I'm probably not the best person to be asking, but I will anyway.  My only team is a one-a-day in Allen so I don't have a lot of experience with the new game.  So take what I say with some salt.

I get the right side of the bell curve for player development.  Once you reach a certain point, the returns on investment are minimized until you finally max out where no amount of practice is going to make you better.  I get that.

I'm not sure the left side of the bell curve makes that much sense.  I suppose that one could be so bad at something that practicing will show almost no gains for a long while but I'm having a hard time reconciling that theory with the players who are known to have high potential in those categories.

Right now my team in Allen has a freshman player with 85 work ethic that has high potential in a few categories.  After 9 practices, he has developed a 56 category to 59 and a 38 category to a 40.  But with the same amount of practice minutes, his two categories of 1 are still stuck at 1.  (And that includes a perimeter rating that I believe still requires less minutes to maintain.)

I have two other freshmen with high potential in speed.  With the same amount of conditioning minutes, a 42 work ethic has turned a 66 to a 69.  But a 51 work ethic hasn't been able to budge the 1 rating.

I realize it is just 9 practices, but with the stunted development of underclassmen in the new game, I'm assuming that the categories that have starting rankings of 1 with high potential are quite likely not going to come close to maxing out.  Even once the rating gets to the point where it might be able to take off, the change in how players develop will probably prevent that.  And that would make sense to me if the left side of the development bell curve also made sense.  But I am not sure it does.  I can't see how this would apply to real life.  I never took a piano practices in my life so my starting rating is 1.  But if I were to devote some time every day to practicing the piano, I feel quite confident in saying it wouldn't take long before I could play the hell out of "Mary Had a Little Lamb".  My potential might max me out before I play anything of true difficulty but I wouldn't still be hitting random keys after a few practices.

From my vantage point, the new batch of recruits has many, many, many more recruits with starting rankings of 1 and also have high potential.  Maybe these are just teases that can't fully be developed and utilized but I'm guessing that isn't the intent.

Thoughts?

Which is why I don't think the bell curve works.  Even after you get to the point in the curve where it speeds up, it won't speed up *that* fast and I think it's going to be very difficult to get a 1 above 20.  (And I have no idea how high the potential could be for a guy that starts at 1, but even at 20 you might still be losing out on a lot of lost potential.)

Even before the slowdown in underclassmen development, I had a couple of guards with high potential rebounding with starting ratings of 1 that I couldn't get above 20.  If memory is correct, a season's worth of practice got one player from 1 to 2 and the other from 1 to 3 ... which regressed 2 in the offseason.   And that was when I wasn't trying to give them low post minutes either.

Like I said in the original post, I assume the introduction of all these high potential players with starting rankings of 1 was done so that these players would be able to fill it.  (Or at least come close.)  But if the growth rate is so difficult to get from 1 to 5, I don't see how you come close.

agree completely with this -- why even bother making an attribute high potential if the rating is under 10?  i had thought (hoped) that they'd gotten rid of this with the advent of potential -- evidently not.

jayhawk - my understanding from TK was with potential, the bell curve went away on the low end. Definitely send a ticket because what you are seeing is wrong.

Posted by mullycj on 7/21/2010 3:40:00 PM (view original):
jayhawk - my understanding from TK was with potential, the bell curve went away on the low end. Definitely send a ticket because what you are seeing is wrong.

my understanding is that the bell curve was just softened, not eliminated.

I actually wasn't aware that the bell curve still existed (guess I don't pay close enough attention there).

So are we saying that given two otherwise identical players -- let's say 50 we w. high potential in reb and the same PT -- the guy with 1 reb will (at least at first) improve much more slowly than the guy with 40 reb?

I thought that part was elimiinated with potential, but could be completely wrong.

And if it hasn't been eliminated, it absolutely should be. (If anything, I'd argue that the guy with the 1 rating should have quick gains intiially.)

Would actually love the see seble weigh in on this.

Posted by coach_billyg on 7/21/2010 3:49:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mullycj on 7/21/2010 3:40:00 PM (view original):
jayhawk - my understanding from TK was with potential, the bell curve went away on the low end. Definitely send a ticket because what you are seeing is wrong.

my understanding is that the bell curve was just softened, not eliminated.

Actually, I don't think its even supposed to be a bell curve at all anymore. It's a linear line sloping downward with improvement on the vertical axis and max potential on the horizontal axis. The closer you get to max potential the slower you improve.

Yep, that was my understanding, too.

Posted by mullycj on 7/21/2010 4:46:00 PM (view original):

Posted by coach_billyg on 7/21/2010 3:49:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mullycj on 7/21/2010 3:40:00 PM (view original):
jayhawk - my understanding from TK was with potential, the bell curve went away on the low end. Definitely send a ticket because what you are seeing is wrong.

my understanding is that the bell curve was just softened, not eliminated.

Actually, I don't think its even supposed to be a bell curve at all anymore. It's a linear line sloping downward with improvement on the vertical axis and max potential on the horizontal axis. The closer you get to max potential the slower you improve.

well, whether its supposed to be what you described or not, i guess i don't know. but its definitely not what you described. that is part of it though. obviously playing time and practice time factor in, and work ethic. and maybe redshirt?  but also, really low ratings certainly are on some different improvement curve, and have been consistently throughout all of potential. i am not sure about high ratings, they are slow, but the pace in which you get there is going to be slowed already because max rating - cur rating is guaranteed small (although i am not convinced the engine does not generate max ratings over 100 to allow quick improvement to100). also, there seems to be a factor in the new engine that causes freshman to improve more slowly. either the playing time deal went up A LOT, or else, freshman improvement is being artificially suppressed. my guess is the latter.

I think it's the former, and really, really hope it's not that latter.

I recuited a SG with a Reb rating of 1, but with high potential.  Halfway through his Junior season, he's up to 15, but it took forever to get him from 1 to about 5 or 6.  He's got a decent Work Ethic (in the 60's) and got/gets decent playing time.  Has been getting approx.  12-14 minutes of rebounding practice for that whole time.  Don't know if this helps at all, just thought I'd throw an example out there.

its gotta be easier in real life to go from 1 to 2 speed then 51 to 52

As a FYI followup, the 85 WE freshman (now 86 WE) finally moved from ratings of 1 in both perimeter and ball handling to 2.  Both changes took place overnight after the 16th practice.

With the same amount of minutes that are being given to ball handling (10), the rebound rating has moved from 56 to 62.  And with just 12 minutes of conditioning, athleticism has moved from 39 to 46 and speed from 4 to 7.

Moving from 1 to 2 sure ain't easy, especially when you are practicing every category.