Playbooks Play-Type Assignments

[Da_Czar]

I wanted to talk briefly about team play-type assignments. I know we have many expert playbook editors in the community. I am in no way trying to take away from the great work they do. There is no secret the disdain our community has for the stock tendencies that ship with the game each year.

Just some notes and some background information that you may want to know before requesting changes or establishing your own set of play edits.

For the play-types to be absolutely authentic you would need two things that are not present in NBA 2K12. One you would need each teams complete playbook. While the plays in 2K12 are a significant authentic upgrade over any previous effort. Let’s not pretend that 25-40 plays is the complete sum of any NBA teams arsenal over 82 games plus playoffs.

Secondly you would need for every single play-type to be accounted for. 2K12 has 8 play-types. A few obvious omissions are ally-oop and handoff play-types. These types of plays are grouped differently depending on the team, other plays in their play-book’s and personnel at the time.

Since we are missing both of those key ingredients. The play type assignments will not be as rigid as some may hope for or that other’s may have feared they were.

It might help to know that the play-types are NOT tendencies. The actual player tendencies will still play a role in determining what plays the AI decides to call for each player. The play-types just give a player access to a group of plays. With a slight preference for the order the groups appear in. There will be players who have authentic plays they actually ran last year in a play-type that they may not be “known” for.

So just because you see a player who is not a 3 point specialist with 3 point plays it does not mean he will be chucking 3’s all day long. It simply gives him access to those types of plays. If you eliminate a team’s perimeter players from having 3 point plays they can’t run them when they need a 3. So don’t think 3 point specialist think off screen plays that happen to get him open on or around the 3 point line.

For some teams you will severely limit your floppy action or other offscreen plays by only having a player with one or the other. (Screen_Mid, Screen_3PT)

The play-types were not meant to be rigid lines separating one player from another but simply groupings of plays. The design decision was made to increase the amount of plays available in the game and reduce the manual administrative overhead involved with plays concerning personnel moves.

Another thing to consider is the variability in each teams play-books for the same type of plays. For instance Boston’s mid range plays differ greatly from the Bobcats. The Bobcats mid range plays are much more suitable for athletic slashers rather than pure shooters. Some of them could even be considered Cutter plays.

Many times NBA teams do not pass to a player and clear out for their isolations. Some use floppy plays or other offscreen action sets to get a player the ball. Casual observers oftentimes just see the ISO because they are following the ball and that player happens to catch it and go one on one. The play that got him in position to iso is the play-type not what he chooses to do after he receives the ball.

So if you simply judge the play-types without also considering the team specific play-books, it can lead you to eliminate plays that a player may have actually ran last year.

If we look at the bulls for example. Many may scoff at D Rose having mid range as his 3rd option. Perhaps thinking that means he would be running floppy plays like Ray Allen. When in fact the majority of the Bulls mid range plays like CHI 43 floppy is a play the Bull’s actually run get Rose the basketball. Whether he Iso’s after the catch or shoot’s off the screen is up to his tendencies.

Another mid range play is the Chi hand-off they ran for him. Because there is no hand-off play-type it goes in the mid range play type. You will notice a stark difference between Chicago’s mid range plays and Boston’s.

Similarly each team has their own offensive identity. I urge you to get familiar with the actual plays AND branches rather than just making your decisions based on the play-type.

Every year until this you were severely limited in the offensive variety and execution of each Player in the NBA. It is only fitting that with 4 plays you needed those to be the one’s that represented the most important aspects of what that star player means to you as a fan.

This year you have the ability to represent a much broader scope and therefore more authentic version of your favorite superstars and role players. I hope you can see the beauty and replay-ability that lies in the variety of authentic offensive options; not the limitation of the same.

While there are undoubtedly mistakes like some pg’s being labeled with pnr_screener as opposed to pnr_ball_handler those can and will be easily rectified. There was a considerable amount of thought put into the play grouping and team play assignments. Although that doesn’t make them correct it does represent a much more thorough attempt than you have seen from this company in the past.

One other small bit of info that you can’t see in the front end is that if your team has 8 pick and roll plays and 4 were designed for the pg and the other 4 were designed for the sf. The AI will prefer to run the SF pick and roll plays for the SF and the PG pick and rolls for the PG. This further differentiates the plays to players as was the original intention.

At the end of the day however the MOST important thing is that you have to tools to have the players play as YOU see fit.

[JohnDoe8865]

This is a great blog from Da_Czar. Editors need to give it a little time this year before making drastic edits to the playbooks IMO.

[DJ]

Thanks for the informative post, Czar.

[Jesus]

.. "briefly" huh lol

good info

[Da_Czar]

Quote: Originally Posted by johne3569

AMAZING post bro! My only drawback is that there aren't many (Single screens), (Double screens) or quicker plays that allow your shooters to get the ball quicker. I like to play a 1-4 offense with a few teams and it's a little harder to run effectively this year. The D-Pad screens are very slow in reaction terms and don't work as fluid as a lot of those screen plays in last year. This year I have set my Playcalling to Auto because it becomes tedious to pick through all of the plays while coming up court. I do think this is a very effective and groundbreaking feature...just wish it was more intuitive!

Great feedback John I will definitely take that back to them. See if a few of these work as some quick screen options. Some may not be as quick but the fall within a single double screen

PHI triple. ( not super quick but get's you 3 screens)
PHI 1 double fade ( quick initial screen and another(branch) if he is not open
MIA 2 side ( quick single screen followed by a pnr if you need it If open just fire)
MIL quick offscreen ( quick double screen)
HOU horns quick offscreen ( 2 passes but quick action from either side)
Hou quick offscreen ( probably exactly what your looking for)
Heat 23 weak (rockets playbook)(another that might be up you alley
SAS 3 zipper fist (the zipper plays get you the quick screen with the option of a pnr if your not open to shoot.)

Point taken about the intuitiveness what that means for your play-calling experience. If you have time give a few of these a try and hopefully you can fill you playbook with enough of them so that auto play-calling get's you in the position you need to be.

[Vni]

Wow Czar just like that eh :)

[youALREADYknow]

Great info and I've been doing playbook changes for the last couple of days so I'll be sure to take a closer look at some of the plays in the sets before removing them entirely.

I'm more concerned with the default order of play types (Ray Allen with mid-range over 3PT made me do a double-take for example).

[Vni]

Well Ray Allen takes more midrange jumper than 3's.