"You've got a [mentor] in me," sings Randy [Blue/Blue]man
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2022 6:19 pm
Since you’re humming it now anyways…
You’re welcome!
“You’re welcome,” words many a mentor should have said over the years of sim league, although in recent memory I can recall at least a couple mentors saying “thank you” instead…
Rather than harp on slimy trades, I would like to highlight some solid mentorship I have experienced, witnessed, or delivered over the years that I’ve been playing fake ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-basketball.
Getting Mentored
Garbageman brought me into this league when the Warriors opened up. By the time I responded, my rival Lakers were the next option available, which sucked, but oh well. Commish at the time (and for 15 seasons afterward), he seemed poised to have all the right links to the forum ready, beginner’s guides etc., and advice on shedding my best player (!!!) with a look toward a better future than a team with one decent player in the present.
That was crazy to me at the time. I just had to trust he had no reason to steer me wrong.
I’d say most vet GMs by now realize I had little clue what I was doing, but you would not have known it by my trip to the finals 5 seasons in off of a 60 win season, having inherited a horrendous team with a horrendous Giannis Antetokounmpo contract. That took a lot more savvy than a GM with my lack of expertise had, and since Gman went on a five ring run in the decade to follow, one can trace my early success back to great mentorship.
“Your best player is useless on a team that sucks - get rid of him and create better future options”
“Your team sucks - don’t try to be good.”
“For your first few seasons, talk to me about ANY trades that come your way so you don’t get hosed by GMs sliming on the new GM.”
“I won’t trade with you for the first few seasons.”
“What? Why? I don’t get it.”
“You’ll eventually see why. Mentors trading with mentees can get a bad rap, even if the intentions aren’t completely bad.”
Really, most mentoring has serviced me in the world of trading. Once the basics of the league are established to navigate through a season (participate in the offseason (draft, TC, RFA and UFA), submit DCs, update your point bank), the rest gets pretty subjective.
Trades are good or bad. FA bids are good or bad. And one person will not necessarily agree with the next.
Syndicate tried to get Leiker from me for Jerry West for many seasons before I finally bit the bullet and went for it. In a deal I arguably lost, I learned a ton. My first superstar for superstar trade. After West immediately fell from p/p to b/b, Syndicate reiterated I left the deal on the table in West’s prime, so if I were planning to do it anyway, it would have better served me earlier on.
I wasn’t trying to hear any of that. I lost my second trip to the finals with a b/b West. But in retrospect, he’s not wrong.
And at the time, when I felt salty as all hell and watched the Skype Chat rain disapproval on the deal, good mentorship from Gman pulled me out. Long term, the deal did not serve me, but in the short term it got me back to the dance for a ‘ship which is exactly what I wanted that deal to accomplish.
(Concurrently, Gman was mentoring my competition in the finals, Mamba’s Clippers, who took to learning the game a bit more quickly than me and swept me blind…but we’ll get to that later.)
Trade talks have played a pivotal role in mentorship opportunities. I can’t think of any trade I’ve completed over the last sim decade that I didn’t bring to the man who swept me in those finals, Mexican Mamba. In fact, I would wager that Mamba knows most of the deals in the league before they happen because even experienced GMs will run trade ideas by him for input. Hell, I’ve come to him with hypotheticals and he was able to guess the actuals. I’m pretty sure this was how the DC / Saddiq Bey deal finalized - another trade with Syndicate that the league would say I lost and that “Bey is untradeable” etc. but a win-now stud I sought was a win-now stud I received.
…Even though DC died a historically bad TC death immediately afterward. But that’s besides the point.
The best mentorship I experienced came from several different directions, even the Slime King himself, Mr. Quailman. Boy have we had some interesting trade talks! But from someone everyone called the Slime King, I couldn’t just take any offer, so I really learned how to haggle, and how to make a deal that works both ways, where both sides are satisfied. He never started with an offer too grand (when I come to him with offers too grand he doesn’t even reply, so now i don’t ever offer much of a reply either in these circumstances), and never started a talk he would not be willing to negotiate. Sometimes there’s just not a deal that makes sense, and that’s okay too. But if you don’t take the occasional risk, you can easily stagnate, and stagnation can lead to inactivity and complacency and apathy and a dead season. These aren’t fun. But plenty of us GMs are here to have fun, and getting your hands dirty will do it.
Point is, good mentorship got me where I wanted to go, even if I did not get the results I wanted. Mamba and I have talked about that. I circle back with Gman on trade things, too. Syndicate is basically a dad full time now, but I’d say our trade talks have evolved with each and every move and I’ve learned a lot from dealing with him, like why he traded Leiker after one season (“didn’t have a use for him this year, can’t stay attached”). And that was a big lesson for me, anyway, to not get too attached. I really loved these fake players. Still do! But do I do that at the expense of the team? Not anymore. And that advice has carried me forward to be less upset about bad turns in the league overall.
