 3...

But the steals should be there... One way of implementing this is by making the scouting reports be wrong from time to time... Like something says this guy can't grab a rebound and he turns out to be an average rebounder etc. Rookies should have 'cover stats' before you play them... I mean that once you draft them they have the cover stats that are roughly in the ball park of the real thing and when the season starts or when he plays his first game his real ratings are revealed. And the rookies would/could be traded in the offseason and before they play their first game accordingly to these cover ratings. Let's say that you have a shooting guard that is a good shooter and a good three point sniper... His stats could be FG 72 3PT 78, but when he plays his first game he would turn out to be a little different, like FG 68 3PT 80... This would add some more of that rookie mysticism to the game... How good they really are factor!

Well here are my thoughts on the off-season, drafted and veteran players. What do you guys think about these?

I love em'. Seriously great ideas you two... if EA implented these in dynasty it would make it a thousand times better. It may be a bit late for EA to implent these though... but we should still seriously consider sending it in... these are gold.

So lets make a list of all the ideas you guys brewed up...

- Have the offseason set out in number of days (or weeks?), rather than have step-by-step buttons
Free Agent signing
- FA contract negotiating
- 30 days to match restricted FA offers
- If not restricted, the player will consider all contract offers from teams... (All Gm's in the league can see all offers from other teams)
- Factors in players deciding where to sign:
.... - Location (does the player want to go where weather is better, biased towards hometown or college area.)
.... - Role (what suits them better.. do they want to be a starter? (eg. Iverson) or do they want to be a bench player (eg. J. Voskuhl)
.... - The team's previous record
.... - Practice facility (who's is better??)
.... - Have meetings with the player so he'll want to take the money more (get them to visit, take on tour of city, etc.)
Rookies
- Be able to sign the player's draft rights, and sign them later (rather than sign the contract on draft day and they're on our roster right away, and have to forfeit the pick if you simply don't have roster space.
- Have 2nd round draftees that are solid role players once in a while.
- Make rookies generally more athletic than what they are in Live04
- As young player's grow, make their strength and weight go up.
- Less generated players with w4x3d (wacked, lol) out speed and quickness ratings (i.e. don't have a player with 85 speed and 50 quickness)
New Ratings:
- Work ethic (another version of potential?? A good way to judge 2nd round rookies)
- Detication (possibly how loyal he is? more likely to resign kinda thing?
- Vet experience (So that the old guys aren't useless. They can pass better out of double teams, get better shots off when under pressure.)
- Leadership ability (Vets mainly having more leadersip ability over Rookies. Leaders improve other's performance on the court.)

Great ideas fellas. i really like the new rating ideas. It would make things so much fun. Here are some ideas of my own.

The idea of signing old guys who are about to retire, is that they have high leadership and vet experience ratings, but every once in a while you'll get some rookies (like the first round pick, or top 3, sometimes top 5) who have a high leadership rating! and you'll be like "bonus! i wont need any old farts." and generally the rookies with high leadership will be franchise players!!!!!!!*

* - Donates: OMG! i can't believe i thought of this fantastic concept!

Here's another idea. Bring back the Team ratings like in NBA Live 2001, (offense, defense, rebound, passing, etc.) and make a rating called "Team chemistry." This counts towards 'extra' performace from your players.. so the team will be better than they look on papar (e.g Spurs) you get a high team chemistry rating if your players have a high rating of... get this.. 1. Vet experience, 2. Leadership abilty, 3. Detication (player detication grows the more your core play together. So it encouragous you not to trade your players around like a slut. you keep your core, they're detication rises: it improves your team by adding to team chemistry AND they're more likely to sign at the end of their contract. Oh my GOD thinking of this being implented makes me cream my pants. *cough* what? So anyway if your team chemistry is high it can get you more wins in sims, and your players can play better together in human (or cpu) games.

But the steals should be there... One way of implementing this is by making the scouting reports be wrong from time to time... Like something says this guy can't grab a rebound and he turns out to be an average rebounder etc. Rookies should have 'cover stats' before you play them... I mean that once you draft them they have the cover stats that are roughly in the ball park of the real thing and when the season starts or when he plays his first game his real ratings are revealed. And the rookies would/could be traded in the offseason and before they play their first game accordingly to these cover ratings. Let's say that you have a shooting guard that is a good shooter and a good three point sniper... His stats could be FG 72 3PT 78, but when he plays his first game he would turn out to be a little different, like FG 68 3PT 80... This would add some more of that rookie mysticism to the game... How good they really are factor!

