I promised 15 minutes to a recruit. I forgot to put him in the lineup for the first 9 games so he sent me an email letting me know as much. It took starting 5 games for him to stop being ****** and regain his work ethic. My question is, when is the tipping point for games played? Could he not dress out the first 21 games and then start the last 5 and be happy?

good question that even the best coaches mostly don't know the answer to. i don't know of anyone who could answer this really, and i don't know either. i don't think you could go 21 but certainly there is more wiggle room on starts and minutes both if you play games at the start of the season.

It depends on hidden RNG to some extent. Some guys will end up being ****** after much less, others wont leave even if you accidentally bench them for half the year.

As time passes, the community seems to think that it’s more related to ‘pleasing the chain of emails’ than it is an actual number. So I’m sure you hear the ‘80%’ guidelines that people mention. Well, as cub said, every player is different.

So let’s say he doesn’t complain until game 15. You may get away with 7 or 8 consecutive starts until he’s happy and that’s it. If he complains after 4 games, it may not be as easy. There’s a lot of variation it seems. But the email chain seems to be a factor.

the logic on promises is decently complicated and always has been. the specific times when promises are checked and complaints are generated have always been important, and the first and second complaint are definitely key. also, there have always been exceptions to anything along the lines of 'the 80% rule', based on the start of season to allow for human err. there still is. not all that long ago, i benched my first 5* of 3.0 at the start of the season with enough confidence he'd stay to risk it. i don't have enough info on that to really recommend to other folks, because the stakes are rather high and having 100% confidence is rather tricky.

it used to be a hard and fast rule that you could get away with *anything* as long as you fully met the promise from the minute the promise email was generated. i believe this is still true for minutes, so think the OP's experience would be consistent for anyone else. i think there is a bug with starts that makes it not true for starts, i do not think it is by design these situations we've seen where a player misses 1 start and quits. that is BS.

there is some variation in players especially around minute %s required for satisfaction, but other than that, not sure there is really any intentional player difference. the start bug thing is weird and seems inconsistent and i don't really understand it. not convinced there is as much variation as advertised here. its more that not a lot of folks are out there risking players quitting. as i've said from time to time since i came back to 3.0, when this comes up, this is fertile ground for an ambitious coach to do some research and gain an advantage over the community.

the players usually don't complain about playing time until after game non-conf game 7.
This includes promised starts. If they only start 4 or 5 of the first 7 (under 80%), you can expect that email.

Never have seen someone go 15-20 games before complaining if the broken promise occurred in the first seven games.
I would imagine if you don't play him for the first 15 games there would be additional emails and subsequent WE drops.

However, sometimes you can never get them back after that first email. I saw a guy promised a start and 25 min. Started 4 of the first 7, sent the complaint email. Through the rest of the season he started every game and averaged 30 min.
Transferred at season end despite starting 92% of all the games and over 28 min for the season.

I lost a player last season at Coppin St. I had him starting but on mop-up by mistake for seven games. Corrected and had him start and play a ton of minutes rest of the way. Still left.

This response is probably not aimed at advanced players, who have more experience at the recent game than I have. Since very early in the game, I follow the same plan on promises. I start at 80% or more all season long, never let it get below 80%. Often, but not always, this is best done by the 1st 28 games.

for minutes, I try to keep my promise over 100% all season long. If I get under, which happens early in the season typically, I’ll often just play the freshman 30+ minutes the next game, just to get them over the hump quickly.

my rationale, the type of player I’d promise a start and big minutes to, are top end players that are just so hard to come by, I don’t want to risk losing them, so I am Uber conservative in keeping promises. I am a bit less worried about keeping 15 minute promises, but. I follow the same plan, 100% all season long.

Also, I don’t hesitate to play freshman in the national tourny as starters, so instead of starting the 1st 28 games, I’ll start them all 35 games. Just did this two seasons ago, starting pg, a pretty important position, got good results.

Posted by Fregoe on 2/6/2023 12:55:00 PM (view original):
I lost a player last season at Coppin St. I had him starting but on mop-up by mistake for seven games. Corrected and had him start and play a ton of minutes rest of the way. Still left.

curious, did he actually play games in those first 7? i assume he did not actually start but maybe played a couple minutes at the end in a few of them, or something?

Posted by oldwarrior on 2/4/2023 4:04:00 PM (view original):
the players usually don't complain about playing time until after game non-conf game 7.
This includes promised starts. If they only start 4 or 5 of the first 7 (under 80%), you can expect that email.

Never have seen someone go 15-20 games before complaining if the broken promise occurred in the first seven games.
I would imagine if you don't play him for the first 15 games there would be additional emails and subsequent WE drops.

However, sometimes you can never get them back after that first email. I saw a guy promised a start and 25 min. Started 4 of the first 7, sent the complaint email. Through the rest of the season he started every game and averaged 30 min.
Transferred at season end despite starting 92% of all the games and over 28 min for the season.

this is all true but anyone looking to manipulate should note this is the main line logic, and that there is edge case logic around players who have yet to play a minute, or potentially even around games players did not appear in at all.

but do so at your own risk, i don't know the rules well enough to guarantee safety.

Posted by oldwarrior on 2/4/2023 4:04:00 PM (view original):
the players usually don't complain about playing time until after game non-conf game 7.
This includes promised starts. If they only start 4 or 5 of the first 7 (under 80%), you can expect that email.

Never have seen someone go 15-20 games before complaining if the broken promise occurred in the first seven games.
I would imagine if you don't play him for the first 15 games there would be additional emails and subsequent WE drops.

However, sometimes you can never get them back after that first email. I saw a guy promised a start and 25 min. Started 4 of the first 7, sent the complaint email. Through the rest of the season he started every game and averaged 30 min.
Transferred at season end despite starting 92% of all the games and over 28 min for the season.

On my "minor update" request list that would do alot of good, I wish Id get an email from the assistant coach or AD or player like 2 games into "breaking a promise" that said, "Heyyyyy reminder that you promised Little Bobby that he would get to start". The only time Ive ever lost a player, I just completely forgot I had offered him a start. I started him every game after he emailed me (I think it was around game 7), but it didnt matter, he left. Seems like that's a fairly easy fix that would help coaches from getting to frustrated.

Posted by gillispie on 2/7/2023 5:41:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Fregoe on 2/6/2023 12:55:00 PM (view original):
I lost a player last season at Coppin St. I had him starting but on mop-up by mistake for seven games. Corrected and had him start and play a ton of minutes rest of the way. Still left.

curious, did he actually play games in those first 7? i assume he did not actually start but maybe played a couple minutes at the end in a few of them, or something?

I wish I could go back to the game log. I believe played zero minutes and didn't start despite being listed as the Starting PG.

if you find the player on past rosters, you can usually see his season over season summary, and you'd sort of expect if like 28 games, he'd show 21 games played then, if they were all 0m. not exactly as clear but probably can reach same conclusion?

I find the logic interesting. I misremembered which player I made a promise to and moved the wrong guy down the depth chart for games three and four of the season. He played roughly the right number of minutes in games 1-2 and 5-8 but barely played in 3 and 4. His WE went up a couple of points through game 7, but after game 8 he suddenly did some math and realized that he had only played 12 mpg as opposed to the promised 15, sent a nasty email, and lost those gains plus three more WE points. The promise logic appears to be operating wholly independently of the general satisfaction logic and seems not to care at all about the trend in minutes within the segment it is reviewing.