I've kind of noticed this before on free throw practice before, but never quite so obviously as this example.  After our 3rd regular season game in Crum, I get an email from my coach saying one of my guys is tapped out in FT improvement.  In the Player Thougts email I got just 4 days earlier, there was no mention of this kid's FT improvement as being either limited or big upside left.  Thus, he was average.  So after 4 days of 9 minutes/day of FT practice, he's now tapped out?  This makes no sense.  I think there's a bug in the code that doesn't always accurately reflect FT improvement left.

Anybody else notice a similar thing on FT practice vs. Player Thoughts email?

Did he go up a grade in FT? 

With any other category, we'd know that average potential is around 5-20 points.  With FT, an increase of one letter grade may be considered "average potential".  I'm guessing those 36 minutes of free throw practice put him at the next level.

sorry, i obviously forgot a key piece of information there, lol.  No, he didn't go up any letter grade.  A- to start the season, A- now.

jdno, that's not surprising. It's all on a scale, so if a player has X amount of potential improvement still ahead of him, he will fall under the normal category. But you could be normal and close to big improvement, or normal and closed to limited improvement.

This player clearly had just enough improvement left in him not to show up as limited, and then the improvement he got over those first five practices moved him into the limited improvement category.

36 minutes of improvement to go from close to limited improvement to maxed out seems pretty extreme.  In no other category would 36 minutes of improvement put someone into maxed out if he just entered limited improvement territory.

What is his we?  Doesn't that impact speed of improvement?

his WE = 89, so it's pretty high.  I guess I come back to the thought that this kid wasn't even in limited improvement range to start the season and after 36 minutes he's maxed out.  High WE or not, this just doesn't pass the smell test to me.

Posted by jdno on 5/25/2011 12:47:00 PM (view original):
his WE = 89, so it's pretty high.  I guess I come back to the thought that this kid wasn't even in limited improvement range to start the season and after 36 minutes he's maxed out.  High WE or not, this just doesn't pass the smell test to me.

I'm with you, send a ticket.  But first, double check the two emails (player thoughts and the maxed out email).

Yeah, I don't think what girt said makes sense.  The equivalent for any other rating would be gaining 7 points - the last 7 points in the skill category - in 4 practices.  With only 9 minutes.  I don't think it would be possible to gain the last 7 points in anything in 4 practices with all the practice minutes lumped into one area and 100 WE playing 40 minutes a game.  Definitely send a ticket.

Couple things:

1. You can still get some improvement after receiving that email.
2. I was thinking that email signified his entry into low potential category, but if it's a step beyond that (i.e. only a point or two improvement is possible), then yes, I agree something is amiss.

girt, as for your 2nd point, the consensus is that those emails indicate that a player is maxed out in that specific category. 

fwiw, I sent a ticket in yesterday about this, we'll see what the response is.

They said:  When you get the email that a player is maxed out, it doesn't mean he's 100% at his potential. It just means that he's getting close, so the rate of improvement is going to be slow.

I responded:  Right, I get that, but it seems you missed the crux of my question. He began the season at average potential. After 36 minutes of practice, not only did he get to limited improvement, but he's basically maxed out. How is this explained? No other category would show the same behavior.

They then said:  As you mentioned, FT shooting works differently than other ratings. In particular, the ranges are smaller for Low/Average/High potential, so him moving into the Low category due to his season improvement also gets him close enough to his max to trigger the email.

Guess it's a plausible explanation., though those ranges would have to be pretty tight.  Still seems a bit odd, but whatever at this point, it is what it is.