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So increasing a players stamina will make him play more minutes in a game? I understand the logic, but that is the opposite of what I would like to have happen.

This season, I have had a lot of trouble managing the minutes of my players. In the past, I would always have my starters start 2 games a week, with other players in the backup and reserve spots, and my starters would average around 38-42 minutes a game, with a total around 80 minutes a week, give or take depending on the closeness of the games. But this season, it seems like my coach is afraid to put the subs in, keeping the starters in for 44+ minutes a game, and its killing my game shape. Is there a better way to limit the minutes my starters play? I usually play Strictly Follow and Let Them Play for training purposes.

A fast offense will help somewhat, but if your players get into too high stamina and you don't do something extreme like play full court press, too high stamina means that they'll almost never be subbed. There's some discussion on this where BB-Marin has chimed in occurring in the Suggestions forum: (263578.1)

I'll just say that I feel you on this. I would love to have a button that would drop the stamina of a player to inept for the couple of players I have that are still at average or above, since getting them to come out in close games with a slow offense is nigh unto impossible.

I'd like more control of subbing, period. Something similar to "crunch time" (lot of minutes) and "take it easy" (sub early). Also, it would great if the game didn't pull my center set for 48 minutes, and sub in a point guard because it's garbage time. That's very annoying. (Yes, I know you can get around this by only dressing 5 players, but it's still a stupid quirk of the game.)

Last edited by Scoresby at 11/3/2014 1:38:30 PM

Here is one possibility: if the subs are close in skill to the starters, the subs will play more. if there is a great discrepancy, the subs will play much less. If the sub is actually better thanthe starter, the sub may even play more minutes.

I think this is absolutely incorrect for this season.

(75703499) - Note the SG position in this game

I had trouble with subs in each of the SF, PF and C position getting too many minutes and the subs not coming in for very many minutes at all. Granted the starters at PF and C are much better than their subs. However at SF, my starter has a 37K salary and the backup 35k. The backup has also had a few pops already this season and has about 15 tsp more than the starter.

SG is the real point I am making here

starter - (27779921) 11K salary played 38 minutes
sub and reserve (27253055) 40K salary and only played 10 minutes. (granted this is twice as much as any other sub got)

This ratio in the past would have been typical split for a more normal starter and good reserve. But as you can see the sub has 4 times the salary and 35 more total skill points than the starter. Strictly follow depth chart is a little out of whack this season

Yuck, that is an interesting game; I think it is an outlier. However, it also reminds me of two other factors -- the relative game shape of the starter and back-up, and the closeness of the game. Closer games favor the starter, as in your example. Better game shape also favors the player with the better game shape. It is not a simple matter, with all these factors contributing, and for that reason one game is not enough to draw any conclusions from.

Good discussion.

Extreme outlier, maybe and if I get more time today I can post more examples from across my league. Even my own games. DMI is a bigger indicator than strictly game shape in coaching rotations and the SG position of the game I mentioned is of most interest. I believe the stamina adjustment in relation to game shape tweeted the substitution patterns.

Yuck, that is an interesting game; I think it is an outlier. However, it also reminds me of two other factors -- the relative game shape of the starter and back-up, and the closeness of the game. Closer games favor the starter, as in your example. Better game shape also favors the player with the better game shape. It is not a simple matter, with all these factors contributing, and for that reason one game is not enough to draw any conclusions from.

Good discussion.

It's definitely a good discussion.

I'll just add that Yuck and I have had this conversation before during matches and outside of them, and it's not an isolated case or an outlier here. BB-Marin has said he was going to be looking into the situation with substitutions and high stamina players, which is really about as good as news as I could hope for.

This is one thing I'd like to say that probably hasn't been said before when people want complete control in managing minutes. What if, because of that freedom of minutes control leads to a 1 point loss which could have been prevented had the starters played an extra minute more? Would teams be happy if they keep losing by a point as long as their starters have their 33-34 minutes per game? I'm pretty sure there will be someone who will say "then make an option to keep starters in the game when the game's close". But if two teams have the same direct order, they'll eventually just go over the 40+ min mark anyway because they'll keep playing, then we're back at square one. I'm not saying that I'm against a better substitution pattern/minutes management because I'm all for it. It's just that not having a very well thought of change wouldn't be good for the game. It would be great to see people discussing this, throwing ideas, figure out what comes of it, see if those can be addressed, then repeat the process until people are satisfied.

My opinion on this has been that for each position, there should be an option for substitution pattern, one which lets the coach do whatever he thinks is best for winning, once which emphasizes the starters more (though still not a 48 minute guarantee), and one that emphasizes a rotation at the position. If making a decision that the game allows causes me to lose a game that would have otherwise been won, then that's unfortunate but deserved. I'd rather have the ability to have choices and consequences than have it be beyond my control entirely.

Actually, I suspect the substitution pattern is probably pretty delicate programming. It is already far ahead of some other aspects of the game, (like estimating the range that "the players most like him" sold for on the Transfer market, but that is another story altogether). I am still experimenting with the existing arrangement of substitution choices, and learning bit by bit.

There is already a substitution feature for "Garbage Time." I would like to see minor improvement on that, to avoid late game injuries in a game that is all but over. Something like "Pull Starters if down by ___ or more points with ___ minutes or less remaining" would be great for that.

If I understand Hrudey's suggestion, it calls for the ability to choose different substitution patterns for different positions, all in the same game. That could present interesting strategic options.

Here's another thought: something to link two players, like "always play X at PG and Y at SG together," or "never play A at PF and B at C together." This could be useful to make sure you always have at least one scorer at the guard positions, or never have two poor rebounders playing together, things like that. I have some defensive specialists that I like to spot against an opponent's best scorers, but too many of them at once causes a real drought in scoring for a while.