Mentorship I Observed
Back to getting swept in my 2nd trip to the finals… By my mentor’s other mentee… Yeah, that could have stung real bad, beyond just the loss, but Gman helped us both impartially which was really important. Mamba and I had a ready made rivalry, LA vs LA, mentee vs mentee, and several GMs know that I can take a rivalry really far, maybe too far. Even though I was swept, I didn’t feel defeated.
Mamba was and is a gracious winner. He wins more than most. I used to hold Mamba’s progress as a measuring stick against my own, having started the league together, but over time I realized we’re different and he’s probably just a bit better at this. But that felt okay. And as Mamba swept the competition for his first (and only for now) ‘ship, he didn’t hesitate to talk shop with me on how he got it done. And how Gman had given him advice to get him to this point. That all his early moves and dips into and out of the tax created a dynamic environment for him to play and acquire a bunch of top tier talent blowing all his competition out of the water that year.
And while we’re talking Mamba, let’s all acknowledge that we’ve had trade talks with him. And they’ve went pretty well. And he has “come correct.” And when advice is being sought, he’s selfless in giving it. And if you haven’t sought advice from the commish…what are you waiting for?! I’d reckon vet GMs take hints from Mamba at times, so there’s no reason our newer GMs can’t get pointers from him, too.
And if I deal with Mamba, he’ll talk positives and negatives on both sides of the deal and give me time to think about it and take it to another GM for a 2nd look.
And if this hasn’t been your experience in dealing with Mamba, color me shocked.
We’re all trying to win, right? And winning and mentoring need not be mutually exclusive…right? Seems counterintuitive, perhaps, that sharing your tricks can give someone else the upper hand. But to me, this is successful mentorship. There must be some selflessness to it, and confidence that your good advice will not ultimately come at your own expense.
So when I do see a slimy deal go down between a mentor / mentee, I can’t help but wonder what the hell is going on. I think some mentees might not care one way or the other…or I don’t know. But it doesn’t exemplify the entirety of their mentorship. Even though I think they might have made a shady deal, it still doesn’t count for other good advice a mentee received from the same mentor. And it’s probably not good mentorship if I see one of these deals go down and I reach out to say ‘you got hosed, bro,’ even if it is instinctual for me to do so.
Which leads me to
Mentorship I Delivered
I’ve tried for years to get one of my friends into this league, and I finally found a taker in Mike Lowry. Bless his heart. I’d say this relationship actually developed backwards since Mike had experiencing coaching real life sports before, digging into sports stats and such, so I’d often go to him when I didn’t know what the hell PER or TS% before I got on Skype chat. Mike helped me understand real basketball a little bit better than from just a fan’s perspective, like how Zone is not a bad defense to run on a team that sucks at shooting the 3. So a lot of his real life knowledge carried over to sim league for me, and when he joined, I had hoped to send sim league knowledge right back to him.
“Playing time does not contribute to experience, because these players don’t have an algorithm to get better with floor time.”
“Remember the age of 31 - it’s worth considering when you’re signing free agents or trading for a vet player with a big contract, because a turning point for players to decline.”
“That Bradley Connell contract sucks, dude, don’t do it.”
“Dude, I thought we learned with Connell, what the frye is this Tex deal??”
Conversely, though:
“Pay James Andrews like a doctor [in RFA].”
(Sorry RPF. That was me. Be mad at me for that, not Mike Lowry. But James Andrews IS dope though, isn’t he? Could have turned out worse…and i really thought you would have just declined outright but anyway…)
Truth be told, Mike Lowry is Mike Lowry and he’ll do what he does regardless of my input sometimes. I didn’t like his return for Kevon “22 rebounds” Looney, but he really wanted Quickley. And Looney won’t do anything fruitful for seasons to come. And Mike’s ready to play in the PBSL. So here, perhaps I was wrong. But we talked about it at length anyway and who knows? Maybe Mike got it right. Quickley is ready to play, likely to bounce back from last TC, and he helped the Suns shed some long term cap while getting under the tax himself. It’s better to talk about this stuff as a mentor than to ultimately decide which way to go.
"So what now, Greep? You hit your word count yet? No? Fine, tell us the summative point of this article..."
Mentorship does not fit into the neatest mold. It looks different for everyone, but the same way it’s a good thing for mentors and mentees to discuss some basic strategies to be successful in this league, I thought it would be nice to discuss the mentorship itself. I only have my own experiences to recount, but everyone here got mentored by someone else more veteran.
How did it go? What did you like? What didn’t you like? I’d like to open up this thread below to anyone who would like to chime in. Sing someone’s praise. Throw someone under the bus. I’m here for all of it and I think either way we could all gain something from it, too.
