I don’t have the energy to hide lineups or do anything special for exhibition games, I just set my lineup and game plan for the season and let it ride.

I'm in agreement with the exhibition games.

1. Free practice.
2. I get a quick glimpse at the minutes my depth chart generates.
3. I get a quick glimpse at my shot distro.
4. Measuring stick if I play legit teams.

Posted by fluff_nasty on 8/8/2018 4:04:00 PM (view original):
I'm in agreement with the exhibition games.

1. Free practice.
2. I get a quick glimpse at the minutes my depth chart generates.
3. I get a quick glimpse at my shot distro.
4. Measuring stick if I play legit teams.

I think #2 is too often overlooked. This is the biggest reason I play exhibitions (the improvement is close). Two games isn't really a big enough sample to give a very clear idea of how distro is going to work, but it general is a big enough sample size to give a pretty decent indication of how minutes are going to be distributed and to start seeing which players are likely to spend significant minutes on the floor together. This gives me a chance to tweak the depth charts if necessary before real games begin in order to

1) Make sure my best players are getting the minutes I want them to get
2) Make sure I have a quorum of scorers on the floor at all times

At this point in my HD career I very rarely mess up #1. I just did it last season and had some good players underutilized, lesser players overutilized for more than half of the season until I worked the kinks out, but the time before that I couldn't begin to tell you. But #2 can be a little touchy and arguably at least as important as #1. The reality is that if you have 0-1 scorers on the floor in any given lineup, another scorer is usually going to be an improvement over a much "better" overall player (IE if he's going to play with 0 or 1 other scorers, I'd take a guard with 20 ATH, 20 DEF, 75 SPD, 75 BH, 50 Pass, 97 PER over a guard with 50 ATH, 75 SPD, 50 DEF, 75 BH, 60 Pass, 43 PER, even though in a vacuum I like the 2nd player quite a bit better).

Posted by fluff_nasty on 8/8/2018 4:04:00 PM (view original):
I'm in agreement with the exhibition games.

1. Free practice.
2. I get a quick glimpse at the minutes my depth chart generates.
3. I get a quick glimpse at my shot distro.
4. Measuring stick if I play legit teams.

Same here, I like to see how many minutes my starters are getting and what the distro might look like in the regular season.

Why would anyone not schedule exhibition games? Your players definitely improve more if they play in a game versus when they don't. Who cares if you win - just play all your young guys or people who still have improvement left. Don't redshirt anyone until after the 2nd game. I'm pretty surprised there are other (contrary) opinions than this.

I can also see the logic in getting a glimpse into how your projected lineup and distro will fare in reality before going live. Esp if you have a tough opponent the first game of the season. But then you also give away your starting lineup so gotta decide if that trade-off is worth it. But 100% schedule exhibitions. Every time.

Actually, your players can pick up the odd skill point or two during the two exhibition games. No way to know if they would have accumulated during the first non-conference game or two anyway, along with whatever other points you gained in the first game or two. Or whether having 29 games instead of 27 will earn you some extra skill points by season's end. But I always schedule two games against decent sims, but don't spend a lot of time deciding which two to play. Doesn't much matter. Just in it for the skill points.