Board 8 > KCF's road to the NBA Championship: An NBA 2K19 Story

(+) Yeah! (+)

I did this a long time ago with...*checks to see which game had Durant on the cover*...NBA 2K15. Being the first time I played an NBA 2K game using the front office modes, I was unaware about how you could not test out things like trading and drafting to get a feel for it and that the game autosaved. Needless to say, accidentally trading Draymond Green for three 1sts set me back, and it took me 10 seasons to finally claim the NBA championship. Now I'm going for it again with 2K19!

I erroneously said I was going to do MyGM mode in the poll topic. Well, to be more accurate, I should say that I did attempt to, but switched to MyLeague. For some reason, I thought that I did MyGM the first time, but that clearly was not it because when I was overwhelmed and confused by the 15 different menu tabs and having to do crap like pick out game day promotions and have conversations with my players/coaches/owners like I was supposed to have all the knowledge and power in the world. I switched to MyLeague, and this looked right with reduced menus and the general flow of things.

Anyway, back to the point. My goal here is to win an NBA championship. MyLeague apparently runs for 80 seasons. I sincerely hope that it takes me but a small fraction of that to meet my goal. As always, I am taking the Mavericks and also doing a fantasy draft. In MyGM, I could return all current draft picks back to their original teams, but that didn't appear to be an option for this even with the fantasy draft, so I guess my 1st round pick via the real life Doncic for Young trade is with Atlanta regardless of the fantasy draft results. If anyone who is also involved in B8NFLL and/or paid attention to my 2K15 topic know, I am definitely not a fan of the potential rating and its effect on player development. That did force me to have to do everything in my power to trade up into the lottery or higher within it in 2K15, which did eventually pay off. Without that first round pick though, I had to make sure to do well in this initial draft. My 2K15 draft yielded what should have been a Butler/Rubio/Green/Valanciunas core, though Butler did end up being on my championship team and Rubio was there for all but the final season.

A few other changes that I also made were the playoff structure being 5/5/7/7 game series since it has no business being 7 games in every round. I am also a vocal opposer to the soft salary cap, so I switched it to a hard cap. Not knowing what the figure should be, I set it at $225 mil, up from $200 mil I think. I set draft combine and pre-draft workouts to auto, and everything else was kept the same.
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I guess 2K ended online support for this game? I get a message saying that I couldn't connect to servers or something when I get to the main menu. I knew it was considered a disappointment and sports games these days don't keep servers on for as long as they used to, so I'm assuming it has to do with that and nothing is wrong on my end. Anyway, I bring that up because player ratings must be reflected in their initial ratings when the game came out and not what they would be now.

Oh wow, I got the second pick! I remember in my 2K15 project, I picked like 26th. Jazz got the first pick and took LeBron. Now since I don't have a 1st round pick in the upcoming NBA Draft, I am definitely going into this draft with the belief that I need to nail my long-term core.

1. F Giannis Antetokounmpo (94)
2. G/F Luca Doncic (79)
3. F Jaren Jackson Jr. (78)
4. G Malcolm Brogdon (79)
5. F/G Robert Covington (79)
6. C John Henson (77)
7. G Fred VanVleet (77)
8. F/C Kenneth Faried (76)
9. G/F Joe Harris (75)
10. F Moe Harkless (73)
11. C Bismack Biyombo (74)
12. G Bruce Brown (70)
13. F Guerschon Yabusele (69)
14. G Jose Calderon (73)

I wasn't overly concerned with positions, but this seems balanced. I could have taken higher considerably higher rated players in the second and third (I think there were 83s with my second and third), but I am hoping to take advantage of four years of low-cost Luca and JJJ as they are are rookies, and with their potential ratings, they could really blossom. I'm thinking that I could put JJJ at the 5 and roll with a Brogdon/Luca/Covington/Giannis/JJJ starting squad. My second unit looks solid too imo, but I don't know how it stacks up against the rest of the league. Henson and Harkless have multi-year contracts in the double digits AAV, but those shouldn't be too bad to keep on my cap. I think maybe only 10 or 11 players typically get playing time, but I thought that I would grab Brown and Yabusele as they are on rookie contracts with decent potential ratings. They could become valuable trade chips or solid bench players for me down the line. I didn't intend on having that young of a team to where I am a little worried. I think Calderon might be the only one in his 30s.

Hmm, I put in the hard cap of $225 mil, but it is saying that my $122 mil is $20 mil over? I am hoping that the $225 mil comes into play this offseason or one of the main reasons (I also just love both of them) for grabbing Doncic and JJJ was for naught.

