If you can start a spare player on top of 5 trainees then it means you can start 6 trainees too. There is no economic sense in paying salary for a starter at a position of training when you're going to preferably play your trainees in the first 2 games of the week. This is the point: if you have 5 trainees and want to maximise the chances of them getting 48+ then you will play T1/T2 in game1 of the week, T3/T4 in game2 and T5 + anyone who still needs minutes to get over 48 in the cup/scrimmage game.
Considering that the 3rd game is the least important because it will be often a scrimmage or a game with low chance of victory, then you either play a non-trainee in the first 2 games (and accept the risk of one or more trainees getting significantly fewer minutes than 48) or you're paying for a player you don't really need.
If you train 5 players it will be hard to compete anyway until they can hold their own against the competition (at least not being black holes) so you might as well get that 6th trainee, hope they can last for at least 46-47 minutes a game and get 6 older players to complete the roster. When at least 3 of your trainees are decent compared to the opposition, if you want to compete, among those 6 older players you may want to invest more and have players who can actually make a difference. At this time, it could be preferable to have 5 trainees rather than 6 to have a boost in one of the games and to be able to manage GS more easily.
Other than competing, I see no point in having 5 over 6 when you will try to give 48 minutes in a single game to all of them. Even if someone is so foul prone that he will foul out before half time or in the 3rd quarter, you should just dump him and replace him: 2 trainees are still strategically better than 1. Besides I doubt it's worth it to make up that 1 or 2 missing minutes if you are training 2 positions and I would advise against it. The only reasons for having 5 over 6 is that:
- one or more trainees often foul out (I suggest to replace these trainees)
- it's actually easier to manage GS if you are flexible in one game. Again, if you're not competing then there is no reason to nitpick about the fact that sometimes you have to play a big man as guard or vice versa to keep minutes under control and preferably between 48-72
- you can start a better player in one of the training slots once a week. Again this is only a concern if you try to compete for a playoff slot (I doubt this is a valid strategy for people in D2 or D1, as avoiding relegation will cost you way too much in non-starters salary)
Last edited by Lemonshine at 9/5/2015 7:48:42 AM