Sooo... does anyone use Target Minutes? Or is that a no no?

I use it more now than in 2.0, There was some tweaking done to the logic to make it not so ......stupid.

Its good when you want players to play LESS than their stamina would allow them.

I use Target Minutes to manage promises. It seems most coaches frown on this idea.

Target minutes is fine 90% of the time during conference play; as long as you have the median team total below 200, it will operate pretty close to how fatigue operates. Guys will come out when they’re starting to get tired. Early foul trouble sometimes throws a wrench into it, so I don’t use it in the postseason or games I really want to win. But for managing promises during the season as a whole, it’s generally fine.

Posted by HouseBert on 12/23/2020 12:41:00 PM (view original):
I perceive that prevailing wisdom is to use fairly fresh as a default. Does anyone use getting tired on occasion successfully? Like if the starter is significantly better than next man up? What percentage decline in performance is expected?

I figure playing at blue (fairly fresh) is about 90%, yellow (tiring) about 80%, orange (tired) about 70%, red (very tired) about 60%, roughly speaking. I’ll use getting tired sometimes for guys with high stamina, as a way to stagger substitutions to keep my best players on the floor longest. If I’m playing a 3-2 zone defense, for example, and my starting C has 90 stamina, while the starting PF has 76 stamina, with one frontcourt bench player significantly better than others, I’ll often set the center to getting tired with the primary bench player backing up both positions. That gets those 3 players the bulk of the frontcourt minutes, limiting exposure to the back of the bench, which is what I want in that case. There are also ways to move a starter to the second position of the other slot and leaving an open position of the 3rd, it gets a little complicated, but that way you can ensure the right guy is in the right position, if that matters to your team.

Posted by shoe3 on 12/25/2020 4:47:00 PM (view original):
Target minutes is fine 90% of the time during conference play; as long as you have the median team total below 200, it will operate pretty close to how fatigue operates. Guys will come out when they’re starting to get tired. Early foul trouble sometimes throws a wrench into it, so I don’t use it in the postseason or games I really want to win. But for managing promises during the season as a whole, it’s generally fine.

Wait. You keep the mean below 200? Why not the mean at 200...?

Posted by craigaltonw on 12/25/2020 6:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 12/25/2020 4:47:00 PM (view original):
Target minutes is fine 90% of the time during conference play; as long as you have the median team total below 200, it will operate pretty close to how fatigue operates. Guys will come out when they’re starting to get tired. Early foul trouble sometimes throws a wrench into it, so I don’t use it in the postseason or games I really want to win. But for managing promises during the season as a whole, it’s generally fine.

Wait. You keep the mean below 200? Why not the mean at 200...?

Yeah, mean not median, thanks. As long as it’s under 200, the engine will resort to fatigue, like you would want. If it gets over 200, it may sometimes have to make choices, and in general you don’t want the sim making choices for you if you can ever help it, if you know what you’re doing. The real downside there is that some guys may get stuck on the floor for too-long stretches, in order to fulfill their minutes “requirements”. That means tired players, and that will hurt. It’s not quite as simple as keeping it all under 200 team-wide, you have to think a little bit about how many minutes are at each position on the depth chart too, like you can’t have 3 guys at point guard and nowhere else set to get 19-23 minutes, that just won’t work.

Ahhh. So if I’m understanding right... when “Target minutes” is set with all added player minutes coming to 189-233 the Sim could make odd choices whereas 159-203 is straight-forward. Got it.

Posted by mullycj on 12/25/2020 4:25:00 PM (view original):
I use it more now than in 2.0, There was some tweaking done to the logic to make it not so ......stupid.

Its good when you want players to play LESS than their stamina would allow them.

what changes are you speaking of?

Posted by craigaltonw on 12/25/2020 4:38:00 PM (view original):
I use Target Minutes to manage promises. It seems most coaches frown on this idea.

i don't know anyone who frowns on this idea, unless you are running press. using minutes to cover regular season promises is the extent of how most coaches use them. i don't think using minutes as the main line plan for covering promises is always the best approach, its just not necessary in many cases, but at least using them sometimes is totally justified and frankly there is nothing about the regular season that matters enough to say what you are doing is wrong, even if that is your plan from the get-go (i would generally design NOT to lock myself into minutes vs fatigue, when i'm making promises, and more use it as an oh-**** button, but to each their own!).

i cannot in good faith recommend this to anyone, but when i was coaching uconn a year or so ago for 4 seasons (my entire 3.0 solo coaching experience), because i was so clueless in recruiting, just getting to 10 players took a minor miracle and i never got past that. i was switching from minutes to fatigue and back all post season for at least a couple of those seasons. again... i cannot really recommend that level of game to game adjustments, the vast majority of coaches will completely screw up their team that way. that said, i certainly consider having minutes as a tool in your kit to be a requirement for optimal man and zone coaching. i'm really a press coach myself though, there are perhaps better non-press coaches out there than me, perhaps not. anyway, i could be wrong, but i think minutes has a place even at optimal play. not for all teams, i still use fatigue mostly for non-press, but i think it has a place all the same. its just not for newer coaches, or coaches who mind if they lose a bunch of games while experimenting in perhaps ill-advised ways.

Posted by shoe3 on 12/25/2020 10:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by craigaltonw on 12/25/2020 6:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 12/25/2020 4:47:00 PM (view original):
Target minutes is fine 90% of the time during conference play; as long as you have the median team total below 200, it will operate pretty close to how fatigue operates. Guys will come out when they’re starting to get tired. Early foul trouble sometimes throws a wrench into it, so I don’t use it in the postseason or games I really want to win. But for managing promises during the season as a whole, it’s generally fine.

Wait. You keep the mean below 200? Why not the mean at 200...?

Yeah, mean not median, thanks. As long as it’s under 200, the engine will resort to fatigue, like you would want. If it gets over 200, it may sometimes have to make choices, and in general you don’t want the sim making choices for you if you can ever help it, if you know what you’re doing. The real downside there is that some guys may get stuck on the floor for too-long stretches, in order to fulfill their minutes “requirements”. That means tired players, and that will hurt. It’s not quite as simple as keeping it all under 200 team-wide, you have to think a little bit about how many minutes are at each position on the depth chart too, like you can’t have 3 guys at point guard and nowhere else set to get 19-23 minutes, that just won’t work.

i can't really comment about the rest but the classic rookie mistake is over-allocating minutes - staying under 200 for the mean is definitely good advice, if you are over 200 you are probably going to have problems. i would guess my mean is usually close to 200 though.