I got an achievement I never got before in
Basketball GM, a free browser game with all the fun of spreadsheet roster construction and financial management, and zero actual basketball playing.
I got it with the smallest market team in the league, on Insane difficulty, on my first season. This challenge has many short- and long-term penalties. Most relevant here, I'm pressured to run a small salary cap, since it's much harder for me to turn a profit, and good financials help me not get fired. Also, player injuries take much longer to heal, on average.
I made this achievement despite running a bottom 10 salary league-wide, managing to turn a league-average total profit despite running the smallest market.
What achievement did I get? Well... uh...
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OK, I
actually won the first season finals with a small market team on Insane this time.
It was a win for small markets all along. Sacramento and Tampa finals, Cincinnati in the conference finals, and St. Louis and Portland making it to the conference semifinals.
This time, my opponents were the chokers. My star MVP-candidate guard got hurt in the first game, so they won the next three, making it 1-3, but I pulled back to close it out.
Like the real NBA team based on gold, my Sacramento Gold Rush paired dominating offense with acceptable defense, riding a 61-21 record to the 1 seed. It began the season with a historic 34-2 run.
Instead of a dominant offensive center, we had the best 3pt % and second-best 2pt %.
My random starting team was very fortunate. Starting with an MVP candidate is exceptional. I started with the first four players, but the one weakness was the bench (and also too high salary), so the other players were trades / free agents.
(OVR is Estimated Overall
(dependent on your scouting quality), and PT is playing time. This is my Finals healthy PT spread. I've omitted prospects.)
Lucas was second in MVP and DPOY voting. The MVP placement was probably more deserved.
Those letters by his name mean the following: 3-point shooter, Athlete, Ball Handler, Interior Defender, Perimeter Defender, Passer, and Volume Shooter. Many "passers" are actually bad because they lack the offensive IQ to utilize their passing mechanics well, but Lucas has a solid estimated 65 offensive IQ, so his assist rate was pretty good.
Here's a more detailed look at Lucas's estimated
(team scouting-dependent) attributes. He came from Wisconsin, my favorite college program
My profit was relatively low, but acceptable and clearly positive. For reference, the highest profit was 190M, and the lowest was -40 Million. I was 4th lowest. I managed to sneak under the cap with a league-average payroll, but it would have been very hard to shed more salary without impacting present performance or losing huge prospects.
It is good I made a playoff run, or else I would have been in the red!
