Hardest team to build into a contender?

[Byrne]

I always like to go into association mode and try and rebuild the crappy teams into title contenders. I'm wondering which team is the hardest to do this with.

I've tried it with several of the awful teams, and my goal is usually to win a championship or at least make the finals within 5 years. The Kings and 76ers are definitely the easiest to turn around. MCW becomes high 80's overall after just a few seasons and always wins rookie of the year so you get lots of reward points to help develop people. The Kings have DMC who usually becomes the best center in the NBA after just a few seasons and he's easy to build around.

The only teams I've failed to achieve my goal with (a championship or finals appearance within 5 years) are the Magic and Bucks. There are just no players to build around on either roster. Oladipo doesn't become good enough, and the Bucks are a train wreck really. I haven't tried rebuilding the Jazz or Bobcats yet but I doubt that would go well either.

So what do people think?

[Smirkin Dirk]

There's enough exploits in the roster management part of the game to make any team a contender.

But if we're using real life logic, the Nets are capped out for years, arent contenders yet, wont be with their current team, and have no draft picks.

They are pretty ****ed.

[Omar_Coming]

I'd say the Knicks too

[psyberkayos]

Quote: Originally Posted by Hot Kidd

There's enough exploits in the roster management part of the game to make any team a contender. But if we're using real life logic, the Nets are capped out for years, arent contenders yet, wont be with their current team, and have no draft picks. They are pretty ****ed.

This.

You didn't set any parameters in your initial post so we have to assume that to rebuild you can move any player.. and with that logic, as stated, you can turn any team in the league into a contender in a year or two, tops.


if we're talking about rebuilding the team while keeping all of the core players, then that's different. Then we'd need to know how many of the core players you keep, who stays and who goes, etc.

SIDENOTE: Personally I don't think John Henson is rated highly enough yet although he's the best player on the Bucks roster and is being paid only 2 mill while Butler, Mayo, Ilyasova, and Pachulia take up half of the entire team's 55 mill contract total.

[Byrne]

Quote: Originally Posted by psyberkayos

This. You didn't set any parameters in your initial post so we have to assume that to rebuild you can move any player.. and with that logic, as stated, you can turn any team in the league into a contender in a year or two, tops. if we're talking about rebuilding the team while keeping all of the core players, then that's different. Then we'd need to know how many of the core players you keep, who stays and who goes, etc. SIDENOTE: Personally I don't think John Henson is rated highly enough yet although he's the best player on the Bucks roster and is being paid only 2 mill while Butler, Mayo, Ilyasova, and Pachulia take up half of the entire team's 55 mill contract total.

Any young talent should stay unless it's redundant, like having both Dragic and Bledsoe on the Suns is kinda silly imo.

It's pretty easy to just randomly put in different combinations of players you want to get rid of in the trade finder until you get something ridiculous, but I generally only try to get trades that seem realistic enough.

[marbles1991]

Quote: Originally Posted by Byrne

Any young talent should stay unless it's redundant, like having both Dragic and Bledsoe on the Suns is kinda silly imo.

Dragic/Bledsoe work pretty well together and a lot of teams run 2 point guard lineups at points in the game with success. I think that is actually the most fun way to build a team is to have an identity you want them to have and pick players around that rather than just getting the highest rated player available. I like playing unique lineups like creating a team with 2 centers, a 2 PG team or a team with only 6'9 athletic guys that just switch everything on defense and play uptempo.