NBA Showdown: Building a Custom Team

Today's post is going to be a breakdown into team building. I asked the discord to give me a player to build a team around, and the first answer was Anthony Edwards. So with him as my star, I couldn't pay anyone more points than his 1080 points. Hottest topic in the league right now as he is taking the league and world by storm. So before I start going into my team build and my logic behind it lets go over the roster construction rules.

NBA Awards a Real Life vs Showdown Comparison

 In this post I am going to look at the award winner for each award, and compare it to who my point system would favor, for some like clutch player, I don't have a comparison, but for MVP, DPOY, Rookie of the Year, 6th man, Most Improved and the All NBA/All Defensive teams, it should be a fun thing to look at. For them to win in showdown terms, they must meet all the qualifications they would need in real life to receive a vote.

NBA Most Improved Player: The award for the player that is deemed to have improved the most from the previous season.
NBA Winner : Tyrese Maxey
NBA Showdown Says: Isaiah Hartenstein
 In NBA Showdown card terms, I look at what their 2023 card was point wise and what their 2024 card is point wise and who had the greatest leap. That was Jalen Johnson of the Atlanta Hawks. Going from a 130 point card to a 850 point card, but he didn't play the 65 games to qualify. While Tyrese Maxey isn't a bad choice by no means, his role went from 3rd option to second, while also being the 1st option while Embiid was out with an injury, he went from a 790 point card to a 1010 point card. Biggest change in point difference was Isaiah Harternstein going from a 220 point card to a 670 point card. For those looking for a more impactful player, Coby White went from a 430 point card to a 750 point card. But Isaiah was huge for the Knicks who lost Julius Randle and Mitchell Robinson to injury this season, he filled in and stepped up to help the Knicks claim the 2nd best record in the Eastern Conference.

NBA 2024 Set : The Whole Thing

 It is that time of year again, I have finished the 2024 set for the NBA season. I will be starting the release out with the whole collection at once. In what was an incredible regular season of NBA basketball, as usual the Eastern conference is looked at as the weaker of the conferences, but for the first time in its history, 8 teams won over 45 games. On top of that, it was the first time in NBA history that 18 teams!!! won 45 games or more. The best record in the NBA this season comes from the Eastern Conference and it is the conference winning favorite Boston Celtics.  On top of some incredible cards, for the first time ever, I made full 12 man rosters, so there will be a ton of content in this posts. In regular gameplay many would not use a full team, but as I expand gameplay, it makes for some fun coaching decisions as the game goes on. For how long it would take me to upload them one by one to make rosters and teams, I am just dropping the whole set here as one, in mostly alphabetical order. I know this is a ton of images, 360 to be exact, so be on the lookout for some more personal posts. I didn't want to wait any longer to get the card out, but I will have a few more things in the coming weeks to dive a little deeper into everything that is here.  While some may have noticed cards can now go up to 7 rolls, I expanded my charts, and calculation process to try to reward the more consistent players, and the punish the inconsistent. in previous iterations, a role player that isn't very good could have had a 40 point game, and it make his chart star like. Now they will more resemble the 6 OB 15-20 HR boom or bust kind of chart which I love. 

(Back like I never left)

2023 NPB Set Part 2 - Central League

 The Hanshin Tigers ended the Curse of Colonel (Sanders) and took home their first championship since 1985. They were absolutely loaded, they scored the most runs and had the best ERA in the CL. They had the Rookie of the Year and MVP in starting pitcher, Shoki Murakami (oddly though, he didn't win the Best 9 pitcher award...). The Carp were a bit of a surprise and finished 2nd beating out a fairly loaded BayStars team and the vaunted Giants. The Swallows were a very big disappointment in 2023 after making the Japan Series the year before. And the Dragons...well, they're the Dragons.

If you want to follow NPB at all going forward, I can't recommend Yakyu Cosmopolitan and Gaijin Baseball enough. Both are active on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube and are invaluable resources for learning about the NPB, both past and present. 

1st place - Hanshin Tigers (85-53-5) - Won Japan Series in 7 games over the Orix Buffaloes

This team is absolutely stacked. Their usual ace, Koyo Aoyagi, had a rough season overall, but threw 4 2/3 scoreless innings in Game 7 of the Japan Series. New ace, Shoki Murakami, emerged and was absolutely sensational. A 1.75 ERA and 0.74 WHIP with a 9:1 strikeout to walk ratio. He's undersized at 5'8", and a bit old for a rookie, will be 26 next season, but hard to argue with those results. 

Koji Chikamoto led CL position players in WAR with 7.2 (2nd in NPB to Kondoh). He's always really solid, but this year found a more consistent approach to get on base where his speed can wreak havoc. He led the CL in steals in 28 on 31 attempts. He was also the Japan Series MVP as he went 14-29 (.483 AVG). Dude is just a baller, fractured his ribs on a HBP and then made this play.

Another solid contributor that had a banner year for them was Yusuke Ohyama. His .403 OBP led the CL and was second in the NPB only to Kondoh's .431 mark. 

Young star, Teruaki Sato, put up another really solid season. The pop has been there since his debut (3 straight 20 homer seasons to start his career), but this was his best season by OBP and he still maintained that pop (actually set a career high SLG too). He went to Driveline this winter, perhaps he unlocks the next level this season. 

Their worse player by WAR, was American, Sheldon Neuse. He had a -1.5 WAR for the season. But he hit a homer run off Yamamoto in Game 6 of the JS, and then followed that with a 3-run homer off Miyagi in Game 7. And his Showdown card isn't that bad. Certainly not for a team's worst player. 

As good as the team is, their starting pitching is probably their strength. The aforementioned Murakami leads the way, but Hiroto Saiki is a year younger and also put up a sub 2 ERA. Koutaro Ohtake and Masashi Itoh are both lefties that put up very good seasons as well. If they get a return to form next season from their usual ace, Aoyagi, teams will have no reprieve when facing them. 

And of course, their closer, Suguru Iwazaki, put up an elite season as well, just to cap things off.

2023 NPB Set Pt 1 - Pacific League

 

2023 saw a lot of attention for Japanese baseball. It started with Samurai Japan winning the World Baseball Classic in dramatic fashion. And ended with the Hanshin Tigers breaking their Championship curse, another MVP season for Shohei Ohtani, and record breaking contracts for both Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. 

For the Pacific League specifically, it was dominated again by the Orix Buffaloes and Yamamoto. He took home his 3rd straight MVP, Sawamura award, and Triple Crown. But I think we've all heard plenty about him this offseason, so I don't need to go into further depth. The Buffaloes made it to the Japan Series where they fell to the Tigers in 7 games.

Before I discuss players/cards. Any WAR or defensive stats mentioned or defensive stats used to created cards were taken from this site: https://1point02.jp/op/index.aspx
Also check out Yakyu Cosmopolitan and Gaijin Baseball on Twitter and YouTube. Both are invaluable resources for learning about the NPB, both past and present.