do the letters i get from coaches mean much. they are telling me not to put hours in certain areas. some times in sim games those kinds of things (letters) are just to make the game feel real. back to the point, i want them to get better at those things so should i ignore them or listen to them.?

Listen to them! If you get a letter about passing, rebounding, etc. it means that the player has reached his potential and won't improve much more. After such a letter, set the category for 7 minutes of practice ( or 3 minutes for PER and LP) and the skill should remain stable.

goodstuff

a common misconception in this game is that you should put players at 7 minutes when they max out. players have an improvement curve, and along that curve, rate of improvement and decrease are related. when rate of improvement is roughly 0, so is rate of decrease. so, if a guy has room for improvement in any meaningful category, put all capped categories at 0 minutes of practice. more than 90% of the time, you won't see a decrease, and when you do, its probably only because the category was on a border line (like it was 68.52 and dropped to 68.45).

Great info billyg - I'm definitely going to try that out. Do you apply that to FT practice too, with it's legendary rapid-plummet?

billyg- not to doubt anyone but as a relative newbie, I haven't seen this concept (0 minutes practice when maxed) mentioned often. Just making sure that this is for real-anyone else?

dave, i had the same doubts. Tried it last season and it worked as advertised. Don't know if the recent updates changed it at all.

Quote: Originally posted by pumphead on 6/13/2010Great info billyg - I'm definitely going to try that out. Do you apply that to FT practice too, with it's legendary rapid-plummet?

yes :)

Quote: Originally posted by daveredden on 6/14/2010billyg- not to doubt anyone but as a relative newbie, I haven't seen this concept (0 minutes practice when maxed) mentioned often.  Just making sure that this is for real-anyone else?

a lot of people have doubted me when i've said this 0 minute thing, i'll say the same thing i said before, just give it a try. yes, its for real.