for an individual player saying I'm wasting time on certain area's like BH. How accurate are their suggestions, should I adjust accordingly or stick to what I determine to be best? Still learning but receiving advice I'll be implementing soon, but was curious about this.

Listen to him.  Once you get that message, some  coaches will reduce the practice time to zero. Others will greatly reduce it but still give some practice minutes to the skill

Listen to him.  Reducing to zero after that message almost always leads to no reported reduction in skills.  Now and then they drop a point.  May be that they drop decimals and we dont see it, but the minutes are almost certainly better spent elsewhere

If we receive this message regarding "free throw shooting technique", should we also reduce practice minutes to 0? I've read other places that we should stick with a minimum of 9 minutes for FT shooting, but if there's no risk of reduction in skills, it'd be nice to allocate the minutes elsewhere.

I wish we all knew for certain.  When I get those messages, I reduce PE and LP to 3, all others to 7 but FT to 9.  I would like to know if I can use more minutes elsewhere.

Posted by paland on 3/24/2011 8:54:00 PM (view original):
I wish we all knew for certain.  When I get those messages, I reduce PE and LP to 3, all others to 7 but FT to 9.  I would like to know if I can use more minutes elsewhere.

I'm with Paland.  (Long time, no see my friend.)  I would love to reduce farther without too much penalty, especially if those minutes could be of use elsewhere....

Hello Area51man. It has been a long time.  Good to see you are still around.

Posted by paland on 3/24/2011 8:54:00 PM (view original):
I wish we all knew for certain.  When I get those messages, I reduce PE and LP to 3, all others to 7 but FT to 9.  I would like to know if I can use more minutes elsewhere.

I never go below 6 unless it's something like a guard with a LP of "1" already, when I feel safe going to zero.

Maybe I need to re-evaluate based on this thread.  I've just never seen a player stay at the same rating with less than 6 minutes unless the rating is already 1.

if you go to zero they will often stay put and now and then drop 1 - try it out

you absolutely should go to 0 on maxed categories, unless you have nothing else to do with your minutes.

paland - not sure what you are wishing you could know for certain. just try it, and it will be obvious enough! or, you could take our collective words for it :)

They mean with respect to free throw shooting.  I would assume it works in the same way as everything else, but there is a common belief that it doesn't and grade changes happen slowly enough and the variance on free throws is great enough that it's hard to prove it one way or the other.

For what it's worth, I've had two players that I received the "max out" e-mail from within 24-48 hours of their moving up a step in letter grades. I zeroed both and they never slid back down that step, so for my extremely small sample size the presumption that FT behaves similar to all other categories would appear to hold true.

I'm brand spanking new to WIS and have read beginners guides from 2008 and they stated that if you go below 7 pts you'll lose points. Is this true?  It also said that FT needed to be at 12 otherwise you'd lose points there too.

So I guess I'm asking has this changed from the guide?  

Posted by btetzl50 on 5/11/2011 11:32:00 AM (view original):
I'm brand spanking new to WIS and have read beginners guides from 2008 and they stated that if you go below 7 pts you'll lose points. Is this true?  It also said that FT needed to be at 12 otherwise you'd lose points there too.

So I guess I'm asking has this changed from the guide?  

I've never heard the FT at 12 bit.. For other skills, 7 is the generally-accepted place-holder value (i.e.-you won't gain points, but you won't lose any either) in all skills except LP and Per, where 4 is the place-holder value.

BUT -- once you receive the e-mail from your assistant coach telling you that the player is maxed out in the skill, you can cut to zero minutes for the rest of the season and only in extremely rare circumstances will the player lose a point (and if he does, just put minutes back in until he re-gains it and repeat the process...).

Is Limited Upside = Maxed out?

James German:
athleticism: limited upside
speed: limited upside
rebounding: limited upside
defensive fundamentals: limited upside
shot blocking: limited upside
low post moves: limited upside
perimeter shooting: limited upside
ball handling: limited upside
passing: limited upside
stamina: limited upside
durability: limited upside
ft shooting: limited upside