him not getting many minutes (if you play him as starter) has less to do with how you set your coachoptions to use your roster then with the quality and stamina (and foultrouble) of the player.
A player will get less minutes if:
a/ his stamina is low and he can't perform well for long periods
b/ he gets in foul trouble
c/ he has a back-up with equal or better quality on that position
d/ if you are ahead by many points, the forth quarter will be played entirely by back-ups and reserves, which means at least 12 minutes in a game that your starter will not play.
What I mostly use is:
let coach decide (when I want to win) I asume the coach will pick the best choice at any time to try to win the game.
strictly follow dept chart (in scrimmages when I try to get some players 48 minutes in that game, in that case I also choose to let players in foultrouble play instead of being benched)
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