The Gerald Wilkins' Rule

Challenge accepted, Chris! Derek here for more ‘Stache Talk. One thing I am always trying to do with SOM is balance realism with fun. I want players to perform as they did in real life, but not exactly. If everyone just replicated their results, what would be the point of playing? I might as well just go to the microfiche at the library and read the old newspaper summaries of the previous night’s action (actually, that sounds kinda fun). No, I want to control players a bit, and have them take more efficient shots, but also allow them to play as they did in real life. I want to coach the team and try to get the ball to the best shooter while also allowing the team to play similarly to how it did in reality.

Sometimes you have a player who consistently gets the ball too much or vice versa, doesn't get the ball enough. The issue I want to address here is how to ensure that the player with the highest Shooting rating on the team (everyone is rated from 0 to 3) takes an appropriate number of shots. There are two sides of the coin: (1) the player who doesn’t get the ball enough because he isn’t very efficient and there is another more efficient 1+ rated shooter on the team; and (2) when there is only one efficient 1+ scorer on the team and he gets the ball too much.

I’ve named this rule after Gerald Wilkins, who in the 1987-88 season was graded as a 2 Shooter while his teammate Patrick Ewing was a 1. Ewing was significantly more efficient than Wilkins. If you had any choice as to which player to pass to, such as the Opponent Defense FAC result of “Pass to any 1+ for pos. shot,” you would almost always choose to pass to Ewing. The big man ends up getting the ball too much and Wilkins not enough. It isn’t realistic. Similarly, take any Chicago Bull team from the late 80’s and you will see that Michael Jordan is the only efficient scorer and usually the only 1+ rated Shooter. So he gets force fed the ball. Now, he did put up a lot of shots in real life and I don’t want to take too many away from him, but I want to make it a little more realistic such that other Bulls are forced to take some shots.

When I get the Control reading of “RG [LG] [RF] PASS TO ANY PLAYER FOR POSITION SHOT (Flip next Card)”, which occurs a total of FIVE times in the deck, I roll the 20-sided die, and if the result is 1-10, the pass goes to the player with the highest Shooting rating on the team, whom I call the team’s “Designated Shooter,” and if the result is 11-20, the pass goes to any other player. Of course, the passer must actually pass the ball and cannot himself take the shot, even if he is the team’s Designated Shooter. If the player making the pass is the team’s Designated Shooter, it is dealer’s choice and the pass goes to whomever you like. If more than one player has the team’s highest Shooting rating, then you choose which player is the Designated Shooter.

This adjustment will force the Knicks to go to Wilkins on at least half of those Control readings when he isn’t the passer. Similarly, the Bulls will have to give the ball to someone other than Jordan on those Control readings when the 20-sided result is 11-20. Don’t worry, Michael will still light it up. I am currently playing the 1965-66 season (with cards I created from the card images of the computer game). In real life, Jerry West averaged 31.5 ppg that season. In the opening 13 games for me, limiting his shots somewhat by using this rule, he is averaging 35.8 ppg. Efficient scorers will not be greatly affected by this adjustment. For me, and I bet for many of you, one of the great pleasures of SOM is when a player goes off and piles up buckets. This rule won't prevent that. 

This adjustment is not a panacea. For example, if your team has two players with a Shooting rating of 2, and no other 1+, and one of the two is significantly more efficient, obviously you will give the ball to that player over the less efficient player in almost every situation. And even in the situation we have with the 87-88 Knicks, Gerald Wilkins is not going to take as many shots over the course of the season or per minute as he did in real life and Patrick Ewing is going to take more. And I am okay with that too. I want SOME level of realism but I am fine with trying to make your team better by adjusting shot attempts.

If you want to be more realistic, you could roll the 20-sided die each time you get the Opponent Defense result of “Pass to any 1+ for pos. shot” AND more than one of the four players eligible to receive the pass is a 1+. So for the 87-88 Knicks with both Wilkins and Ewing on the floor, no other 1+ Shooters, and another player as the passer, roll the 20-sided die and if the result is 1-10, Wilkins gets the shot and if 11-20 Ewing does. But that is up to you and is more realism than I require.

That is it for this edition of ‘Stache Talk. May your next roll be an X +!