My honest opinion : Why it doesn't require any GM skills to succeed.

[boubabi 4,725]

Hello there.

 

I've been a GM for now more than 4 seasons (starting in mid S39) and I enjoy it so far. I would have liked to go through the draft process with my current player (Lord Karnage), but I'm glad to help my team to succeed. As you know, my last player, Niklas Lindberg, was a first gen. 701 recruited me at season 32 so I haven't been there forever. I don't know much of the league history and how it was before, my I feel petty confident to have a decent understanding of the league. We currently are in a semi crisis where TPE inflation seems to be a problem. Personally, I don't see it as a problem that much, changed have been made to fix some of it and I think it will do the work. A veteran member came back (brooks) and went with a surprising suggestions where the leagues needs something new and get fresh. It was surprising because veterans members seem very conservative these days (Victor, sterling, Smarch, Kendrick, etc.) 

 

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about that, my title might give you a hint on my next topic. Since I'm GM'ing, I already went through a rebuild and now my team is actually starting to compete to another level. So I had to go through a selling period and stack up some picks. Helsinki is in a good way to achieve the same next season. Anyway, as you know, i'm a bit of a "big head", so it wouldn't surprise you if I say that I'm pretty happy with my work so far with my team. But, even after all this work, I knew that I will have a major problem at some point. Some might call that "cap hell". What is cap hell ? Well, you have so many good players in your team that you can't fit them all under the 32M cap. There's some way to get around that (deadline deals, getting under the TPE bracket), etc. but if you already have those players in your organisation, you have a problem. So to fix this, you might have to do some cap dump as I did. I traded Kowalski and Ruutu, who both showed some inactivity at the end of their run with me. Therefore, I had to trade those 2 for a 3rd round pick (which is absolutely nothing). Imagine if those 2 would have been active again...it would have been a pain to find a way to fit all those active and good members. 

 

Here's my point, even with all the trades I have done to get my team at his current level, I came up with some major problems with the cap, so I had to make a huge step backward to fit everything. So why all those efforts ? I could be semi active and just do basic trades with no real gambles and I would have stayed with a basic team and probably under the cap. What do we really need to be a successful GM here ? Here's my opinion : "Cap space and timing" Yes, only that. Skill isn't needed. Let me explain myself. We saw how cap space and timing is the only thing needed. The Bears and the Legions had (or decided) to go through a rebuild process. The problem is, there was simply not many buyers, and by not many, I mean like 1 buyer. Therefore, the price went down rapidly and GM who acquired those players had a great bargain. I won't point fingers, but you might already think of some team who got great players for not much. Lets take place as a buyers now. As a GM, I know who is selling and who isn't. I'm speaking to those guy and trying to get a deal done...but it's simply impossible because well managed team just doesn't have cap space. So what sellers have to do ? Some player in their prime doesn't want to stay 3 years in a team that is rebuilding. We can all agree on that, therefore, the rebuilding GM is somewhat forced to trade the player (we have some notable examples here this season) and since there's not many buyers who can afford those players, average team can afford them and suddenly become contenders out of nothing. No offense to them, they have to deal with the market and GM have to take those occasion. Even if you are an average negotiator, the buying team will have, most of the time, the strong side in the negotiation because there's just other other options available. 

 

I want to create discussion here, but  still, I feel that I could just scrap everything with horrible trades, not working to develop my intern prospects and just wait other GMs to do so. I just will take advantage of the market at some point in the off season and this will be enough to have a good team. This way, I could fit under the cap, get player for a cheap price and still be considered as a "good gm", and that's folks, my honest opinion. 

 

Sorry for the horrible grammar and phrase structure. I hope you guys will get my point here. 

Edited July 9, 2015 by boubabi

[Phil 5,119]

Very interesting perspective. 

 

I'm going to have to read it again when I'm less tired though hah

[Kesler 1,514]

Wow took two shots and me during this but am totally fin with it

[Kesler 1,514]

Also I must say I agree to some extent. It takes little to no skill to build a team for a one or two season cup run. But going for a cup for 4-5 plus seasons takes a lot of skill, cause you gotta know when to make trades, when to move players that are eating too much cap, when to trade for picks and/or players. But there is also a lot of timing/luck that is in it as well, for example I wanted to rebuild this past off-season but no one was buying (well maybe one or two teams, but certainly no bidding on players) so I ended up just sticking with my team. Then  look who popped up, Mikaelson, acquiring him means I can extend my period of competition for at least another two seasons (including this one). So some could say I got lucky or some could say it took skill to upgrade my team and ensure that I could compete for a longer period. 

