I'm not normally using them, but am going to this season just to get a bunch of players promises filled in a season I'm not winning anyway and to distribute minutes the way I want for development purposes rather than optimal play ... And to just experiment with target minutes because I want to where it won't influence a good season. Anyway, a few questions ...

1;: in a slowdown zone, what sort of minutes could a 74 stamina play without getting exhausted, as a midway point.
2: if I give a starter low target minutes, is it really going to give the starter, say, 9 to 13 minutes?
3: if I don't put down a full games worth of minutes, what happens to the leftovers? What if you put down more than a full game's worth?
4: what happens in overtime?

don't fill the plan with more minutes than you have available. Bad things happen fatigue wise. leave a little room for strange stuff. The engine will try to meet all the minimums you set, despite foul trouble, fatigue, etc... yes starters will play low minutes, but like I said, that may not be ideal...

can't answer your other 2, sorry.

Posted by uconnut on 9/1/2012 7:56:00 PM (view original):
I'm not normally using them, but am going to this season just to get a bunch of players promises filled in a season I'm not winning anyway and to distribute minutes the way I want for development purposes rather than optimal play ... And to just experiment with target minutes because I want to where it won't influence a good season. Anyway, a few questions ...

1;: in a slowdown zone, what sort of minutes could a 74 stamina play without getting exhausted, as a midway point.
2: if I give a starter low target minutes, is it really going to give the starter, say, 9 to 13 minutes?
3: if I don't put down a full games worth of minutes, what happens to the leftovers? What if you put down more than a full game's worth?
4: what happens in overtime?

I have a weak conference so I use target minutes to get my backups more playing time. I set my starters to 14-18 (except Perry 9-13) and this is what I got last game

North Park
http://whatifsports.com/hd/GameResults/BoxScore.aspx?gid=8589240

Everyone else is 19-23

I'm at 174-218

I only do this against low competition so not sure about overtime.

.

I'll try to give some answers:

1. My guess would be that you could safely play 24-28, but you'll need to experiment with it.
2. It should.
3. Here's the secret to target minutes: don't assign too many or too few minutes.  Set your maximum minutes to somewhere between 198-208 and make certain that you've made 40 minutes available to each of the 5 positions (e.g. PG - 24-28; SG 24-28, backup G 19-23 & have anyone 3rd on the depth chart at SG with a carryover minute or two from SF).  Any excess or deficit will favor the starters, but somehow will be applied according to Murphy's Law (a stunning programming achievement).  In short, either way will go very poorly for you. 
4. OT will begin with your available starters.  Substitutions happen, but are rare.  I'm not sure what will happen if you start a freshman at, say, 4-8 minutes and get into OT, but it may go ahead and play that starter another 5 minutes.

A bit of a late response, but check out a thread (Target Minutes - An argument for trying them.) I started a while back. I'll bump it for you as well.

For future reference, a very effective way to choose target minutes is by using your exhibition games to experiment. Set the depth chart the way you want it, use fatigue settings to where you hope to get the guy (for you, sounds like getting tired or even tired is what you are going for), and see how many minutes he gets in each exhibition game.

Updating #3 - I forgot for my first exhibition game, but scheduled 254-298 for my second game.

Name	Class	Pos	Health	GP/GS	MPG	PPG	RPG	APG	ST	Target Minutes
James Villeda	Jr.	PG	100	0/0					80	29-34
Howard Rickard	Fr.	PG	100	0/0					84	29-34
James Bragg	Sr.	PG	100	0/0					73	24-28
Kevin Hornung	Sr.	PG	100	0/0					76	24-28
Samual Henson	Jr.	PG	100	0/0					73	24-28
Chad Robison	So.	PG	100	0/0					75	24-28
Willie Polk	So.	SG	100	0/0					78	24-28
Gary Holmes	Fr.	SG	100	0/0					74	24-28
Marvin Oliver	Jr.	PF	100	0/0					73	24-28
Roger Asmus	Fr.	C	100	0/0					55	19-23
Rodger Valley	Sr.	SG	100	0/0					85	9-13
Johnny Stiner	Fr.	PG	100	0/0					69	-
There are 200 minutes in a regulation game.										254-298

At PG:
Henson, starter, scheduled for 24-28 minutes, played 25 minutes (and fouled out).
Hornung, backup, scheduled for 24-28 minutes, played 15 minutes.

At SG:
Rickard, starter, scheduled for 29-34 minutes, played 32 minutes.
Villeda, backup, scheduled for 29-34 minutes, played 8 minutes.

at SF:
Robison, starter, scheduled for 24-28 minutes, played 27 minutes.
Holmes, backup, scheduled for 24-28 minutes, played 13 minutes.

at PF/C:
Oliver, PF starter, scheduled for 24-28 minutes, played 27 minutes.
Asmus, C starter, scheduled for 19-23 minutes, played 23 minutes.

Polk, backup to PF & C, scheduled for 24-28 minutes, played 25 minutes.
Bragg, 3rd string to PF & C, scheduled for 24-28 minutes, played 5 minutes.

Valley, 4th string to all 5 positions and scheduled for 9-13 minutes, did not play.

So lookalike it makes sure the starters get theirs and then distributes the rest as it goes.

Looks to me like it goes pretty much straight down the line. Starters get theirs first. #2 gets as many as possible, up to limit. If any left over - then and only then do 3rd string get. 4th string get none, no matter allocation, unless there are some still available.

I still think Valley needs to be starting.

zbrent, I see Valley getting 16.5 minutes over the first two real games, so obviously you aren't using that extreme target settings like in the exhibition...are you still using targets or fatigue now?

Target minutes ... Just never really seem appropriate to my teams.