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If you're starting in V, training a star potential guy is hardly a waste. Star potential players can definitely be the backbone of a team that promotes out of V and are still good enough to get out of IV and can be serviceable in III.
I really don't even know what this means....Any quality player is going to be the backbone of a team that helps them promotes...and if anything, for DV & DIV teams, its usually older veteran players that are picked up cheap that help them promote...Star players cap early anyway, so as they are being trained, their ratings are so low, they are hardly "the backbone" of a team.
Any team that has a mindset towards promoting through the ranks should have trainees that they can continue to build and grow with their team. Low Potential players do not qualify.
If you have the constraint that your initial trainees are the only guys you're ever allowed to train, sure, you have to start off with big potential guys and then hope you promote high enough fast enough so that they don't get too expensive to maintain. But the initial trainees aren't the last set of guys you ever train.
I suppose the backbone was the wrong word to use. I meant more of the "constant" -- the non-trainee positions are generally upgraded through the transfer list as team needs change, while the trainees are upgraded through their efforts in training. So just to use my team as an example, I had some veteran bigs that were good enough to start and succeed in V. As I moved to IV, the backup bigs got moved out, and then as I added a few more vets the old starters became backups and eventually replaced. Same with III - the guys who started and got me out are now backups or gone, and I've patched in a new set of bigs.
Now, of course, my guards are approaching their cap, but I'm already training my new set of big men trainees - and since I'm starting from III and aiming higher, *now* is the time where I have to have greater potential. Eventually, I suppose, I'll have to replace my guards with higher quality ones and use these guys as backups and maybe even someday sell them, but that's the price of progress.
Sometimes the biggest part of getting to where you want to go is making sure you can progress through the intermediate steps effectively. Training three guys who are good enough to play in the NBBA does no good if it happens while you're in a lower level and can't afford them (or to surround them with complimentary players to help move up).