Kevin: Everyone likes to talk about how they dramatically improved at Ultimate during their rookie season. “I couldn’t even throw a flick but now I am so much better,” is the anthem of every sophomore talking to the next season’s crop of rookies. It is extremely easy to get better at something when you are starting from nowhere. You just play the game and pay attention and things fall into place. Then people hit their first plateau. Usually this is where people end up when they are just going through the motions at practice and having a good time there. The way to break through this plateau is to start working out, thinking about ultimate, and spend time throwing outside of practice. Any future plateaus become very difficult to escape.
In my own game I have been advised to think about a “Money Maker”.
“Walden Nelson: haha thats why you need a money maker
whats your path for making the team going to be?”
and
“Geoff Serednesky: What do you want to be great at doing?”
This kind of frustrates me because I have always wanted to be a well rounded player and to just be “good at ultimate.” So I feel that it’s possible I may not understand the idea of a Money Maker, and Walden Nelson has agreed to chat about this. So the burning question that after two years I still can’t get over, Why can’t “being a good player” be my Money Maker?
Walden: What do you mean by good player? Wanting to be a good player is very vague.
Kevin: A player who is capable of making a Nationals qualifying team.
Walden: Ultimate is a team sport, so just being good at everything isn’t good enough to make a Nationals qualifying team. How you relate to your teammates and the team is very important. People who have higher Madden ratings get cut from teams all the time just because they aren’t a good fit or don’t fill a need.
Kevin: Is it possible this is a misnomer though? What would happen if a team just selected the highest possible Madden Ratings? What if they didn’t consider what roles people would had, but just threw lines of seven guys who can ball?
Walden: What would happen if you had a line of 7 Beaus or a line of 7 Cahills or 7 Kurt Gibsons?
Kevin: I don’t see the problem with 7 Cahills or 7 Gibsons. Wouldn’t they just truck everyone?
Walden: The line of Cahills would struggle to huck without real deep threats. The line of Gibsons would have bad team chemistry and wouldn’t play well together because Kurt always wants the disc. Ultimate isn’t really like the NBA where you just tell your best player to do whatever and everything they want and then fill in afterwards, its a lot more like soccer where people are just better at doing certain things and you build around that. Especially your best players in frisbee, they all have things that they do better and some things that they don’t do well. There’s a reason why Beau doesn’t huck it that often or Cahill doesn’t go deep that often or Doublewide winning Nationals, the year that Kurt didn’t play every O point.
Kevin: Even though doublewide didn’t play through just Kurt, they ran everything through about 4 guys. I feel like most teams have a small number (less than 5) that they can run their offense through. On revolver it is Beau, Robbie and Bart. They have specialties for sure but isn’t the rest of the team just guys who are good everything?
Walden: My point is that Doublewide won the year where they spread the responsibility out, instead of relying on Kurt and Brodie to do everything. The rest of the team has guys that are good at everything, but their role isn’t to do everything well, its to do a certain job very well. It doesn’t matter that Dalton Smith is bad offensively because Doublewide didn’t need him to contribute on offense, they just need him to get some d’s which he did.
Kevin: Alright, but aren’t most money makers hereditary? Or something that came out naturally? Like A.J. Nelson being really athletic, and Schwenk being really athletic? Like your money maker is your ability to defend handlers extremely well, isn’t that just quickness you’ve had forever? Sid’s money maker would be his throws, and he basically woke up with those.
Walden: If it is hereditary then why isn’t Jon Mckoy the best player ever? It’s not about your natural gifts or whatever, it’s how you use them. And learning how to maximize it. Just because you’re a freak athlete doesn’t make you a good player. You have to be able to use it on the field.
Kevin: Doesn’t it follow that you need some kind of natural gift that you can refine? How would a player with no natural affinity for something find a way to create a money maker?
Walden: Why is Geoff on Machine? Why did Stupca make Machine?
Kevin: Geoff is 6’5”. I don’t know about Stupca, it’s possible his natural talent was that he could think coherently and quickly.
Walden: Geoff is 6’5” but he rarely goes deep. So why does his height really matter?
Kevin: He can get scare people with his moves deep because of his height? I think a good question is, what did Geoff and Stupca have as their MoneyMakers? If they built them from scratch then what route did each of them take?
