I've never recruited a player with a WE less than 20, but I'm curious--for a recruit with good potentials, but also a 9 WE or 13 WE (for example), what is realistic to expect in terms of improvement over the course of a 4-year career? If that recruit were to start, would that help?

You can’t expect much growth at that level. If a number of attributes are maxed, and you can zero out time without losing ground, you can make some headway in blue or green areas. Starting helps, but work ethic grows slowly at the margins, so it will take a lot of starts to get above 20 when they start at 9, and he’s unlikely to ever get above 30, from what I’ve seen.

thanks for the reply. if an attribute is red, i can zero time without losing anything (a general policy), right?

Posted by ejectgoose on 3/2/2018 9:33:00 AM (view original):
thanks for the reply. if an attribute is red, i can zero time without losing anything (a general policy), right?

Yup. You will likely lose zero and maybe 1 point throughout the season. I do it all the time.

Btw, if you search for it, Trentonjoe has some threads on low WE experiments to give you an idea of what to expect.

Honestly, going into even the low teens doesn't worry me too much if the guy has 1. good starting numbers 2. good potential and 3. can get starts early in his career.

If he's going to contribute only AFTER getting some serious growth then you might want to pass.

As for a strict cutoff of what I won't recruit - I'd say probably 5 WE is where I draw the limit 99% of the time but hell, if the guy is 90s everywhere, I'd go for it.

Thanks, Benis. I'm an A+ D3 team screwing around with D1 recruiting. Found a D1 guard no one seems seriously after (at this point, at least) with the following stats:

OVR: 538
ATH: 60 (Blue)
SPD: 65 (Blue)
REB: 21 (Orange)
DEF: 47 (Black)
BLK: 1 (Orange)
LP: 12 (Green)
PER: 63 (Orange)
BH: 64 (Black)
PAS: 72 (Black)
WE: 9
STA: 65 (Black)
DUR: 59 (Black)

Debating whether he's worth it, given it sounds like he won't develop too much even if I were to sign and start him. I like his ATH/SPD as base stats plus potential, and his PER/BF/PAS are all decently high already. His DEF and STA are a little low for my liking, but again, this would be a D3 player--and likely a backup plan for me if/when my primary targets get sniped.

Thoughts? I appreciate the insight!

There's actually another guard in the same mold too:

OVR: 510
ATH: 67 (Black)
SPD: 62 (Blue)
REB: 13 (Black)
DEF: 42 (Blue)
BLK: 9 (Red)
LP: 11 (Red)
PER: 68 (Red)
BH: 57 (Black)
Pas: 19 (Green)
WE: 13
STA: 78 (Black)
DUR: 71 (Black)

If not for his passing, he might be a better recruit than the first guy. Heck, maybe he still is. Better DEF and STA and slightly better WE in exchange for less potential ATH and a significant drop in PAS.

I wouldn’t avoid him just because of the WE. It’s all relative to what else is available to you. His cores are good enough that he can probably be useful to you as a backup pg even if he never gets starts, and improves only marginally over the course of his career. So if you can get him cheap, why not?

I’d be curious to see what others do with the LP. It’s tempting, but it might be too low to ever make anything useful from, and it would take development away from conditioning and defense and the pg skills (BH, pass) that are more important, IMO. My instinct would be to zero out rebounding, LP, perimeter, and pour into conditioning and defense while maintaining the skills at 7 until junior year.

What O/D you run? 1st guy has pretty mediocre ST and ST usually loses points in offseason with low WE guys so if you run FB/Press then he's probably not ideal. If you run Man or Zone then I'd probably go for it - if you can start him at least 3 seasons. He's a Solid D3 PG.

2nd guy is definitely different, he's gonna have to play SG or SF since that 19 pass won't get high enough to play PG. Good thing for him is that his ST is already pretty good so if you play Press, that's less of a concern.

But I'd look for this guy to play a SF. He's okay but doesn't really do anything too special. Serviceable at D3 if you need to plug a hole.

Btw- You should probably not share potentials of players that you're actively on the forums since someone could see them and see who you're going after and you just gave them free scouting info. Probably better to do in sitemail.