I have a sophomore PG on my Kentucky team in Knight (Jonathon Palmer). He was ineligible as a freshman, so he is playing for the first time this year. Right now he is not good enough to play a lot of minutes, but next year, I can see him playing a lot more, and I would like to keep him. The season is only 6 games in, and his WE has already dropped a point because he is only getting 7 minutes per game. I am sure he will start complaining soon. His WE is 58, so I could afford for it to drop a decent amount. My question is if there is a danger of him leaving, and how would I know if he is getting close to leaving. He'll probably end up getting 5-7 minutes per game, if I don't make any adjustments. And, if he improves a decent amount, I would be tempted to give him more minutes.

If he loses work ethic, there is a chance (albeit small) that he will leave. I would presume the chance increases with the amount of work ethic lost, but that's speculation on my part as my exchange on the matter didn't cover that detail. Admittedly, I don't get many complainers because my teams tend to run press and everyone generally gets in the rotation enough to keep them happy throughout the year, but in 110ish seasons I've had exactly one player complain and then actually follow through on the threat to leave. Ironically, it was a guy that I was within 0.2 minutes of getting up to his demands by season's end and who had gained back half of the WE he'd dropped early on. 

On the flip side, I've had guys I've intentionally TRIED to get to quit by not playing them. No dice. Ever. 

If you've got games where you're a huge favorite (or even a huge dog), you can slip the kid up the depth chart and get him extra minutes to cover the closer games where he barely gets in the action at all. 

I keep a target minutes mask set up to use for games I know will not be competitive.

Thanks. Hopefully he will stick around. I have had someone leave at the end of their Junior year before. Usually I have always run press, but am switching to Man to man at Kentucky, so this is a new problem for me. He played one minute against Indiana, and I ran press only in that one, so it looks like the only way he'll get minutes is if I switch from fatigue to minutes, unless I bump him up on the depth chart. I need to be sure I make the NT this year, so I'd rather lose him and make the NT than keep him and miss it.

I'm dying at your user name and coaching Kentucky. As I am from Kentucky it doesn't exactly roll of the tongue very well.
:)

LOL - Yeah - I publish a magazine called Chapel Hill News & Views in Douglasville, GA. When I first signed up, I figured I'd use it but they ran out of letters. Wish I had a better name, but didn't think it through well. 

Palmer, after game 9 registered his first complaint. He is playing 5 minutes a game now and said as a sophomore he should be playing 2-3 more minutes per game. I always thought they needed like 10 minutes. I am going to try using targeted minutes this season, and put him at 9-13 minutes, and put the other guys in the range they are in, for the most part now. I am hoping that this does not mess me up, but right now we are at 8-1 and ranked, so if we can just keep from having a total collapse, making the NT looks fairly reasonable at this point. I could always switch back to fatigue as the season draws to a close, and in the tournaments if I need to. Palmer will be a solid PG for us, so I want to keep him.