I always wonder if I distribute my minutes most efficiently. I typically put a minimum of 18 into conditioning for all players, 8 in FT at all times (unless everything else is red), 20-25 in the categories I want to improve. I rarely put anything less than 10 in a category as I wouldn't think it would be as effective as putting those extra minutes in another category. Obviously this is a very situational question but how do you guys tend to do your minutes?
Is there a point where I can stop putting points into conditioning or will the players lose too much? Can I do less?

What is the minimum amount of minutes that are worthwhile to put into a category to see an improvement? Like say for instance I have 45 minutes to distribute, and I have 3 categories with the exact same rating and potential, would it be more efficient to put 15 into each of the 3 categories or distribute them between two categories so those 2 categories would both have 20-25 minutes? I know that's very depend on WE and what I hope to gain out of the player, but I'm just curious what some of the more experienced players think.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Did I do something wrong?

No, you did not.

May god have mercy on our souls, because you've actually won a national championship.

I'm not sure what you mean either, nacho.

Russ, I would say that 12+ minutes in any given category is enough for the player to improve significantly.  Even a low (30ish) WE guy will eventually max out if you give him 12 minutes in a category his whole career.  I would think that's true even if it's a "very high" potential.  Now, if he plays 5 minutes a game and never starts, maybe not, but you know what I mean.

I typically do my off/def minutes the same way. If it's a young team I will give them around 25/25. If it's an older team I give something like 15/15 depending on their IQs. However, it sounds like you distribute your remaining minutes a little bit more across the board. For me, say I have 25/25, that leaves me with 80 minutes to distribute and I'll typically go with 8 in FT, 18-25 in conditioning, some amount in study hall, then the rest I'll distribute between 2-3 categories. I put zeroes in everything else. Do you find it works better to have 8-12 points in 5-6 categories vs 20-25 points in 2-3 categories? Obviously it'd depend on the player, but I find myself wondering this a lot with FR who have, say, 7 blue categories. I've been typically focusing on the most important categories of improvement to me, which might lead to a growth of 15-20 points in that category over the season while a category I put nothing in loses 4-5 points.

Again, thanks for the input, guys.

To be fair, he's only been playing a few seasons and won the NC at D3. 

Like you pointed out, it really depends a lot on the individual and the team makeup, but I think it's a good question.  It is pretty important, imo, to have an efficient practice plan and regularly check on it and make changes.

That being said, I'm more of a "15-20 to a few things" kind of guy.  For players with too much potential to practice it all, I like to specialize them depending on either what the team needs more of or what the player himself needs more of.  Some easy examples:  player with 50-High Per on a team that needs another quality shooter; 30-High Def where I need the Def higher to feel ok starting him; team lacks Passing overall, so I might train the backup PG's 55-High Passing extra hard.

I agree that it seems like a waste to spend 7-10 minutes maintaining a rating in that scenario.  I'm fine with letting something less important drop a few points at the expense of the ones that I need to improve. 

Another thing I like to do pretty often that's similar is treat ratings turning red as "maxed out."  If there's another rating where I can get improvement, I'll shuffle the minutes over there instead of trying to grind out those last few points of Reb or whatever.  A lot of the time they'll pick up those last few points in the offseason anyway.