I agree, but i think i know a better way of creating rookie steals.
Rookie workouts. Like in ESPN 2k4, you go through a 4 week period of giving rookies workouts... you can give 1 rookie a maximum 3 workouts... and you have to buy your workouts (team money will have to be implented... but that's a whole other issue) a workout takes 1 week.
A rookie without any workouts has a very unsure scouting report, with things like "Seems to play well in the post, May be a star or a bust, Appears not to have an outside game, etc." After each workout the scouting report becomes clearer and clearer and more sure until it says things like "Will be a special player in this league, Will be a solid role player and nothing more, This guy is set for superstardom, Can shoot the lights out, A blocking machine, Doesn't have good laterall quickness."
Anyway, so obviously teams have a limited amount of workouts (depending on how much you bought) and most teams spend them on who they thing they will be able to draft (you can judge who you think you should scout by looking at a mock draft and getting an idea of who will be avail at your position in the draft.) in the first round. So most 2nd rookies wont be worked out as much (because teams will spend their workouts on first round players) and have more unclear scouting reports. So steals will occur if you draft a rookie that hadn't been worked out much by other teams, and his stock hadn't risen yet (yes, you'd have player stock. Player stock will rise or decrease every week). Anyway it's kinda hard to explain, but if you've played ESPN 2k4 you'd know what i'm talking about, it'd be absolutely awesome in NBALive

Woah, that's the most shit i've typed for a while.

In my experience simulating, I've noticed that teams with veteran players are the ones that win the most...if the veteran's still have fairly high ratings. However, I suggested elsewhere that Offensive and Defensive Awareness ratings should start out low continue to rise throughout a player's career.

As some players have said, when you get older you KNOW exactly what to do, but your body just won't do it.

Also, there are a few second round picks that turn into solid players. You just have to be willing to wait 4 or 5 years. I've had point guards who I drafted with early 2nd round picks develop into 70 OVR guys, and quite a few get into the 60's. What you really have to do is watch his rating the first season, then sign him if it jumps up the second year.

As for the speed and quicknes rating, that can be easily handled. Simply get RID of quickness. Let the speed rating dictate how fast you run and how fast you do your moves. Since they'll then have an extra ratings spot, they can replace it with a Layup rating which will be especially important for freestyle air. Or an Agility rating that dictates how well you can block shots or contort yourself for adjusted shots.

Again, more my thoughts... But it's good to see that others have come to the same conclusion... Maybe my words have been haunting people in their sleep and they have found out that they are actually great ideas.

Again the old calendar model UI would make it possible for the free agents to have a thinking period and that restricted fa thing as well. It would be nice to see also who have made offers to which free agents and maybe even how high of an offer he's had from the teams... FA bias should also play a factor... Mainly cause some teams are ready to win and some teams are ready for rebuilding. And this is a huge difference in the team... I am playing a dynasty in 04 and I have Lebron, Tj Ford, Chucky Atkins and Jeff McInnis on my team... I have moved LBJ to sg to help ease the pressure on pg position and it has worked well. Ford is my starting pg... Atkins and McInnis are on their way down.

What we need is some sort of an experience rating as well... So that guys that get old and their stats start to go down... Leadership and veteran experience and their comfort on the court works wonders... And this should be apparent in the game as well. Like maybe the veterans make better passes out of the double team or get better shots off when they are pressured by defense. This sort of thing... And they should improve everyones performance due to leadership... They would act like the captain of the boat... Without the captain it would be hard to get anywhere. Pacers have Miller for example who is past his prime, but still he can make a huge impact in a close game.