Walden: Alright, then why was Pat so good? He was not a great athlete at all.
Kevin: He has a very explosive jab step, and he knows how to use that to get people off balance. So is being good at getting people off balance a possible MoneyMaker?
Walden: What you really mean is that Pat knows how to cut and get open, which is definitely a money maker. Both Stupca and Geoff are extremely intelligent players which is definitely a money maker, they both know how to use space well and know when the opportune time to cut is. Both of them are not great at getting open in isolation but as a continue cutter or a cutter who cuts off of other motion, they know how to set their guy up and get the disc. Also they both are good at abusing poaches which is a good skill to have.
Kevin: What about Greg Slover and Dan Williams? Don’t both of them have really good shots at Machine because they are just good at everything?
Walden: Dan Williams has a really good shot at making Machine because he is a tall athletic (probably dline) handler, which has been Machine’s biggest weakness the last two years. So he would fill a huge need for Machine. Slover is an interesting case because he is good at everything, he has a great shot of making Machine, but there is no clear cut spot or role for him because of it. Other people are going to be better equipped to play offense and the same for defense.
Kevin: So Slover has hurt himself by not having one thing that is “Elite”? I feel like Slover is a good example of if you put seven Slover’s on the field, they would score a lot.
Walden: Not hurt himself, just its going to be an experiment to find the spot where he can help the team the most. It’s not obvious. If he had better throws or was better at getting open, then bam, we would say he’s an Oline player and if he was better defensively then we would throw him on the dline. Either way he is good enough to play, we just have to figure out the best way he can help the team and the best way to get the most out of him. With 7 Slovers they might score a lot but they will also get scored on a lot.
Kevin: In High School baseball, usually the pitcher is the best player on the team. He pitches and he hits the best. After high school they need to start specializing in order to stay competitive at the next levels. The problem with this is that those who decide to become hitters become terrible pitchers and those that become pitchers become terrible hitters. I feel like this isn’t the best model for ultimate because if you are a “thrower” and you don’t have the disc, you need to be able to find ways to get touches, and in ultimate you can never avoid having to play defense. So how does it make sense to spend the majority of your effort chips on one thing. Let’s say I wanted to be a thrower. Does that mean I spend 80% of my time throwing every throw possible? Then when I get to tryouts people will still be roasting me defensively?
Walden: If you get good enough at throwing, it won’t matter if you’re a defensive sieve. Look at Bob on Machine. Bob filled a dire need for Machine, so Machine worked around his weaknesses. And if you’re a good enough thrower, the team will find you ways to get easy touches, maybe relying more on space throws like Doublewide or the super dumps like Mamabird. Another good example would be Brodie. Doublewide takes him as a tourney only player, and completely revamped their offense around him just because of how good he is at throwing. It didn’t matter that he hogs the disc or clogs or is an extremely lazy defensive player.
Kevin: Is developing a Money Maker worth throwing a few entire offseasons at? Let’s say someone works on their athleticism enough to just maintain, and then goes all out on throws? Or let’s say someone totally neglects throwing and works on purely getting a more explosive step. Let’s say this works out and they get Elite throws and still struggle defensively, or lets say they become super good at getting open or playing man defense but are just awful at throwing. Is this the formula for making an Elite team? Or does the Money Maker need to be developed on top of everything else that is done during an offseason?
Walden: It depends on the teams needs. I keep coming back to Bob, because he is a great offensive player but bad defensively. Him being such a good thrower makes his defense not a problem, especially since Machine needed a centering handler bad. Elite teams will always need people who can play defense, so focusing on being a great defender seems like a great way to get noticed. Look at Dalton Smith. Also Elite teams are pretty confident in their ability to teach certain skills, so figuring out the skillset the Elite team needs and then obtaining it during the offseason seems like the best way to go.
Walden: So do you think roles aren’t an important aspect of ultimate?
Kevin: It just really bothers me that someone with a higher Madden Rating could lose a roster spot to someone because the “lower rated” player is really really good at doing just one thing. Like in the case of Bob, were his throws really worth giving the team a path to break Machine on every turnover?
