If a player has a low starting value in a category (say under 20) will the high high potential actually get him up into the 40s or 50s? I realize that everything is relative, but can a category starting under 20 actually see the full potential?

Yes, I believe so.  I just graduated a kid who started only a bit higher in a rating (he was a PG and started at 24 in Perimeter).  4 years and no RS season (3 year starter) and he hit 91.  So, 67 points of improvement.

I think part of the equation will be his WE and how good a student is he?  This kid I had started at 93 WE and I *think* he was an above average student.

Posted by l_eustachy on 9/17/2011 1:51:00 PM (view original):
Yes, I believe so.  I just graduated a kid who started only a bit higher in a rating (he was a PG and started at 24 in Perimeter).  4 years and no RS season (3 year starter) and he hit 91.  So, 67 points of improvement.

I think part of the equation will be his WE and how good a student is he?  This kid I had started at 93 WE and I *think* he was an above average student.

Yes this, the beginning value doesn't matter like it use to in the old potential model. (where if the kid was under 20 he wasn't going to improve).

Thanks!

WE determines how fast he improves.  Had the guy in the example above been a low WE guy, he might not have gotten as far.  But, what kind of student he is doesn't matter. 

There's no guarantee you're going to see 40, 50 or 60+ points of improvement, though. High-high means a category can improve by roughly 30+. Could be 30. Could be 80. Or anywhere in between. You just don't know where the upper limit is.

Posted by professor17 on 9/17/2011 2:26:00 PM (view original):
There's no guarantee you're going to see 40, 50 or 60+ points of improvement, though. High-high means a category can improve by roughly 30+. Could be 30. Could be 80. Or anywhere in between. You just don't know where the upper limit is.

That's true - I wish there was a way to know... Would benefit those of us that take the time to really scout.

Tim,

Here's an in-progress example that I think would be pretty helpful.  Dustin Wills was redshirted and right now there are 4 more practices left in his third season so he's probably going to develop a tiny bit more.  He had a bunch of high potential categories and all of them started at very low numbers and they are somewhat mixed so you can sort of see how that impacts development.  I've been giving equal minutes across the board (with a couple less for low post and perimeter since those require less but essentially the same proportion as the other categories).

Name	Yr.	Pos.	A	SPD	REB	DE	BLK	LP	PE	BH	P	WE	ST	DU	FT	TOT
Dustin Wills	Fr.	SG	81	15	23	81	10	13	13	13	11	57	85	39	B-	441
Dustin Wills	So.	SG	84	36	41	92	22	27	34	28	24	58	85	54	B	585

Here's the potential for Wills.  I've merged the original scouting and the player thoughts emails and while those differ a tiny bit (I only made one scouting trip so I have to piece together the rest), I think this is still an accurate reflection of where he was when I recruited him.

Athleticism: low
Speed: high-high
Rebounding: high-high
Defense: [average]
Shot Blocking: low-high
Low Post: low-high
Perimeter: high-high
Ball Handling: high-high
Passing: low-high
Stamina: low
Durability: [average]
Free Throw: [average]

If you click on him, you'll see that a good portion of the development happened this season.  Part of that is due to the fact that redshirts develop slow.  But he developed very little in his freshman campaign.  As a sophomore, he's now doing better ... and I've noticed a difference to where he's developing faster in the 2nd half compared to the 1st half of the season.

If I had to guess, he's not going to max out on the high-high categories and if he does it won't be until his senior season.  At the same time, I'm giving him minutes in every category since I'm using him as a SF.  If it was just one category that start low with high-high and you were able to avoid giving minutes to a couple of categories either because they don't matter for the position and/or categories are maxed out, you might have better success.

Thanks for all of the responses. My initial fear was that the "he'll never develop if the starting value is under 20" concept still applied. I was concerned that I was going to throw a bunch of money into a battle and then find out that the "winner" got a player who would never improve on a key stat even with a high high. KUjayhawk, if he can develop likes Wills then I will be extremely happy.