I'm not that experienced in this game, so I ask you veteran owners--what's the deal with low minutes (200-250) players? I have consistently gotten awful performances out of some pretty good real-life players. Numbers are WAY off from real life, much more so than with other, higher minutes guys. I'm talking at 100% efficiency--using them maybe once every 3 or 4 games for 10-12 minutes per. Currently I have 95-96 Doug Christie, with an actual eFG% of 54.8%, shooting 20% at mid-season, halfway through his total 218 minutes. His A/T is 0.6, less than half of his real-life 1.3 (he's already surpassed his real season total in TOs). This is not an isolated experience, I've had similar results with other low-minutes guys not approaching their real-life performance.
Have others seen this? Is this just bad luck or a weirdness in the sim?

sample size

When you take a super low minute player you will see wild fluctuations because, as copernicus said, sample size is too small.  If your player plays a little too much (if he plays three minutes in a game it will cause a problem quickly) it can cause a big drop off in performance, it also has to do with who is playing against the player and the lineup that the player is in.  

If that Doug Christie is the leading usage guy in that lineup you will have to contend with a guy that shouldn't have the ball in his hands while suffering the usage penalty.  Doug Christie may be playing against Lebron and Durant a lot while he is in the game.  That would get him killed if he is also the high usage guy in the lineup.  The other team may also be playing you +3 as well.  

You may just be getting sebled though.

Say a guy has 246 minutes.

That's 3 min/gm over 82 games.  That's what the sim is judging by.  So if you play him 6 minutes a game, the likelihood of him taking far more shots & having far more possessions than he did IRL (season/82g) is extremely high.  Now play him 9.  Now play him 12.  You're playing a guy 4x what he did IRL, but his efficiency will go out the window after he exceeds his RL totals/82g.  The higher it gets, the worse it gets.  The only real good way to use those low minute players over huge playing spans like that is if they are low usg guys in there grabbing rebounds & playing defense.

had a looongggg discussion with WIS about this -- I think my issue may still be open 

in theory, the sim is supposed to account somewhat for RL min/game when considering penalties.
I have seen this work for partial season players (1500+ minutes), but not for low-minute folks.
As an experiment, I even tried resting a really low-minute but high RL min/game player for all but the last few games of the season, to avoid "fatigue", but it did not seem to help much.

Posted by ashamael on 7/31/2015 1:20:00 AM (view original):
Say a guy has 246 minutes.

That's 3 min/gm over 82 games.  That's what the sim is judging by.  So if you play him 6 minutes a game, the likelihood of him taking far more shots & having far more possessions than he did IRL (season/82g) is extremely high.  Now play him 9.  Now play him 12.  You're playing a guy 4x what he did IRL, but his efficiency will go out the window after he exceeds his RL totals/82g.  The higher it gets, the worse it gets.  The only real good way to use those low minute players over huge playing spans like that is if they are low usg guys in there grabbing rebounds & playing defense.

?? So are you saying if I have a guy averaging 3 min/gm over 82 games and I play him 6 minutes every other game, 41 games total, so he's always at 100% efficiency...he's still going to give a subpar performance?

Shouldn't you be able to play last year's Durant 33 minutes a game for 27 games without having any type of usage penalty? I think so. It should be different from having a 12 minutes per game for 82 games type of guy play 24 minutes a game for 41 games. 

Posted by stengelese on 7/31/2015 5:24:00 PM (view original):

Posted by ashamael on 7/31/2015 1:20:00 AM (view original):
Say a guy has 246 minutes.

That's 3 min/gm over 82 games.  That's what the sim is judging by.  So if you play him 6 minutes a game, the likelihood of him taking far more shots & having far more possessions than he did IRL (season/82g) is extremely high.  Now play him 9.  Now play him 12.  You're playing a guy 4x what he did IRL, but his efficiency will go out the window after he exceeds his RL totals/82g.  The higher it gets, the worse it gets.  The only real good way to use those low minute players over huge playing spans like that is if they are low usg guys in there grabbing rebounds & playing defense.

?? So are you saying if I have a guy averaging 3 min/gm over 82 games and I play him 6 minutes every other game, 41 games total, so he's always at 100% efficiency...he's still going to give a subpar performance?

exactly what he is saying

Posted by Midge on 7/31/2015 6:42:00 PM (view original):
Shouldn't you be able to play last year's Durant 33 minutes a game for 27 games without having any type of usage penalty? I think so. It should be different from having a 12 minutes per game for 82 games type of guy play 24 minutes a game for 41 games. 

No.  I went through this myself years ago in a progressive league with Michael Jordan.  I wanted to play him the appropriate mpg from his 85-86 season (to not bring down his per-game averages - it was a progressive, afterall, and that mattered to me), but he was just giving horrid stats.

The reason behind this is to keep people from abusing lower minute gems like that in the playoffs.  Think about it... I could spend less than $7m & grab 14-15 Durant, 11-12 Curry & 11-12 Ginobili, have solid reserves throughout most of the season, and then have ridiculous production in the playoffs every few games.

While I don't agree with how they do it, I understand why.

(and yes, Hardened is right: that's exactly what I meant)

Okay, that makes some sense.

I've seen other games use different methods to deal with minute management.
E.g., some systems make certain players "unavailable" on a game by game basis.

Okay, so what's the cutoff point? I see why it would apply to those who only average 2-3 minutes over 82. But does a guy who plays 10 mpg over 82 get penalized for playing 30 every third game? A guy who averages 20 mpg get penalized or playing 40 every other game? When does this seem to kick in?

Posted by stengelese on 8/2/2015 11:38:00 AM (view original):
Okay, so what's the cutoff point? I see why it would apply to those who only average 2-3 minutes over 82. But does a guy who plays 10 mpg over 82 get penalized for playing 30 every third game? A guy who averages 20 mpg get penalized or playing 40 every other game? When does this seem to kick in?

In those scenarios, they would both get penalized (it's the individual usage penalty).

Posted by ncmusician_7 on 8/2/2015 12:37:00 PM (view original):

Posted by stengelese on 8/2/2015 11:38:00 AM (view original):
Okay, so what's the cutoff point? I see why it would apply to those who only average 2-3 minutes over 82. But does a guy who plays 10 mpg over 82 get penalized for playing 30 every third game? A guy who averages 20 mpg get penalized or playing 40 every other game? When does this seem to kick in?

In those scenarios, they would both get penalized (it's the individual usage penalty).

^ ^ ^ True ^ ^ ^

snips from a WIS support thread . .. 

QUESTION