This is my 2nd season in Hoops Dynasty. My first season I was blessed with 4 seniors who were over 700 and the team went 27-3. This season we have 5 Freshman and next season there will be 5 more freshman as well. I know the next couple seasons are going to be sub .500 because of my new to recruiting and all of the turnover. I am good and understand that. My question is would be good to play my 5 freshman to give them experience and rotation practice to help them possibly develop more than they would on the bench. We just started conference games and one of my freshman has gone up over 40 points since the season began because he has had some playing time. Would plugging all 5 freshman in be the best for them to develop faster and possibly more than they would have not playing as much/ Thanks and sorry for the blabbing.

In general, playing time most benefits players with a lot of growth potential and mid-range work ethic. The idea is that players who come with high work ethic (like 70+) will grow regardless of whether you start them or not (they'll want to play as they get older, of course, or they may lose work ethic). Players with low potential, like mostly yellow and red, aren't going to grow no matter what their work ethic is, and players with *really* low work ethic are sometimes not worth the bother, even if they have potential. That last one is where it gets tricky.

My advice is usually to put the best team on the court to try to win as much as you can, and try to keep prestige as high as possible if you're going to stay at that school (but of course don't feel bad about bailing and starting over at D2, which lots of folks find more fun!). Maintaining a better prestige will help you with recruiting in the long run; letting it bottom out may make it even harder to recruit well next season. And giving lots of playing time to freshmen is not likely to do your record/prestige any favors this season. If there's a guy or 2 with work ethic in the 35-60 range who has some important categories with blue/green potential, there's nothing wrong with getting them starts to help grow their work ethic - and everything else - a few extra points this season. But unless you had someone helping you grab really top level guys last year (think guys from high levels of the D2 pool, or the D1 pool), chances are you don't have guys worth worrying too much about that. I haven't dug into your roster though, so if you do have a full class of that kind of player... congrats, and then I guess maybe you could consider that. But my feeling is, if you did have those guys, you probably wouldn't be asking this question in the forum, so... :)

Posted by shoe3 on 4/24/2024 1:21:00 PM (view original):
In general, playing time most benefits players with a lot of growth potential and mid-range work ethic. The idea is that players who come with high work ethic (like 70+) will grow regardless of whether you start them or not (they'll want to play as they get older, of course, or they may lose work ethic). Players with low potential, like mostly yellow and red, aren't going to grow no matter what their work ethic is, and players with *really* low work ethic are sometimes not worth the bother, even if they have potential. That last one is where it gets tricky.

My advice is usually to put the best team on the court to try to win as much as you can, and try to keep prestige as high as possible if you're going to stay at that school (but of course don't feel bad about bailing and starting over at D2, which lots of folks find more fun!). Maintaining a better prestige will help you with recruiting in the long run; letting it bottom out may make it even harder to recruit well next season. And giving lots of playing time to freshmen is not likely to do your record/prestige any favors this season. If there's a guy or 2 with work ethic in the 35-60 range who has some important categories with blue/green potential, there's nothing wrong with getting them starts to help grow their work ethic - and everything else - a few extra points this season. But unless you had someone helping you grab really top level guys last year (think guys from high levels of the D2 pool, or the D1 pool), chances are you don't have guys worth worrying too much about that. I haven't dug into your roster though, so if you do have a full class of that kind of player... congrats, and then I guess maybe you could consider that. But my feeling is, if you did have those guys, you probably wouldn't be asking this question in the forum, so... :)

Thanks I appreciate your detailed information and time it took to answer. I did not think about the prestige so I totally understand that point now.

Keep in mind, you don't necessarily have to recruit for 5 spots. You could maximize your efforts by recruiting for 4, maybe even 3 if you have decent depth already. I think it's only a negative to your roster if you're under 10 (at least that used to be a thing - not sure if it still is).

Thanks I did not know that.

I sent you a sitemail answering some of your questions.