And about the rookies... I've said this time and time again... These guys are young. They haven't been hurt too bad to get to this point. They all have almost as chiselled physique as they will ever have... This is reflected in the game nicely and has been by the fact that speed, quickness, jumping don't vary too much during a players career, but the created rookies are almost without exception too unathletic... Usually one of these scores is way too low and I'm talking about speed, quickness, jumping, strength. Strength comes with age, but jumping, speed and quickness should pretty much be there by the age of 20. So when you get your great 6'4" shooting guard with speed of 85 (he's fast), jumping of 70 (has good hops) and quickness 52 (low) and strength of 48... You start to think what is this guy. He ain't human! Okey he ain't the strongest player so he can jump pretty well that is ok, but if you are fast down the court you are quick as well... I haven't seen one player that would be extremely fast, but not quick or a player that extremely quick but slow. These things go hand in hand... Name me a player that with default rosters has a difference of 10 or more points between speed and quickness... And as these stats don't change too much during the career... Players like these are doomed in the game... And there needs to be steals in the draft... I usually try to draft two players, but at some point you get enough of the 40-42 rookies that regularly come off the second round... Atleast let there be some players that have great potential... Like this guy ain't too good now, but he could be in a couple of years!

Make the rookies better... Make the old timers worth something... As a player starts to recline in ratings, he get dumped by the player as he's no longer getting playing time etc. I want rookies to make impact and I want veterans to make their mark as well. Is Malone for Lakers useless? Is Ben Wallace overalled 40? Is Arenas overalled 50? (Wallace was never drafted and someone with Wizards said that he'd never be an NBA player, Arenas was a second round find). Guys that are undrafted in the game have overalls that start with a 3...

But the steals should be there... One way of implementing this is by making the scouting reports be wrong from time to time... Like something says this guy can't grab a rebound and he turns out to be an average rebounder etc. Rookies should have 'cover stats' before you play them... I mean that once you draft them they have the cover stats that are roughly in the ball park of the real thing and when the season starts or when he plays his first game his real ratings are revealed. And the rookies would/could be traded in the offseason and before they play their first game accordingly to these cover ratings. Let's say that you have a shooting guard that is a good shooter and a good three point sniper... His stats could be FG 72 3PT 78, but when he plays his first game he would turn out to be a little different, like FG 68 3PT 80... This would add some more of that rookie mysticism to the game... How good they really are factor!

Well here are my thoughts on the off-season, drafted and veteran players. What do you guys think about these?

Great stuff Metsis, I've also been thinking of this for a long time, you too Nick.
I have played ESPN2k4 and I know what you're talking about, I like also how in College Hoops when you want recruits to come to your school, you have to give them incetives to come. During the season you invite them to your games, go watch their games, and you can offer them a scholarship, but in the off-season, you give them Head Coach Calls, Head Coach Visits, Assistant Coach Calls, Assistant Coach Visits. You have about 100 points for each thing, and if the player is a 5 star or 4 star recruit it costs more to call or visit them than a 1, 2 or 3 star recruit etc...

When you go an visit the players their coaches tell you things about them, and you get their FG, 3PT and FT I think, and some little scouting reports.

Now for the NBA you wouldn't do that stuff during the season, but during the off-season you'd be able to bring players to your place, and let's say you have 100 points every week, to bring Elton Brand or some big buy like that would cost 35-40 points, but to bring a guy like Brian Cardinal will only cost 10-15, and a medium guy like Q-Rich (20-25).
The players have an interest bar, and everytime you bring them in they get more and more interested, and when their intrest bar get's high they'll be more likely to come to your team. If it goes to full they'll be very very likely but only won't come if a more desirable team also has their interest maxed.

Maybe they should also have those guys that have problems so they drop in the draft, Randolph, Van-Exel, their scouting report can say something like very talented but has had problems with the law and can cause team chemistry problems. Have guys drop because they're combo guards, or because they're undersized, combo forwards, etc, but these players can become good.

Metsis I also love your idea about veterans because I hate how when their physical/atheletic skills decline in the game they become basically useless.

Like you said Nick, the drafting should be deeper, it should be fun not just so basic. The computer should make a mock draft, and players stocks should rise and decrease after workouts and they could even have the Moody camp in Chi Town where they measure the players and all that. You have a a personal team list of target players, you'll set team needs as let's say PF's and SG's, then you can workout players at those positions, and you get a list of players you've worked out, more in-depth scouting reports, and their projected positon.
The computer could even do it's own projected team needs, it could look in the starting lineup and see the weakest position or if the starting lineup is pretty strong look at the weakest position on the bench, or just say best player availiable.