Cheers, GMs of PBSL.
You’re welcome!
“You’re welcome,” words many a mentor should have said over the years of sim league, although in recent memory I can recall at least a couple mentors saying “thank you” instead…
Rather than harp on slimy trades, I would like to highlight some solid mentorship I have experienced, witnessed, or delivered over the years that I’ve been playing fake ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-basketball.
Getting Mentored
Garbageman brought me into this league when the Warriors opened up. By the time I responded, my rival Lakers were the next option available, which sucked, but oh well. Commish at the time (and for 15 seasons afterward), he seemed poised to have all the right links to the forum ready, beginner’s guides etc., and advice on shedding my best player (!!!) with a look toward a better future than a team with one decent player in the present.
That was crazy to me at the time. I just had to trust he had no reason to steer me wrong.
I’d say most vet GMs by now realize I had little clue what I was doing, but you would not have known it by my trip to the finals 5 seasons in off of a 60 win season, having inherited a horrendous team with a horrendous Giannis Antetokounmpo contract. That took a lot more savvy than a GM with my lack of expertise had, and since Gman went on a five ring run in the decade to follow, one can trace my early success back to great mentorship.
“Your best player is useless on a team that sucks - get rid of him and create better future options”
“Your team sucks - don’t try to be good.”
“For your first few seasons, talk to me about ANY trades that come your way so you don’t get hosed by GMs sliming on the new GM.”
“I won’t trade with you for the first few seasons.”
“What? Why? I don’t get it.”
“You’ll eventually see why. Mentors trading with mentees can get a bad rap, even if the intentions aren’t completely bad.”
Really, most mentoring has serviced me in the world of trading. Once the basics of the league are established to navigate through a season (participate in the offseason (draft, TC, RFA and UFA), submit DCs, update your point bank), the rest gets pretty subjective.
Trades are good or bad. FA bids are good or bad. And one person will not necessarily agree with the next.
Syndicate tried to get Leiker from me for Jerry West for many seasons before I finally bit the bullet and went for it. In a deal I arguably lost, I learned a ton. My first superstar for superstar trade. After West immediately fell from p/p to b/b, Syndicate reiterated I left the deal on the table in West’s prime, so if I were planning to do it anyway, it would have better served me earlier on.
I wasn’t trying to hear any of that. I lost my second trip to the finals with a b/b West. But in retrospect, he’s not wrong.
And at the time, when I felt salty as all hell and watched the Skype Chat rain disapproval on the deal, good mentorship from Gman pulled me out. Long term, the deal did not serve me, but in the short term it got me back to the dance for a ‘ship which is exactly what I wanted that deal to accomplish.
(Concurrently, Gman was mentoring my competition in the finals, Mamba’s Clippers, who took to learning the game a bit more quickly than me and swept me blind…but we’ll get to that later.)
Trade talks have played a pivotal role in mentorship opportunities. I can’t think of any trade I’ve completed over the last sim decade that I didn’t bring to the man who swept me in those finals, Mexican Mamba. In fact, I would wager that Mamba knows most of the deals in the league before they happen because even experienced GMs will run trade ideas by him for input. Hell, I’ve come to him with hypotheticals and he was able to guess the actuals. I’m pretty sure this was how the DC / Saddiq Bey deal finalized - another trade with Syndicate that the league would say I lost and that “Bey is untradeable” etc. but a win-now stud I sought was a win-now stud I received.
…Even though DC died a historically bad TC death immediately afterward. But that’s besides the point.
The best mentorship I experienced came from several different directions, even the Slime King himself, Mr. Quailman. Boy have we had some interesting trade talks! But from someone everyone called the Slime King, I couldn’t just take any offer, so I really learned how to haggle, and how to make a deal that works both ways, where both sides are satisfied. He never started with an offer too grand (when I come to him with offers too grand he doesn’t even reply, so now i don’t ever offer much of a reply either in these circumstances), and never started a talk he would not be willing to negotiate. Sometimes there’s just not a deal that makes sense, and that’s okay too. But if you don’t take the occasional risk, you can easily stagnate, and stagnation can lead to inactivity and complacency and apathy and a dead season. These aren’t fun. But plenty of us GMs are here to have fun, and getting your hands dirty will do it.
Point is, good mentorship got me where I wanted to go, even if I did not get the results I wanted. Mamba and I have talked about that. I circle back with Gman on trade things, too. Syndicate is basically a dad full time now, but I’d say our trade talks have evolved with each and every move and I’ve learned a lot from dealing with him, like why he traded Leiker after one season (“didn’t have a use for him this year, can’t stay attached”). And that was a big lesson for me, anyway, to not get too attached. I really loved these fake players. Still do! But do I do that at the expense of the team? Not anymore. And that advice has carried me forward to be less upset about bad turns in the league overall.