Well, my potential long-term core of Giannis/Luca/JJJ/Brogon is 25 or under, so they should all have plenty of time before they start to regress. I'm hoping to have a lengthy window to contend.
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Okay, I have settled on this for my minutes distribution

PG Brogdon - 29
SG Doncic - 30
SF Covington - 29
PF Giannis - 36
C JJJ - 28

6 VanVleet - 23
7 Henson - 25
8 Faried - 20
9 Harris - 15
10 Harkless - 5

Calderon - 0
Biyombo - 0
Brown - 0
Yabusele - 0

I didn't change much except give 5 to Harkless by taking away from Henson and Giannis. They really want me to give a lot more minutes to true centers and less to SFs, but I like how this looks to begin.

I begin by playing the Suns who are headlined by Tatum, Valanciunas, and Kuzma and the Timberwolves with Embiid, Markkanen, and Fournier. I feel good about starting at least 1-1! I am ranked 16th, 16th, and 17th by the power rankings. Suns are 17th, 14th, and 25th while the T-Wolves are 24th, 30th, and 22nd.

I've also decided to run a balanced system. It was the only one to receive 3.5/5 stars.

I put up both of my 2nds on the trade block less because I want to and more because I am curious to see how players and draft picks are valued in the game. Better to use those than use Draymond Green as a guinea pig lol.
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If you're doing this on steam, turn off cloud saving, as there's a bug where your save can be corrupted if it's on

Also there is totally an option to undo all prior trades, when you set up and go to the "trades" section, there's a "previously traded draft picks" option you can turn off and it will make every team have their picks I believe
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Nah, this was on sale for like $2 on XB1 like a year or two ago
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I'm not going to provide updates after every in-game week or anything, but man, defense is insane while my offense is a problem. I'm 2-0 behind allowing just over 90 points per game (best in the league), and while I am scoring 109 per game (11th in league with 3rd best point differential per game), my FG% is at .409 (28th in the league). My second unit is excellent as Henson and Faried are just bullying everyone, but Giannis, Doncic, and Brogdon are all shooting under .370 from the field. It is weird because Doncic is hitting over 40% of his threes on 3 attempts per game. I know it's a miniscule sample size, but weird none-the-less!

My team is also 3rd in free throw %, 5th in rebounding, has committed the fifth fewest turnovers per game, and the 6th fewest fouls per game. I think that I am going to keep things the same for now. I am about to face the undefeated Bulls and Hawks in the second week who have AD/Adams/Dragic and KAT/Aaron Gordon respectively, so this should be a much better indicator of where my team currently stands.

Oh geez, the Bulls are shooting .529 from the field and .451 from deep. I am not feeling good about this.
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The Bulls are now 11-0 being #1 in points for and points against and #1 in FG% and 3PM%. They are in the Top 5 of several other major stats. They are insane. I am 7-2. I lost to the Bulls by three and got blown out by the then 3-5 Lakers led by Klay/Jrue/Millsap.

They really want me to go with a 9-man rotation, but I do have a positive +/- with him. He is only hitting .385 overall and .200 from deep. Okay, he's out and gave more minutes to Brogdan, JJJ, VanVleet, and Henson.

I also changed up some of the mentorship. Doncic was paired up with Covington but the default badges were those that Covington was at a bronze level and didn't seem to be all that important (like putbacks), so I went with some gold level ones that dealt with defense and elusiveness.
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Are you simming the games or physically playing them?

Sim
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tag

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Emeraldegg posted...

Also there is totally an option to undo all prior trades, when you set up and go to the "trades" section, there's a "previously traded draft picks" option you can turn off and it will make every team have their picks I believe

Like I said, this was in MyGM, but I could not find it in MyLeague despite the fewer settings. It is possible that I somehow kept missing it over and over.
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Could be a difference in platform then
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No, I re-checked and I definitely kept missing it. That makes no sense since I clearly found it when setting up MyGM, but whatever I can do without my 1st round pick
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I currently sit 38-15 up to the trade deadline. That is good for 2nd in the West (Jazz #1) and 3rd overall behind also the Bulls. My team stats with rankings are:

112.1 PPG (1st)
102.8 PAPG (3rd)
9.3 Point Diff. (2nd)
.482 FG% (3rd)
.389 3PT% (1st, albeit with bottom five attempts per game)
52.0 RPG (1st)
25.8 APG (5th)
8.4 SPG (4th)
5.9 BPG (T-2nd)

Giannis is currently 3rd in MVP race and 5th in Def Player of the Year
Doncic is 2nd in RotY
VanVleet is 4th in 6th man

Since I don't have a 1st round pick, I've just had my scouts look for sleepers and 2nd round prospects for all positions. I'm not really sure what my roster is going to look like, so I'm not going to pigeonhole myself into specific prospect scouting.

Factoring in my bench, my team is more frontcourt heavy, but Faried and Henson are currently injured. I decided to divy up those minutes to allow everyone else to play, and I have been quite impressed with Bruce Brown. He always gets at least two AST/STL a game and generally hits his lone 3PA that he makes. I have made Giannis his mentor.

