i don't agree with the imaginary friend, with a bit experience you understand the substition pattern of your coach with your players. Even when it varies a bit from game to game, because he won't take breaks to make an substitution and some things like shooting lineup in the last minute will be everytime coach decision.
Lets coach decide, will generally give the better players more playing time, if you play Kobe in a div 4 team as backup he maybe even will start.
Strictly follow depth chart, the coach will ignore the stregth of the player more then when he could decide better backups or player with few stamina will still get substituted earlier.
Coach picks depth chart until fourth: I have low experienced with it, because at least in the past it was sometimes buggy. But in general it should be a mix betwen those two strategies above.