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See, good point. Very good star potential trainees can be very expensive already; boost that potential higher and the transfer price goes up accordingly. Very hard to expect a newer team will have sufficient money to get 2-3 of these trainees, as well as veterans for non-training positions, as keeping arena expansion going in order to maintain revenues to cover rising salaries.

And though I suggested 19 year old allstar and p-allstar guys as initial trainees for a new team, hrudey's approach of using 18 year old star potential guys is a great way to go if you want to two position train them. That extra year of good training ages will help offset the slow down of 2 position training. But in the end, you'll have more pieces to work with. That can allow you to keep some as good players for your team but also to sell some and turn them into higher salary/price veterans as you promote. Frankly, had I not gotten lucky and drafted a great 18 year old, I probably would have continued two position training.

In the end I hope this thread can be useful for new managers who see the constant advice of "only train high potential players" or "only train single position" and wonder whether other approaches are possible. There's a lot of nuance that's lost in those blanket statements. This can let people make a more informed decision.

Perhaps thoug hyou have made some progress and can show how players you trained gained greatly in value such that they were purchased by successful teams, considered for NTs and won you championships. If not thoug hI think its still just a theory taht training star potential is wothwile. It only takes a few minutes gandering at the TL and staff market to see that its unlikely most star trainees are worth teh cost of a trainer even if you cap them.

Roberto Tuozzi Bought Mario Boni numero 1 3/9/2011 $ 10 000
Roberto Tuozzi Sold Voreia Asteria 3/17/2012 $ 450 000

Now, of course, I had to pay his salary for one year, but as he was being trained for most of that year, I was getting performance out of him that was greater than his salary. And with the proceeds of the sale, I purchased a trainee that is more in line with the progression I intend to make over the next year or so (superstar potential). Of course, I was also training four other similar guys at the time (though, one was a one-season $1k to $75k jump, and was later replaced with an allstar).

And as I had to clarify probably before in the other thread and again to GM-Jason here, I am not at all saying that this is the best way for new players to train. I am simply stating that people are way too quick to write it off as entirely worthless. Despite the popular opinion, it is entirely possible to have a long-term plan that actually consists of multiple stages of development, rather than trying to start at the bottom and from the very beginning training three guys that would be useful to you when you get to the top levels of the game.

I suppose by your definition above, of course, I'm not successful, since my trainees aren't considered for NT or U21 play and I've not really won "championships" (I am assuming you mean top level here, not just V and IV). Luckily for me, my plan doesn't begin and end with star potential players - but I am very satisfied with where I am in the game given how long I've been here, and very satisfied indeed that now I am in a position to train higher potential players (out of position, no less!) and maintain where I am while I start to build the big men I will need to progress further, rather than the three-skill donkeys that litter the transfer list. I'm quite pleased to have done this with below average salaries, merchandise usually 50% above league average, and fairly heavy investment in my arena. If I've wasted these four seasons, so be it. ;)

but you could be working on the 19~21 y/os at that level, with higher potential and moving them along the process. If you promote to pay teh higher salary then you can keep them, or just make sure to train secondaries first, and blow up the salary last thing. wiht higher potential is relevant and valuable players.

Actually started with 18yo this year, as the plan called for me to almost cap the guards and then work in my future big men for training in guard positions for 1-2 seasons (and occasionally providing training to the guards via 1v1 or two positioning passing, heresy though that is). Unfortunately my draftee had some pretty poor outside skills other than OD, so it's looking more like two seasons of guard training than one, but I'm holding on pretty comfortably now so I imagine I'll survive.

Lirak Siliqi was a 6th man potential PG that I bought when I started out

Transfer 2/6/2011 season 15
Purchased from 东北灰熊 for $ 51 000

Transfer 7/24/2011 season 16
Purchased from Headless Thompson Gunners for $ 408 000

guy was a prolific passer as well

But if you look at the net earning you made on most of those players, you got ~500-600K. Not terribly different than what hrudey got. Plus, you have to factor in that over the course of time that you had these guys, I would suspect that on average they had the same, or higher, salary as the Tuozzi guy had. So overall your net earnings were probably a bit lower.

So yeah, training higher potential guys probably can earn you more money than training star and all star, but it's not as clear cut as you make it out to be.

and you don't run the risk to overtrain them, since you had to sell them with 20 or earlier to make good profits. I see so often well trained player, who are sold with 21/22 for the same price there are instantly bought.

But if you look at the net earning you made on most of those players, you got ~500-600K. Not terribly different than what hrudey got. Plus, you have to factor in that over the course of time that you had these guys, I would suspect that on average they had the same, or higher, salary as the Tuozzi guy had. So overall your net earnings were probably a bit lower.

So yeah, training higher potential guys probably can earn you more money than training star and all star, but it's not as clear cut as you make it out to be.

I imagine that training the higher end players is more profitable than training guys like Tuozzi. But I felt like rather than paying some couple of hundred thousand dollars for a trainee, I could spend much less and put those hundreds of thousands into the arena instead. I've never heard of anyone bemoaning having too large an arena (other than ones with too much bleachers over 20k).

[ I've never heard of anyone bemoaning having too large an arena:)

Remember, it's not the size of ones arena that matters, but how you use it! :-)

Rick Smits, 7 ft 4, it's always the tall guys wanting to talk about size.