Simulation flaws and bugs

[Leander]

I simulated some seasons in Association mode and found some flaws and bugs.

1) Rotations do not work! Some players have 0 minutes assigned but still play. Is this a joke? What is the submenu "alternate rotations"? When are they used? The players I do not want to use have 0 minutes in this submenu as well but they still play.

2) Way too many injuries. In a 29-games-season I had an injury almost every game. The upcoming patch will fix this as mentioned in the patch information.

3) There are some wrong statistics when you view a player card, e.g. Malik Rose averaged 0.0 BPG and only played few games...his season high in that season was 1 though. An average of 0.0 is no longer possible when he has already recorded one block.

4) I wanted to browse through league leaders and other statistics in the NBA.com menu but it was gone sometime in a season. It was replaced by "Home"...and only news.

5) Not a major flaw but Sam Cassell got honoured for Most Improved Player in season 2. He averages 14 PPG. He retired after the season. LOL

QUESTIONS:

1) Options: what are team and player options?
2) How important are drills? Players can get +2 for e.g. defense awareness...just for the next game or the whole season? I am not talking about practice mode in which you actually control a player but the scheduled training in Simcentral.
How often should you schedule drills? I just want to play and conduct trades, sign free agents, draft rookies...I do not want to schedule drills every three days manually. Can´t they be set to auto like training camp?
3) What are the different caps, especially hard cap?

Sorry for all the stupid questions but the manual does not cover those topics.

[Its_asdf]

Team and player options are basically optional years that can extend the amount of years on a player's contract. A team option means that you can choose whether to keep the player for another year. Player options are determined by the players themselves on whether they wish to extend their contract.

Development is permanent I believe.

[mr2ksports]

i think number 4 is not a bug. when your page is at the browser (where the news are) hit the menu button the the NBA.com option will show up

about number 3. try checking how many games he has played then 1 divided by number of games played then round it off to the tenths (the first decimal place). because if he has played 82 games then having 1 block for the season it will be equal to 0.0. and the game just displays the first decimal place.

[Leander]

Thanks. Mr2Ksports: no, it was a 29-games-season and he did not play in all of them.

[chaodck]

So:
1.- Options are special clauses in the contract of a player. A "Team Option" indicates that after the contract runs out the team has to decide whether they accept the remaining contract year or negotiate another contract with the player. Rookies always have team options in their contracts. It's advisable to offer a veteran you might want to keep a contract with a team option. "Player Option" is a clause that lets the player choose whether he wants to skip his last contract year. So if a player has a 3+1 PO contract, after the three years your player might want to re-negotiate (or try free agency...). I usually offer PO contracts to superstars, for the sake of realism.

2.-Not important. I don't do them, it's kind of pointless because it takes a lot of time, you add fatigue to your players and the effects last a short time.

3.- Salary Cap is the amount of money a team is allowed to offer to players as salary. The only way you can "go over the salary cap" is by re-signing players who you possess their "Bird Rights". This is when a player hasn't changed teams between free agency for more than 3 years. For example, you sign LeBron James in the summer of 2010, to a 2 year contract, when his contract is up if you are "over the cap" you won't be able to re-sign him. If you traded for him, his "Bird Rights" get traded with him, so you could re-sign him.
The "Hard Cap" is the amount of money you CAN'T go over, this means that you can re-sign players with the "bird rights", but NEVER go over this figure. In the actual NBA this is called the Luxury Tax, and if teams go over this, they have to pay a harsh penalty.

4.- In the "bugs" you list you talk about the rotations. They DO WORK!, if you have a rotation of 9 players (C,PF, SF, SG, PG, C/PF, SF, SG, PG), and your two big men get into foul trouble, and also your SF's can't play the PF position, a 10th man will have to enter the field, even though you have him assigned as 0 minutes. The best way to prevent this is to check you players' secondary positions, and adjust them so you can have the right depth. Also I think when the game is already won/lost (final minutes) the CPU will take out the good players and let the "deep bench" enter.

5.- Injuries will be addressed in the Official NBA 2K patch to come soon.

Hope this clarifies your doubts!!

[Leander]

Chaodck Thanks so much. Your post is really helpful.

How are alternate rotations used? There are also rotations for special situations...maybe a player that should not play must have 0 minutes in ALL rotiations available, even the special ones?

My lineup was:

Randolph 36, Lee 30, Richardson 27, Crawford 38, Duhon 30

Bench: Robinson 28, Chandler 27, Gallinari ..., Roberson 9

Mardy Collins played although he had 0 minutes...and hell, he is a PG but minute distribution should work well with Duhon, Robinson and Roberson.

[chaodck]

Ok:

The "Alternate Rotation" is a feature to help the user. You only have 1 active rotation, the other I use it for the playoffs when I shorten my bench and play a 7 or 8-man rotation.
The Situations are also only used by the user (as opposed to the CPU), this have no impact whatsoever in simulated stats, because you have to trigger them manually from the substitution menu inside a game.

Now on to your rotation... It seems to me that it's kinda broken...
In order to keep your players playing the amount of minutes you want them to play you need to stablish a rotation that's accurate. In yours' you've got too many PG/SG minutes assigned (Crawford, Duhon, Robinson, Roberson & Gallinari add up to 120, when the maximum is 48+48=96). Then at SF you have Q-Rich + Chandler. At PF you have Lee + Chandler, but you're missing minutes, and at C you are also missing minutes.

A proper rotation for the knicks would be something like this...

C - Randolph 38
PF - Lee 35
SF - Q-Rich 25
SG - Crawford 35
PG - Duhon 25
C - Curry 15 (or another C if you dumped him)
PF/SF - Chandler 31
SG/PG - Robinson 25
PG - Roberson 11

If you want to play Gallinari you could make him a SG/SF and cut a bit of minutes from Chandler and Roberson.