Fellow owners is there a formula that I can use to translate how many optimal minutes my rotation can play based on their stamina numbers? Just lost a game where I was favored by 50pts and it looks like my rotation of 9 players was completely exhausted halfway through the 1st half.

do you use target minutes normally? couple things. in general, switch away from target minutes now, and never look back.

none of your starters are freshman, so i am assuming you have no onerous promises to meet, which is the only scenario in which a press team should ever consider target minutes. at its best - which your setup is pretty far from - target minutes is a real problem for high tempo teams - especially if they are short. a fcp team needs an even 12 man rotation to have 'full depth', and 11 is ok if you have basically 4 bigs and 7 guys from the 1-3. you have 9 - this is VERY short - as such maximizing your subs to minimize fatigue is a HUGELY important goal for you - and depth chart rotation always is going to sub to minimize fatigue, its what you need.

slowdown is basically automatic every game for a 9 deep press team such as yours, to help minimize that fatigue a little, but it will only go so far.

make sure your depth chart is pretty filled out, not just 2 guys at each spot (a main PG and a backup PG on the 2nd line), so that when you have foul trouble, guys can shift around to balance that fatigue some, instead of having one guy stay in for a long time and just get totally destroyed by it.

Thanks. I use the fatigue measure for substitutions. I just find it hard to believe that a rotation of 9 players cannot get through a game. Played college basketball. And if our rotation was 11 players I would have played a hell of a lot more than I did. Or if all the stamina ratings were in the 50's and 60's, could understand. But I have 2 players in the 90's for stamina, in a slow down and they cannot play 30 minutes, without being exhausted in the last 10 minutes of the second half.

It also seems as if the AI does not have a consistent rotation. Some guys are exhausted and they are left on the floor while a player who is on the depth chart below the exhausted player is taken off the floor from another position and replaced by a player that could allow that player to slide over. Many times, I simply slid over from the 1 to the 2 and gave up point guard duties for 2 minutes of game time so the better players could rest.

Just would like to know what the stamina numbers mean. What does a 60 stamina mean in minutes played and effectiveness of those minutes and what does a 90 mean. Just to get an idea of you could expect from an output from that stamina.

It's hard to give you a single number as there are a number of other inputs that effect a teams fatigue with the most important being stamina of your players, defense played (by both teams), tempo run (by both teams) and number of players in your rotation. I'm guessing you are talking about Bluefield St. where I see you play press with 9 players. Here is what I wrote in my D1 guide (which for this topic is applicable to all levels):

https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=530292&TopicsTimeframe=180

Press – Press creates the most turnovers which means more opportunities on offense. I think it is pretty clearly the best defense when you have the players for it. The problem is there is a strong emphasis on “when” in that previous sentence. Coaches need to have at least 11 players in the rotation and 12 is much better. All players should have stamina of at least 70 by the end of their freshman season with a target of 80+ after. I generally stick to a tighter spectrum of -2 to +3 and you can’t double team so your choices game to game are a bit more limited (but sometimes that’s better!). In summary, press has a very high ceiling but the need to keep a full roster gives it a lower floor (and let me tell you is very frustrating to try and play with 9). The attributes STAM and SPD are more valued than other choices (as well as just making sure you have enough bodies).


Regarding your bluefield state team, your individual stamina by players isn't bad but it's impossible to realize your full potential in a press with 9 people. Id consider letting your walk on Grady pick up a few minutes at the bottom of the depth chart but even with that and slowdown, you are going to be disappointed in the results relative to what you think your team should be able to accomplish. I hear what you are saying with your "in real life" argument, but the truth is this is a game. And by the way, most would argue press in this game is a better defense in the game than it is in real life (but only if you have the bodies to do it).

To more directly answer your question, for a press team playing a press team both running standard tempo, this is my best guess (without any research) as to how many minutes you could get out of a player while keeping them mostly in the first two rungs of fatigue, which is what you should be shooting for. And just for the sake of repeating myself, this table varies WILDLY based on the inputs I listed in my first sentence.

60 = 14M
70= 16M
80 = 18M
90 = 20M

Start with stamina of 72 going 20 minutes with a man defense at normal temp, and non FB offense. Opponent is running non-FB, not pressing. Consider that median. For every 2 points of stamina, add a minute the player can somewhat comfortably play (and likewise, deduct as you go down). Add 2 minutes for zone. Deduct 2 minutes for press, and 2 minutes for FB. Add 2 minutes for slowdown, deduct 2 minutes for uptempo. Deduct a minute if opponent is pressing, going uptempo, or running FB. Add a minute if opponent is playing zone, another minute if opponent is slowing down.

Very far from exact, just an approximate rule of thumb. It also gets less accurate the farther from median you get. And of course actual game minutes are affected by things like fouls and your sub patterns and settings. But as a *rough* picture of what to expect from your players on a given night, this works ok.


72 = 20
74 = 21
76 = 22
78 = 23
80 = 24
82 = 25
84 = 26
86 = 27
88 = 28
90 = 29
92 = 30
94 = 31
96 = 32
98 = 33
100 = 34

Posted by bogden1971 on 1/10/2022 5:14:00 PM (view original):
Thanks. I use the fatigue measure for substitutions. I just find it hard to believe that a rotation of 9 players cannot get through a game. Played college basketball. And if our rotation was 11 players I would have played a hell of a lot more than I did. Or if all the stamina ratings were in the 50's and 60's, could understand. But I have 2 players in the 90's for stamina, in a slow down and they cannot play 30 minutes, without being exhausted in the last 10 minutes of the second half.

It also seems as if the AI does not have a consistent rotation. Some guys are exhausted and they are left on the floor while a player who is on the depth chart below the exhausted player is taken off the floor from another position and replaced by a player that could allow that player to slide over. Many times, I simply slid over from the 1 to the 2 and gave up point guard duties for 2 minutes of game time so the better players could rest.

Just would like to know what the stamina numbers mean. What does a 60 stamina mean in minutes played and effectiveness of those minutes and what does a 90 mean. Just to get an idea of you could expect from an output from that stamina.

the rotations are actually pretty darn consistent, its just that the rules are clear as mud to the uninitiated. somewhere there's a 5 page post where i explain the fatigue rotations. if you aren't seeing guys slide around to get lower fatigue in, something is not right with the depth chart. if you post a screen shot i'm sure we can point it out, but the normal cause is not going deep enough on the depth chart. folks will often fill out the first 2 lines, maybe part of the 3rd, and that generally does not cut it.

full court press is very fatiguing, if you were running man or zone, the 9 men would be fine. make sure you are running those 9 guys all on fairly fresh, with a pretty much fully filled out depth chart, and that should make things as good as you can make it. probably run slowdown too. you really want 11 or 12 guys on a fcp team