Mentorship I Observed
Back to getting swept in my 2nd trip to the finals… By my mentor’s other mentee… Yeah, that could have stung real bad, beyond just the loss, but Gman helped us both impartially which was really important. Mamba and I had a ready made rivalry, LA vs LA, mentee vs mentee, and several GMs know that I can take a rivalry really far, maybe too far. Even though I was swept, I didn’t feel defeated.
Mamba was and is a gracious winner. He wins more than most. I used to hold Mamba’s progress as a measuring stick against my own, having started the league together, but over time I realized we’re different and he’s probably just a bit better at this. But that felt okay. And as Mamba swept the competition for his first (and only for now) ‘ship, he didn’t hesitate to talk shop with me on how he got it done. And how Gman had given him advice to get him to this point. That all his early moves and dips into and out of the tax created a dynamic environment for him to play and acquire a bunch of top tier talent blowing all his competition out of the water that year.
And while we’re talking Mamba, let’s all acknowledge that we’ve had trade talks with him. And they’ve went pretty well. And he has “come correct.” And when advice is being sought, he’s selfless in giving it. And if you haven’t sought advice from the commish…what are you waiting for?! I’d reckon vet GMs take hints from Mamba at times, so there’s no reason our newer GMs can’t get pointers from him, too.
And if I deal with Mamba, he’ll talk positives and negatives on both sides of the deal and give me time to think about it and take it to another GM for a 2nd look.
And if this hasn’t been your experience in dealing with Mamba, color me shocked.
We’re all trying to win, right? And winning and mentoring need not be mutually exclusive…right? Seems counterintuitive, perhaps, that sharing your tricks can give someone else the upper hand. But to me, this is successful mentorship. There must be some selflessness to it, and confidence that your good advice will not ultimately come at your own expense.
So when I do see a slimy deal go down between a mentor / mentee, I can’t help but wonder what the hell is going on. I think some mentees might not care one way or the other…or I don’t know. But it doesn’t exemplify the entirety of their mentorship. Even though I think they might have made a shady deal, it still doesn’t count for other good advice a mentee received from the same mentor. And it’s probably not good mentorship if I see one of these deals go down and I reach out to say ‘you got hosed, bro,’ even if it is instinctual for me to do so.
Which leads me to
Mentorship I Delivered
I’ve tried for years to get one of my friends into this league, and I finally found a taker in Mike Lowry. Bless his heart. I’d say this relationship actually developed backwards since Mike had experiencing coaching real life sports before, digging into sports stats and such, so I’d often go to him when I didn’t know what the hell PER or TS% before I got on Skype chat. Mike helped me understand real basketball a little bit better than from just a fan’s perspective, like how Zone is not a bad defense to run on a team that sucks at shooting the 3. So a lot of his real life knowledge carried over to sim league for me, and when he joined, I had hoped to send sim league knowledge right back to him.
“Playing time does not contribute to experience, because these players don’t have an algorithm to get better with floor time.”
“Remember the age of 31 - it’s worth considering when you’re signing free agents or trading for a vet player with a big contract, because a turning point for players to decline.”
“That Bradley Connell contract sucks, dude, don’t do it.”
“Dude, I thought we learned with Connell, what the frye is this Tex deal??”
Conversely, though:
“Pay James Andrews like a doctor [in RFA].”
(Sorry RPF. That was me. Be mad at me for that, not Mike Lowry. But James Andrews IS dope though, isn’t he? Could have turned out worse…and i really thought you would have just declined outright but anyway…)
Truth be told, Mike Lowry is Mike Lowry and he’ll do what he does regardless of my input sometimes. I didn’t like his return for Kevon “22 rebounds” Looney, but he really wanted Quickley. And Looney won’t do anything fruitful for seasons to come. And Mike’s ready to play in the PBSL. So here, perhaps I was wrong. But we talked about it at length anyway and who knows? Maybe Mike got it right. Quickley is ready to play, likely to bounce back from last TC, and he helped the Suns shed some long term cap while getting under the tax himself. It’s better to talk about this stuff as a mentor than to ultimately decide which way to go.
"So what now, Greep? You hit your word count yet? No? Fine, tell us the summative point of this article..."
Mentorship does not fit into the neatest mold. It looks different for everyone, but the same way it’s a good thing for mentors and mentees to discuss some basic strategies to be successful in this league, I thought it would be nice to discuss the mentorship itself. I only have my own experiences to recount, but everyone here got mentored by someone else more veteran.
How did it go? What did you like? What didn’t you like? I’d like to open up this thread below to anyone who would like to chime in. Sing someone’s praise. Throw someone under the bus. I’m here for all of it and I think either way we could all gain something from it, too.
Cheers, GMs of PBSL.