In order to ensure that the players I want to train get their 48 minutes a week, I've been making them play the entire game (no backups or reserves, making coach strictly follow depth chart). Is there any downside to this? Will the players' game shapes be adversely affected by such a move, or something else? Would it be better to have a single back up, use depth chart until 4th quarter, and make up any lost time in the other games of the week?
they will perform weaker, because they didn't rest. And if they get injured or fouled out, the coach will substitute quite weird players into the game, which isn't that competive and make you loose the training while you might fix them when the backup is also a trainee. But overall i think it have more upsides then downsides.
With depth chart until fourth, the backup would play even in the earlier stages of the game, personally i don't like the setting i go for let coach decide in very important games and strictly follow in the most games.
I am mostly going to focus on guard skills this season, and I've seen suggestions to switch between things like One-on-one, pressure, outside shooting, and maybe passing. What do people tend to prefer in this respect? And should I switch between them every week, or wait for a certain number of players to pop before changing training?
it is important that the player could do all those staff when you finished training at least on a decent level.For training speed it is most likely the best, that you balance the training that must skill are on a similiar level at the beginning, and if you like to build SG you finish the player with lot of JS and OD. TThe reason for this, is that skills train fast when "connected" skills are higher then them, and slower when the skills are higher then the connected ones overall the theory is that balanced training is fast but the effect isn't that big because we don't know those "connections" for sure. Another theory about this effect, is to start with 1 on 1, because driving and handling get trained as secondary in most skills so it is likely that they are connected to them, too.
The other possible start, is pushing OD, because it is the most important Skill and you get succes at a earlier stage.
I have a couple of bigger guys that I want to train as well, so I figured if I have extra minutes, I could play them at SG/PG, and maybe get some of their Is there any penalty for training when playing this way? Especially when training things like one-on-one where you could select forwards instead of guards.
One and one, Jumpshot and Passing should go fast, but consider that when you just train them from time to time they don't increase in value much. Especially when they aren't that skilled in their main skills, and won't increase them with the training. If you have one very balanced big guy you could train him with the guard, and when they are finished switch to big and train him there too, and you get an good SF/PF.
Lastly, with this approach I'm pretty likely to be a terrible team this upcoming season. That's fine, I don't mind it, but should I try to be a little more competitive? Will my TV contract, etc take a big hit?
TV contracts, isn't affected by the succes, the merchandise is a bit, but it isn't that worse. But the visitor income get reduced, especially when you would be able to win the away matches, with a team which is more directed to succes.