Walden: Yes, because his throws and offensive skills increased the chances of Machine scoring more than it increased the chances of the other team breaking Machine. Also there are ways to compensate. I was primarily responsible for switching with Bob if he had a matchup he couldn’t handle and we made it work.
Kevin: In the case of someone who wants their money maker to be “intelligence/opportunistic/space well” there is basically no way for you to practice that during an offseason. So are those kind of people doomed to just not make an elite team until they are 27? A skill takes 10,000 reps and the only place for them to develop the skill is in season right?
Walden: First, just because you’re intelligent/opportunistic/space well, that can’t be the only thing, you’ll need to be a competent enough thrower so that when you get open, the team wants you to have the disc. 2nd, to work on this skill during the offseason there are a couple of options, just because its the offseason doesn’t mean you can’t play. There are a lot of offseason tourneys, both outdoors and indoors to take part in, also winter leagues/goaltimate/3v3 or whatever. Besides playing, there is a huge library of footage out there that you can watch and take notes on. Find players who are intelligent/opportunistic/space well and try to get inside their head, figure out why they made a cut when they did, or what they saw to make them do it.
Kevin: So is this a special case or is there no such thing as a single trait that can carry a player? Like someone who is really good at guarding handlers also needs to be able to...?
Walden: Someone who can guard handlers well doesn’t really matter unless he can do other things. There are better and worse money makers. Someone who can generate d’s will get a spot regardless of his offensive skills. Thats why Hensley made Chain and Machine for so many years, he was great at getting d’s even if he couldn’t throw a forehand and was bad at cutting. Throwing is a similar thing, a great thrower will get a lot of leeway in terms of his weaknesses. Just like if someone is great at getting open, it doesn’t really matter unless he can throw or he knows how to not turn the disc over.
Kevin: So decision making needs to be a money maker that goes along with having really good throws. Otherwise Zubair would still be a valuable player to Machine right? Also how do you quantify someone who is really good at getting d’s? This could be a lot of things, like wouldn’t it be way more accurate to say this guys money maker is his layouts, his able to stay on someone’s hip or his ability to poach super effectively? Hensley had a few of these characteristics that he was able to put together in order to get d’s. Not only would he stay close to very athletic cutters, but he could finish the play by hitting the B button.
Walden: Old Machine players still talk about how Hensley got over 10 d’s on the first day of Nationals one year. And he was covering the other teams best player regardless of if it was a handler or not. If you want to break it down, sure, you could break it down that way, but he made all his attributes add up into a guy who could get d’s on anyone. You can say Neal is good at defense but he is not good at generating d’s. Zubair has really good throws, but they aren’t good enough to make up for his decision making, and he doesn’t have anything else to fall back on. Zubair’s throws are nowhere near as consistent as someone like Bob. And so you couple that with his decision making and you get why he has been cut the past couple years.
Kevin: Zubair can sky people!
Walden: Haha true, but he did not show that during tryouts. A good example of a money maker would be Gibby. His only chance at making Machine is to show that he can play great handler defense and/or generate d’s. Gibby does not have anything to fall back on. Someone like Slover even if struggled to play defense at tryouts, he could make up for it by showing his offensive skills. So there is still a lot of benefit to being a well-rounded player. Do you think that taking the 27 players with the highest Madden ratings is the right way to build a club team?
Kevin: I do, but I just had the thought that that is a college mentality. At Illinois we didn’t really think or stress about what roles everyone would have, we just took the guys who were actually the best at ultimate and we practiced really hard together and got good as a team. I guess this is different in club because of the higher standard of play but I don’t really see why the two cannot follow similar models. If Machine stocked their roster with the best players, then there is no 7 man combination that is bad. Currently however, you could look at the Machine roster and find a line of 7 that would be pretty weak defensively and would be in jeopardy when they turn the disc.