I stopped at the trade deadline because I am wavering about what I want to do. All of the trade requests that I have been receiving have been for basically Bogdon or JJJ. JJJ is basically untouchable for me. Bogdon I could be willing to part with given VanVleet's emergence, but nobody is really offering something that I like except the Lakers are putting up two future 1sts (2020 Top 10 protected and 2022 unprotected maybe?). They have probably the oldest team in the league, but they are currently in line for the 5th seed in the West, so I don't know how soon I can expect them to fade, and I don't like that one of the picks is protected. What I am thinking about doing is trading Harkless for two future 2nds (2020 and 2021 I think) from the Clippers. The Clippers currently have the 4th worst record at 19-36, and Harkless, who has fallen on my pecking order, isn't going to be a needle mover for them, so the 2020 pick is at least expected to be low based on what has transpired this season). I could use those 2nds to trade up if this is anything like NBA 2K15.

I'm also thinking about Covington's future. He's shooting it well from beyond the arc, but he also sometimes feels like he's my 7th best option given how well Henson and VanVleet have performed off the bench. I still have him under contract for awhile, so I can make a decision later.
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I did end up trading Harkless. I got the Clippers' 2nd round picks in '21 and '22 plus a ~$10 mil trade exception that will probably go to waste. I scoured the free agent pool to see who I should sign to replace him, and I was shocked to see Kyle Korver there, so I snatched him up.

When the All-Star break came up, I was not surprised to see Doncic in that Rising Stars game, but JJJ was not named to the US side, and on the world side, they must have been really in need of eligible bodies because Yabusele was named to that team despite his minimal playing time. In the All-Star game proper, Team James (Harden) defeated Team LeBron (I was confused at first like somehow LeBron was playing both sides). Giannis was on Team James and had the highest +/- on the team and was the second leading scorer.

After the all-star break ended, Carlisle completely changed the rotations unless that was a bug with the game. VanVleet and Henson were in for Brogdon and Covington. We were doing extremely well before, but against my better judgment, I decided to give the new-look rotation a shot. We went 3-1 across the first four games, but we played against teams projected to have Top 10 picks, and we were really struggling against them. I went back to the original starting five. Faried was already out with a long-term injury, but we kept getting little injuries (1-2 weeks or day-to-day) every now, and always to our Fs and Cs. That caused me to frequently have to change the minute distributions and sometimes to where all healthy players were given minutes every game. I know that day-to-day players can still play, but I don't know what the re-injury odds are if you play an injured player and never felt like testing it.

There was a stretch where we ended up losing seven of eight, but the teams right in the thick of the #1 West seed (Jazz, Trailblazers, Suns) were also hitting rough patches. Thanks to the Jazz going 4-6 and Blazers 3-7 in their final 10 games, my 56-26 record was ultimately good for the #1 seed. The Bulls, Hawks, and maybe even the Nets in the East all had better records.
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I had a good chuckle to myself when I found out that I could override award choices, but even though I disagreed with their choice of 6th man and rookie, I kept them where they were.

MVP - Anthony Davis (Bulls), Giannis 3rd
Rookie - Trae Young (Hornets), Doncic 2nd
6th Man - Jeremy Lin (76ers), VanVleet 3rd
Defensive - Kawhi Leonard (Pistons), Giannis 4th
Most Improved - Jayson Tatum (Suns)
Coach - Fred Hoiberg (Bulls)

Giannis was named All-NBA 2nd Team
Doncic was named All-Rookie 1st Team
JJJ was named All-Rookie 2nd Team

East Seeding
1. Bulls
2. Hawks
3. Nets
4. Pistons
5. 76ers
6. Celtics
7. Cavaliers
8. Wizards

West Seeding
1. Mavericks
2. Trailblazers
3. Jazz
4. Suns
5. Pelicans
6. Lakers
7. Spurs
8. Timberwolves
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West First Round:

Mavs beat T-Wolves 3-0
Pelicans beat Suns 3-0
Lakers beat Jazz 3-1
Spurs beat Blazers 3-0

Not only did the lower seed win 3/4 of the matchups, but they did it in convincing fashion.

East First Round:

Bulls beat Wizards 3-2
Pistons beat 76ers 3-2
Nets beat Celtics 3-0
Hawks beat Cavaliers 3-2

The higher seed might have won all four games, but aside from Nets/Cs, they were all competitive series. The Bulls were actually down 0-2 against the Wiz.
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West Second Round:

Mavs beat Pelicans 3-2
Spurs beat Lakers 3-1

I was actually down 2-1 against the Pelicans. I truly thought my season was going to end. The Spurs on the other hand became the lowest seed in a non-striked shortened season to make the conference finals since the playoffs expanded to 16 teams. Impressive

East Second Round:

Bulls beat Pistons 3-2
Hawks beat Nets 3-1

The Bulls absolutely bulldozed over their competition in the regular season, but here in the playoffs, they had to come back to win multiple elimination games in consecutive series now (down 2-1 against Detroit). I didn't check to see their injuries, but this has to be concerning for the organization and fans in this virtual reality.
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Conference Finals

Mavs beat Spurs 4-0
Bulls beat Hawks 4-2

The magical run by the Spurs ends in a total wimper while the Bulls managed to avoid finding themselves on the desperate end of an elimination match.

