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Simply not going to happen.

Minute management is what differentiates the good managers from the bad. Taking this away would make the game far too easy for everyone to manage GS and training.

For the purposes of game design, I can see why the BBs don't implement this.

Making it too easy would definitely be a problem. But on the other hand, if you have two starter-caliber players at the same position, both with high stamina, it's nearly impossible to try to get the backup anything more than about 6 to 8 minutes, regardless of which one you pick, and when you have three bigs you want to have a reasonable rotation at PF/C, it's even worse. I'd honestly just like the option to reduce a player's stamina to mediocre. if we can't get get an option to at least let the coach know that we would like them to use the backups at certain positions.

Minute management is what differentiates the good managers from the bad. Taking this away would make the game far too easy for everyone to manage GS and training.

Maybe it differentiates those with patience and time to waste on figuring out which rotations produce which types of minutes, etc. I probably fall in that category - dunno if that makes me a good manager.

For the purposes of game design, I can see why the BBs don't implement this.

I always thought of it as a cop out in game design. I would much prefer if the challenges involved real basketball team management issues like should I play my slow but tall 7 footer who can use his length to guard against the opponent's scoring center of similar build, or should I play a shorter big who is more nimble and can create a mismatch of his own on the offensive end. Etc.

But those elements don't exist, so I waste my time with trying to get exactly 48 mins for my 18 year olds, because any other number is just...bad management...

I think calling it a cop out is missing the point. It is one of the key elements of this game's design. It is intentional. Skill improvement of players is based on achieveing minutes played at a particular position. Weekly game performance is also tied to minutes played. This combination necessitates a managerial choice. That is the design. You are certainly entitled to disagree with how the game is designed, but I don't think the developers were copping out by these particular design choices. I think they were doing exactly what they designed.

What's more, I would argue that time spent = good manager. Roughly. Time spent doing anyting makes you better. Golfers don't get good by showing up at the driving range once a wek. Cellists don't get good by playing scales for ten minutes every other day. Guys in this game who make money on the TL spend a lot of time sussing it. People who are good at managing minutes spend a lot of time doing it, or have put in their time and now (like myself) don't really need to worry about it much because they have a good handle on how to get different types of players different amounts of minutes in different types of games.

If it truly is a waste of your time, you should revisit your priorities because our lives are too short to be wasting our time.

As I've already read this argument and I feel that what I've wrote is already read up to a point, I will just give one point why saying that "timing players is a key element in the game and hence should not allow this abiility" is just no true.

The point is that currently the user can already define which player will be a starter and who will be a backup, how stricted the depth chart is to be followed, etc.

When one defines that he definately does not mean that the starter needs to play less than his backup.
This happens and not rarely.
My suggestion is to actually giving the user the abillity to manage his team.
Currently it is less time managing and more randomness managing timing.
This is not the way it should be.

All the things you wrote are known and true.

Still, when a coach of a ("real") team gives the backup a lot of minutes although he had a rough and intense week (minutes wise) and does not let the starter play much in comparison.
All this up to a point that the starter plays about a third of the time the backup plays in that specific game, and all of this happens just beacause the game was going to garbage time and you're team is on the winning side.
When all of this happens in a "real" world, the coach is not going to succeed or stay a lot of time in his position...

At least this is bad implementation of the coach-engine, and should be fixed regardless of user definition.

The game cannot rely that much on randomness [this is basicaly the current situation regarding minutes spreading].
When the manager (user) gave the starter its place (as a starter) it surely doesn't meant that the coach was requested to give him less minutes in a game where there was no reason not to give him more minutes.

I cannot disagree with your more that the minutes a player gets are random. I haven't had a management issue in about 12 seasons. It's not random, except for injuries and frequency of fouls (which isn't even that random).

In the "real" world, if a coach is blowing every team out and getting into garbage time every game, he will be around for a very long time.

The randomeness is not the minute that will be given in a specific game, repeating every factor in it.

Maybe naming it randomeness wasn't the right word.

Anyhow, in the scenario already given, any coach in the real world (with minimal sense), will know that there is no reason to give more minutes to the backup that played a lot that week over the starter that didn't play to much that week.
Again, in a game that went to garbage time due to your team beating the other team!

If we also continue with the real world comparison, lets take the current (or at least the one who played two years ago) SA spurs team.
It is a very good team but with some aging issue...
In case Ginobili (for example) would have get 48 minutes (or so) per game, the team would beat most of the teams, but in the end of the year at the playoff this player would be exausted.

Look. Just list 7 players. Play, follow depth chart strickly. Do not assign positions you are training. Example. Your training Center. List the 2 reserves for the PG, SG, and SF position, leave empty the PF and C position and you'll have a whole lot less problems. Its been working for me. I rarely have minute problems, and can regularly get 3 players with 48+, while single position training.