This still counts as one of the player's "maximum of three" trainings and replaces the "mini-training" proposal I submitted last season as part of the points revamp proposal.Paid-by-points offseason training for players who have just completed their rookie season are discounted by a number of points equal to the total regular season and playoff minutes that player played as a rookie divided by 180 (drop all fractions).
This discount may only be used in the off-season immediately following the player's rookie year (i.e., can't wait until All-Star Break, can't be saved for a later year).
Example 1: Nazr Mohammed (Nets) played 1212 regular-season minutes and 145 playoff minutes (Total: 1357). Divide this by 180 and you get 7.53; drop the fraction, and that means he would have been eligible for a training at a cost of 33 points (7 point discount) instead of 40 this offseason.
Example 2: Ricky Davis (Hawks) played 1694 regular-season minutes and 6 playoff minutes (1700 total). Divide this by 180 and get 9.44; drop the fraction, and Ricky Davis would have been eligible for a training at a cost of 31 points (9 point discount) instead of 40 this offseason.
Example 3: Vince Carter (Grizzlies) played 2811 minutes last season and 0 playoff minutes. Divide this by 180 and you get 15.62; drop the fraction, and that means Vince would have been eligible for a training at a cost of 25 points (15 point discount) this past off-season.
I think this suggestion is an improvement on the mini-trainings suggestion - Vince played about as many minutes as it is possible to play and it amounts to a 15-point reward (about the level that we said mini-trainings represented). It also keeps people from over-playing rookies just to chase points of "free trainings" (since you aren't actually AWARDED points, there's less incentive to give extra playing time to a bad player... you have to pay out points improving said bad player to receive the benefit anyway). It also also doesn't punish teams overmuch when a player gets hurt (imagine if your guy played 59 games at 33 minutes per game and missed 23 games due to injury).