QGM Seasons with new PER calculation

Version 0.06 Playthrough

So I am going to play through several seasons with this new PER calculation.

My Team:

I picked the Muggle Artefact Investigators, under the silly idea that Arthur Weasley decided to coach the team. He loves trying these new Mugglicious ideas like analysis and Trust the Process.

Season 1:

The MVP was Luca Mitchell, with a OVR of 50. His PER was 30.5, which at least marches what we expect of an MVP.

He hit a good percentage of 2s and FTs, but never took a 3. His steals and blocks were decent, but he seemed to be excellent in ORB and DRB.

So my first conclusion, is I'm not sure about him having so high a PER, but it seems the game is valuing all player types once again. Which I didn't expect to see coming out of my model.

Luca was also defensive player of the year. I don't know where the Defensive award comes from, stat wise.

It might make more sense to do an real-life MVP adjustment in the future, as Luca's team didn't even make the playoffs.

The Muggle Artefact investigators struggled with injuries and poor performance all season, ending up 25 - 57.

Arthur lowered the ticket prices to get people into the stands.  The Magical Creatures down the hall had the biggest budget of all teams, with 166 million spent on payrolls.

2017 Draft:

Arthur picked Zach Read 7th, a 22 YO Forward 60/64 with 3 point tag, and Harriet Smith, a 22 y.o. small forward in the draft.

2017 Free Agency & Re signings:

Arthur wasn't attached to any of his players except the rookie Zach Read.

Many players up for free agency refused to resign with the awful Artefact team.

Isabella English wanted the max, and Dominic Briggs wanted 18 million. 

The salary demands seemed high, but reasonable enough based on overall ratings. Not ridiculous like before.

Arthur paid the young Briggs, but dropped English and two other atrociously bad players with overall ratings in the 20s.

Before signing anyone, Arthur had 38.5 million in cap space, but it seemed prudent to stay a bit more under the cap, until the team's financials were steadied.

Aya Higgins was all the team had for a Point Guard, at 45 ovr. Briggs, Booth and Read were a solid 2,3,4, with Booth and Read having seeker skills.

Wiktor Howard was a good center. Their bench had a little strength at Small Forward, but no back up guards or additional seekers.

Arthur went looking for a Point Guard, especially one with snitch skills.

Many players had a bad attitude towards Arthur when he talked with them, but Cameron Clark, 27 was willing to talk about a deal for a measley 3.88 Mill.

Arthur was able to sign Clarke for only a small premium over what other teams were offering, despite the fact that Clarke was insulted by Arthur's presence. 

[The fact that Clarke went for so little seems to be a goof in player FA values, but let's see how he plays.]

Clarke's PER was only 12.5 last year, so he may be more sizzle than sauce, but Arthur is willing to look for diamonds in the rough.

Next, he looked for a few young bench guys or gals.

He signs Isaac Cooper, for the flash, and Isla Hamilton, for her youth. 2.85 mill for Isla and 0.85 for Isaac.

He's now gone a bit overboard, stocking the PG position a ton. So he goes looking for another center.

He signs center Corey Bailey, who had a good PER, and a bench guy's OVR last year.

Training Camp

Briggs and Booth lose a little over their last season, Cooper and Hamilton also decline. And some of the back benchers are now so terrible, they won't play at all.

But Zach Read, #7 draft pick, improved, and some bench players like Higgins, Jones and Smith, improved.

Cooper takes Brigg's spot in the starting lineup, giving them a lineup of Clarke, Cooper, Read and Booth, fairly small, with center Wiktor Howard backing up the line.

Briggs is 6th man, followed by Jones, Higgins, Hamilton, Bailey and Smith.

Stevenson and Pierce are set to inactive status.

2008 Season

Arthur is hopeful that his Artefact Investigators will get to 40 wins this year. Last year was bad, but he's planning on either going for it, or blowing the team up and rebuilding if it doesn't work out.

After 1 week of play, the team was at 3 - 3, which was on plan, but after 2 weeks, they went up to 8 - 5, exciting Arthur and the team.

They were on pace for the 15th seed. With 41 teams and only 16 spots, it took a good team to make the playoffs.

Playing Durmstrang in the first round would be a tough matchup, but Arthur knew their place, and the other of the teams at the top was going to shift. They had a chance to make the playoffs, so he kept with the plan of keeping this group together.

Unfortunately, they dropped to 14 - 17, after a few more weeks. And then free-falled to 14 - 24.

At 17 - 28, Arthur pulled the plug, looking for some trades to get off salary and get picks.

He wanted to trade his older players first, and only trade young guys if he got a killer deal. Most of the teams that needed to win now, didn't have any cap room to add though.

He was able to trade Leo Booth for 24 YO Humphries, a seeker paid only a bit more who seemed to be better at 8 years younger. He couldn't find any draft pick deals, however.

He decided to play out the season, and work on gradually getting the team younger.

They ended up going 32 - 50, only 7 games better than last year, and well short of his goals for the team.

It was time to dump salary and go for a #1 pick next year.

Once again, a center won MVP. A center with 0 snitch catches all season.

Pre-2009

Arthur upped spending on facilities and coaches, scouting and health, because they made so much money from their share of the luxury tax paid by other teams.

The Draft Lottery was an amazing victory, as despite having only 8 balls in the lotto, the Muggle Artefact Investigators ended up with the #1 pick.

Benjamin Heath, another Point Guard, was the best option available. He was already 22, but the other players were not nearly as good, since he already had a 68 ovr. WiArthur picked a center in the 2nd round.

Wiktor Howard refused to resign, and Arthur was fine with that.

Stevenson, who didn't play last year, wanted 26 million, gone. He kept Aya Higgins, but dropped the other restricted free agents, for age or bad play.

Arthur didn't get involved in the Free Agent market at all. Leaving his roster at Heath and Clarke, starting PGs, dropping Cooper to the bench. Briggs, Read and Humphries rounding out the starters.

In a lot of good news, Heath got better during pre-season, and Briggs made a HUGE improvement to 68 OVR. 

However, there were no good centers left on their roster. Arthur wasn't sure whether to omit playing a center at all, or to put Corey Bailey at starting center. He went with the more radical idea.

Except for Briggs, everyone on the starting lineup had seeker skills. Higgins also made another big jump in pre-season, and was a good player off the bench. 

The lack of rebounding or defense was a huge hole.

The team didn't tank, getting 39 wins, but it also didn't make any satisfying progress, missing the playoffs.

Summary

The game itself seems to work fine. I could get into roster changes, position changes, or other heavy alterations, but I realize from playing it, that it still feels like the NBA cycle of boom or tank. 

I've decided to work next on changing the League structure to feel different, more like a feeder system than an NBA system.

My next post will be on these changes.