This sets up a Mavs vs Bulls finals. The Bulls not only swept the season series 2-0, but they did it in blowout fashion. To make matters worse for the underdog Mavs, the Bulls are completely healthy while Henson and Covington are day-to-day.
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NBA Finals

Mavs beat Bulls 4-1

lol. Okay...I just...okay. I guess I should begin by talking about the series. I was forced to do a small-ish-ball lineup in Game 1 and was promptly defeated. Covington and Henson returned, and I re-did the minutes. I kept my starters the same as I had for most of the season. Approximately, Giannis gets 35, Doncic 32, Brogdon/JJJ/Covington 27-29, VanVleet/Henson 25, Faried/Korver 15, and then I divy up what's left to Biyombo and Brown. They weren't blowout victories, but I won convincingly nearly every game the rest of the way. Giannis was named Finals MVP, and while most of the stats back that up, I had to laugh that his 3P% was .091.

With the NBA title in hand, I fulfilled what I set out to accomplish lol. I know that a trade I couldn't take back set me back in 2K15, but I had 0 expectations of winning in my first season. I drafted Doncic and JJJ earlier than expected to play the long game. I expected to be a playoff team Year 1, but anything beyond that was going to be a bonus. I envisioned myself winning the title in 3-5 years to be honest. I wouldn't say that I am disappointed that I won right off the bat as I'm proud of the adjustments that I frequently made, and the trade of Harkless to sign Korver was a total game changer. That dude was money and probaby led my team in +/- per 36 minutes. However, it is a little underwhelming. I also started a MyCareer and can focus on that now.
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Here were the final regular season stats for my championship squad

Giannis: 82 games, 27.1 PPG, 10.0 RPG, 5.0 APG, 1.4 SPG, 1.3 BPG, .525 FG%, .332 3P%
Doncic: 82 games, 14.1 PPG, 6.3 RPG, 6.5 APG, 1.1 SPG, 0.3 BPG, .491 FG%, .425 3P%
JJJ: 82 games, 11.6 PPG, 6.4 RPG, 0.6 APG, 0.7 SPG, 1.3 BPG, .489 FG%, .384 3P%
Brogdon: 82 games, 11.0 PPG, 2.4 RPG, 5.2 APG, 1.0 SPG, 0.0 BPG, .440 FG%, .390 3P%
VanVleet: 82 games, 11.0 PPG, 2.1 RPG, 4.7 APG, 1.4 SPG, 0.1 BPG, .403 FG%, .386 3P%
Covington: 78 games, 10.7 PPG, 3.8 RPG, 1.8 APG, 1.2 SPG, 0.7 BPG, .402 FG%, . 379 3P%
Henson:73 games, 7.9 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 0.0 APG, 0.7 SPG, 1.3 BPG, .583 FG%, 1.000 3P%
Harris: 73 games, 5.4 PPG, 1.1 RPG, 0.8 APG, 0.2 SPG, 0.0 BPG, .483 FG%, .471 3P%
Biyombo: 61 games, 3.7 PPG, 3.6 RPG, 0.0 APG, 0.2 SPG, 0.6 BPG, .495 FG%, .000 3P%
Faried: 58 games, 8.9 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 0.0 APG, 0.6 SPG, 0.4 BPG, .547 FG%, .000 3P%
Brown: 36 games, 3.2 PPG, 0.7 RPG, 1.3 APG, 0.5 SPG, 0.0 BPG, .447 FG%, .455 3P%
Korver: 29 games, 8.0 PPG, 0.6 RPG, 1.0 APG, 0.2 SPG, 0.0 BPG, .511 FG%, .531 3P%
Yabusele: 16 games, 1.3 PPG, 1.6 RPG, 0.1 APG, 0.1 SPG, 0.2 BPG, .304 FG%, .154 3P%
Calderon: 7 games, 1.0 PPG, 0.3 RPG, 1.4 APG, 0.0 SPG, 0.0 BPG, .333 FG%, .000 3P%

As you can see, Korver was a monster with shooting efficiency (and really a lot of players shot very well from three point range in particular). Ball distribution was also a strength of the team with four players at 4.7 or higher per game. Per 36 minutes, Calderon and Brown would also rate highly there. It did come at the expense of players like Henson, Faried, and Biyombo who against all odds did not record an assist.
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