Walden: In club, the talent pool is much larger than in college, so you have much more options. Also you have a lot less time together than in college, so you can’t spend that much time figuring out what everyone is best at. You can do that with a few people, but it’s very important to get people chemistry together as soon as possible. The most successful club teams are the ones that return a majority of their roster year after year. This is an issue in college because you only have 5 years. So no matter what you are losing players year after year. This plays a big deal in thinking about the roster. In club, you pencil guys in for 8 years or whatever and build around them as a piece. You don’t have that luxury in college, you always have to be thinking about replacing people. Also in club, there are alternative options that can still help a player grow. The difference between making the A-team and the B-team in college is big, but in club getting reps on a 2nd tier team can still be an useful thing to help players grow. Also in club, finding combinations that when you add them up are more than the sum of their parts is huge. Finding two people who work so well together that they add up to 3 also is an important factor.
Kevin: Can people work well together defensively or is this idea exclusive to offense?
Walden: People can work well together defensively for sure. Here is what Lou Burrus had to say about it:”Much of the credit for this should go to John Hammond. Certainly the most creative defender I ever played with, John would do things that were unexpected and unpredictable. Usually, this would lead to some sort of broken field mess that Roger Crafts and I would try to clean up by poaching, switching and directing traffic. It was incredibly effective, but there weren’t clear rules. In describing it to then rookie Giora Proskuroski I said, “John’s going to do something crazy, Roger’s going to poach, I’m going to try to find the missing guy. You just cover your man.” The Friar Tuck of this whole mess was Luke Smith, whose giant white mop would serve as the visual inspiration for the name Clown Tent.”
Kevin: This reminds me of what Pavan used to say about how he would just know where everyone else is defensively and he would be able to position on his guy based on what he trusted everyone else to be doing. He also said that set him up to be able to hunt d’s off his guy because he wouldn’t have to decide whether or not to commit to going for it after the throw would go off, he would already know based on his chemistry with the guys.
Walden: Exactly, tryouts are just like a job interview, yes it’s important how qualified you are (how good you are at frisbee) but how you fit with the companies values and how well you get along with coworkers also plays a huge part in the decision making process. Do you still think that club and college rosters should be built using the same logic?
Kevin: No, at this point I am thoroughly convinced that it is pretty important to have a money maker and to put together teams based on roles is effective.
Walden: What is your path to making Machine?
Kevin: I want to follow the Stupca/Geoff route, but I want to be able to do it as a handler. So I feel like I might have to pave my own route their. Is it possible for a handler to have a money maker that is opportunistic or spatially intelligent? I am pretty sure it is, I just have to find it.
Walden: What would being opportunistic/spatially intelligent as a handler look like? As a cutter its clear-cut because of poaching, especially for deep shots and what not. For a handler, poaching is not very rampant. So what do you imagine it being like to be opportunistic/spatially intelligent?
Kevin: I think it is all about setting your defender up in bad spots, and then cutting. I think if I follow “normal” cutting patterns, I will never get open consistently because my quickness or ability to change directions well is weak. If I can walk to a spot that is awkward for my defender to defend then I can take the initial advantage and use my size to maintain that initial advantage. I think seeing spaces as a thrower is also a trait that no one ever talks about and could be a skill that helps add value to a thrower who might not have superb throws.
Walden: If you can see the spaces but can’t get the disc there, does it matter that you can see the spaces?
Kevin: What if it’s like seeing the spaces before the spaces are there, so that you have the time to set up the mark to get the throw their?
Walden: If the end results in the throw getting there, then that’s a good skill, but people will just talk about how you have good breaks. Do you think you are on the right track to develop that opportunistic cutting skill? Do you think you are working hard enough on your money maker currently? How are you going to develop that skill?
Kevin: No I don’t, but I think from here I can map it out to practice more perfectly. I really hope Joe Ferrari is around a bunch with Machine B this summer, because I am pretty confident he can help me too.
Walden: What does the map look like?
Kevin: Obviously playing a lot, but while playing I need to use every game to experiment with one positioning idea. I need to not give up on something because it didn’t work the first time and I have to be willing to tweak things in case they can possibly work even better than before. I need to constantly think about how other people set up defenders and try to draw inspiration from that so that I don’t run out of ideas. Lastly, I think that focusing in on little nuances like the “Tim Duncan” article talked about is going to be huge for me. A lot of people ignore them or skip those things because they lack glam, but I am not above doing dirty work in order to become a valuable player.
Walden: You should also watch videos and take notes. And work on it during 1v1 handler cutting drills.
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