I'm starting to have a hunch that it's worthwhile to move development points off of a guy's skill if it's in the very low category, and reallocate that to a skill where he has higher potential.

Seems like common sense. Question though: If you pull a skill down to zero dev points, do they start to regress?

Do you need to at least leave a point or two in that skill so they don't?

When a guy turns red, you should zero him out

When a guy is orange, you may want to keep some time there - some risk of a small decline in my experience - but time devoted to black, blue and green will be way more productive

I sometimes leave 1 or maybe 2 on orange categories - but rarely a reason to do more unless you have no better choices

I hope I'm wrong here, but I've always thought they won't decrease as long as you have 7 in a red category. You only need 4 in LP/PER to not see any reduction.

Posted by mattstarks on 10/14/2020 11:07:00 AM (view original):
I hope I'm wrong here, but I've always thought they won't decrease as long as you have 7 in a red category. You only need 4 in LP/PER to not see any reduction.

technically speaking - you are guaranteed not to decrease at 7, and could decrease at 6 - but this assumes 1 WE and 0 mpg played. for most players, the break even number is more like 3-5. for high WE players who are starting, you can actually gain at 0.

however, there's also this - since potential came into existence, it has worked as follows: the rate of growth is VERY significantly influenced by the distance from the cap. a rating with 30 points left will grow much faster, all else equal, than a rating with 10 points left. we all know this. but the same is true as you get closer and as you get negative - a rating with 2 points left will shrink MUCH more slowly than a rating with 10 points off.

as such, you can just straight up 0 out anything red or orange with minimal risk of decrease. because ratings are floating values - like 70.1, 70.2 - its possible you'll see a point drop. but typically, this is a 0.1, 0.2 drop that just happens to push it over. similarly, your red/orange ratings at 0 that don't drop, very well may have dropped 0.1, 0.2 or whatever, but you just aren't seeing it.

rule of thumb - automatically 0 out all reds - also do all oranges except top line cores (per for sg, reb for big, etc). only put minutes back into these when you have extra minutes (as in, most of your stuff is now red and orange and you have nothing to do).

in reality, you should really be 0ing out low importance blacks for players with a bunch of high importances blues/greens (or even blacks), and sometimes, orange cores are worth growing even before some blacks and blue/greens, in certain edge cases. but the rule of thumb gets you close.

bottom line - the key to player development - figure out what role you need this guy to fill - and then answer the question 'what growth does this player need and when does he need it' - and make sure you get there. if you DONT plan ahead and figure out player roles and stuff, then you can locally optimize by just thinking like - how much growth do i get from each rating and how valuable is that - and move the minutes around accordingly. this line of thinking is what leads to the conclusion to 0 reds, because you get like 0.1 points for your 10 minutes compared to -0.1 if you do 0 minutes, and that 0.2 points total is going to be worth less than your growth in some other area (usually).

I think there are two levels at which you can think about player development.

1. Maximizing total improvement

You want to zero out reds, generally zero out oranges and push minutes toward greens and blues.

Generally, green increases faster per minute than blue. Also generally, a point value in the 30-70 range increases faster than point values in the 0-20 range or 80-100 range

Review ratings periodically - every game if you are intense - maybe every time grades come out or every 5 games if you want a more relaxed approach.

BUT, pure point maximizing can be a mistake. Lets say you have a player who is black in all categories but green in DUR and STAM. You dont want to pour all the minutes into conditioning (probably). You want to think about which ratings matter....which takes us to

2. Role focused player development

This is the point that gil always emphasizes in recruiting and development - and he is right. What position does he play? What is his job on the team this season? scorer? defensive stopper for whom offense is incidental? What do you need him to be ready to do next season?

The answers to these questions MAY lead you to invest minutes in ways that dont quite maximize point growth but do attempt to maximize ability to perform his role.

Like what? You have a BIG. He is your third big - will backup both the 4 and 5. Your starters are strong offensive players. Your fourth big sucks - you really dont the 4th big on the floor any more than essential. So, even if the guy has green potential in say passing and perimeter and maybe even low post, you might want to focus on improving his DEF, BLK, ATH and STAM so he can be a good defender and play more minutes. If so, conditioning and footwork need the investment even if that doesnt get his overall rating to the max.

I think,

I actually agree with gil on almost everything he said.... not a common thing.

the technicality is 7 will assure no drop in ratings. While 3 will assure no drop in PER/LP only. I also agree that its "really" 3-5.

as far as 0'ing out categories that are red or orange, for me it depends on a lot. If I have a Freshman PG that has a red 70 PAS, I may throw 4 practice minutes on it for most of that first season. Because once you lose a point; it's sooo hard to get it back. 70 PAS is the cutoff point for me at D2 for PG PAS, so not dropping to 69 in this case is important to me. After freshman season ends, then I'll 0 it out and it holds.

in the case of random guards being red 58 BH, or 71 SPD, or any rating that isn't going to be "good enough" whether you lose a point or if it stays the same, I'll 0 those out sometimes.

generally tho, I'll wait till Soph year to 0 out any core rating. I'll 0 out something like a 3 BH red for a PF tho immediately.

This is all great stuff everyone! Thanks for the advice!