[Baozi 1,658]

Takes skill to always get into the playoffs  and still manage to get a championship in there when the timing is right

[gorlab 4,321]

good points tbh 

[Frank 5,212]

Coming from the guy who hasn't even won a cup yet. Pew pew pew *avec un accent francais*

[boubabi 4,725]

Edited July 9, 2015 by boubabi

[gorlab 4,321]

My experience with VHL is that there is ~3 competing teams and then a huge drop off to where every other team is trash.

 

 

Thankfully I've always been on one of the competing teams. 

[Frank 5,212]

My experience with VHL is that there is ~3 competing teams and then a huge drop off to where every other team is trash.

 

 

Thankfully I've always been on one of the competing teams. 

 

The Seattle Bears disproved that theory, thus proving that trash teams can win as well...

[Ball 453]

I would have gotten multiple cups with Quebec

Had everything went according to plan that is. Id be the Advantage of gms if advantage was any good

Edited July 9, 2015 by Ball

[Victor 10,943]

Pretty much. I literally got a team to four straight finals by:

1. Getting Brovy for nothing because he wanted out.

2. Signing FA Boom.

3. Getting Davey Jones because he wanted out and preferred Davos to Helsinki (they were the better team before that imo)

You can build a core all you want but that was a 3-4 week span you could not plan for and without it, Davos would have been a failure. The Helsinki and Toronto teams which recently blew it up probably had better cores but less luck.

The most noticeable thing a GM could do is make really bad trades. And even then, some trades perceived to be bad turn out to be irrelevant.

[Higgins 3,618]

Easy if you can rely on "cousins" to fill your roster and get 7 TPE a week from mag I suppose but we all don't have that luxury.

[Victor 10,943]

Higgins got no chill.

[Will 4,660]

I like the new Higgins

[Da Trifecta 1,899]

Higgins is a savage

[Kesler 1,514]

Pretty much. I literally got a team to four straight finals by:

1. Getting Brovy for nothing because he wanted out.

2. Signing FA Boom.

3. Getting Davey Jones because he wanted out and preferred Davos to Helsinki (they were the better team before that imo)

You can build a core all you want but that was a 3-4 week span you could not plan for and without it, Davos would have been a failure. The Helsinki and Toronto teams which recently blew it up probably had better cores but less luck.

The most noticeable thing a GM could do is make really bad trades. And even then, some trades perceived to be bad turn out to be irrelevant.

oh ya good times when I used to win, now I just lose....

[CoachReilly 688]

so - you just traded kowalski / ruutu for a 3rd and there's no part two there?

 

let's be honest plz

 

i vote to impeach

Edited July 9, 2015 by CoachReilly

[Da Trifecta 1,899]

so - you just traded kowalski / ruutu for a 3rd and there's no part two there?

 

let's be honest plz

 

i vote to impeach

 

Soon.

[gorlab 4,321]

I'm finna powerbomb jimmy faraday.

[Frank 5,212]

Easy if you can rely on "cousins" to fill your roster and get 7 TPE a week from mag I suppose but we all don't have that luxury.

 

Ya or you can suck your friends dick and get him to whore himself out for max amounts of TPE. 

[Baozi 1,658]

Ya or you can suck your friends dick and get him to whore himself out for max amounts of TPE. 

 

Are we talking about Alexis Frulling?

[Frank 5,212]

Are we talking about Alexis Frulling?

 

Don Draper, but that's a good one too. 

[scoop 3,432]

so - you just traded kowalski / ruutu for a 3rd and there's no part two there?

 

let's be honest plz

 

i vote to impeach

Let's be real, it takes like five seasons to get of someone once they've demonstrated that they should be gone as GM.

Edited July 9, 2015 by Streetlight

[Mike 708]

It might be easy being a GM but its not easy to find a good GM.

Edited July 10, 2015 by Mike