Roster and player stats

Starting to cement the roster

This wouldn't be a management/sim if players didn't have their own stats. I'm starting land what the roster might be and how stats play out on the court.

An important part of the sim/game engine is the three different player positions. They each have different abilities:

• height: the centres are the tallest and the outside guards are the shortest
• speed: the outside guards are the fastest and the inside centres are the slowest
• shooting skill: the forwards are the best shooters

The bot behaviour will be hardcoded in the sense that:

• guards (x1) will remain around the three point line. Their roll is to receive passes, move fast and offload. The guards are used to get the ball across the court quickly
• forwards (x2) will move between the three point line and the key and use their shooting skill to hit the basket from most places on the court
• centres (x2) a large and hard to block. They will hover in the key and be ready to dunk and get rebounds

A couch needs to know that this behaviour is pre-programmed and they will need to work with that. When they view their roster, they will need to consider who will be the guard. They need to know they will never be in the key and will often be on or near the 3 point line. How to leverage that knowledge? A fast, possibly shorter player with poor shooting skills would likely excel as a guard.

As a coach, who on your roster would you put in the "forward" role? Probaby your best shooters.  What about the "centre" role? Probably your tall and not so good shooters (you don't need shooting skill to slam dunk).

See the image in this blog - Pitbladdo has great height and average speed. He'd make a great centre as he would be hard to block. However, he's also the best shooter on the team so perhaps he should be a "forward" that can shoot from the key and the 3 point line. Decision time!!

The couch needs to understand how the sim will play out, understand the range of talent in the roster and match players to roles. Of course there is no single or perfect answer to this and that is where the fun comes in.

And there wil be days when a coach has a roster that is all short. Or all slow. Or all terrible shooters. Those days will happen but may those seasons be short!!

See the temporary graphic to see what sort of stats might be on the roster (height is in cm - there will be a foot/inches option later on).