So before workouts or the Moody Bible camp you'd have a player and his height would say 6'5-6'7, then after being officialy measured he'd be taller or younger than you thought. Their weight could also be like that, it'd say 250-270 for a player that's a center, then you'd find out later what it exactly is.
Another thing would be to add all the weeks of the workout period, if you make the playoffs you wouldn't have as much time, but if you don't you'd have those extra weeks. Their'd be about a month you have to scout in Europe, do some workouts, then the lottery would happen, then you can keep working players out, then the Finals would end about 3 weeks after the lottery.
So all that time you can use for scouting and working out players, and obviously if you're a lottery team you'd have more time than playoffs teams depending on how far they go.

In my experience simulating, I've noticed that teams with veteran players are the ones that win the most...if the veteran's still have fairly high ratings. However, I suggested elsewhere that Offensive and Defensive Awareness ratings should start out low continue to rise throughout a player's career.

As some players have said, when you get older you KNOW exactly what to do, but your body just won't do it.

I agree. Offensive and Defensive Awareness shouldn't decline as a player gets older; they should remain the same or perhaps increase slightly to represent knowledge from years of experience. Likewise, shooting ratings shouldn't decline too drastically either. Reggie Miller may not score the way he used to, but he still knows how to shoot. Obviously there should be a slight decline as players lose their athleticism, but the FG, FT and 3PT ratings shouldn't decrease too much.

I think that the rookies coming out of the draft should be high schoolers, not all high schoolers, but a pretty good percentage of them. Since the the number of high schoolers rises every year. That way there could be another LBJ, KG, Kobe, or T-Mac, and a possible E. Curry, and Kwame Brown. That way if you get a LBJ type player you could have him for a longer time since they will be 17 or 18 coming out of the draft. The rookies weight and body size should increase during the dynasty. (I would also like to see the body size slider when creating or editing players.) The body size option would make massive players look more massive on the game. This year Shaq looked fairly skinny on the game. But back to the rookie thing, this year Shaun Livingston from Peoria is coming out of the draft and he should be toothpick on the game, and gradually increase as the dynasty progresses.

Thanks

Yeah I agree with all of this, but these ideas all need one thing: A longer, better offseason (with possibly a preseason training camp & exhibition games)

I mean by the cover ratings is this... You have a guy that you have drafted. He's never played a game for you yet. His ratings would say as it is, but after the first game his real stats could come out and you'd get to see wheter or not the guy was worth it...

I mean, look at what happened with Pau Gasol when he came into the league. Atlanta with the third pick took his drafting rights and then shipped him along with other players to Memphis for Shareef... Gasol really didn't get much playing time during the first couple of weeks in his rookie season, but after Swift got injured there was no looking back! He just rocked after he got his chance and all of a sudden Memphis was actually winning games. If Atlanta had known what they have in that Spanish guy, they never would have traded him away. Gasol ended up being a great offensive players and a great shot swatter... I followed the pre-season games then and noticed that this Gasol guy is the real thing...

In this situation, his stats would have radically improved after he got his chance... Maybe there should be an amount of minutes that he has to play until his real ratings are revealed or something.

All of these training camp ideas etc. sound nice, but this wouldn't be too hard to implement. You'd only have to use another rating line for the one that is shown to the player. He would ofcourse play during this time with his real ratings.

And I'd like to see the scouting reports be wrong from time to time... Last spring the consensus was that Carmelo is a great player, but his speed and quickness were largely questioned. In the end he ended up being a lot quicker and faster than projected.

BTW, I've never played anything from ESPN aka Sega so I don't know what their games have or don't and I won't find out until their games come out on PC too. I am a hardcore PC user as it is the only way to go... I just hate how EA does not make it's games take advantage of the huge amounts of resources a PC has over the consoles.

I like your ideas by the way.

And I'd like to see the scouting reports be wrong from time to time... Last spring the consensus was that Carmelo is a great player, but his speed and quickness were largely questioned. In the end he ended up being a lot quicker and faster than projected.

Very true, I don't know where they got this from, he looks like a PG going from end to end, and his handles are pretty impressive.
His speed and quickness were greatly underappreciated, or he just drastically improved them, cause this guys is extremely fast on the break.