Team Staff Resource
The Team Staff Resource is a guide to the yearly schedule of the Furry Basketball Association, and team staff members' responsibilities throughout the season.
If you ever have questions about these or any other rules, please ask in the Discord or reach out to the Commissioners or Committee. There are almost always people around to help out.
Team Staff
Team Staff members are responsible for running their team throughout the year. Team Staff are divided up into two Roles: Primary Contact and Secondary Contact.
Primary Contact
The Primary Contact (PC) has final say on any and all decisions regarding their team.
Ahead of each off-season, contributors can apply to be PCs for any team that does not currently have one. A PC is entitled to continue managing their team for 3 seasons. After this, they can choose to continue to run their chosen team, but other contributors can request to take over for them.
The PC is responsible for many tasks, all of which are outlined in further detail below. Here is an abbreviated list of yearly tasks that PCs perform:
- Free agent offers
- Draft night selections
- Day to day roster rotations (gameplan for games and moving injured players to the bench)
- Respond to trade requests (either accepting, denying, or negotiating them)
- Submit player stat boosts (happens twice per year)
- Be reachable on Discord for their team's contributors
- Creating and performing upkeep on team season pages
Secondary Contact
The Secondary Contact (SC for short) is an individual that the Primary Contact selects to serve as a backup in cases where the Primary Contact can't be reached. The Secondary Contact may also take on specific tasks as agreed upon with the Primary Contact.
Each PC and SC pair decide how they'd like to divide up team responsibilities. For example, the SC might act as a head coach, and handle day to day roster updates. Or perhaps the SC handles all contract offers and player boosts, leaving the PC to work on developing storylines for the team.
While the PC and SC determine how to divide responsibilities together, the Primary Contact is ultimately responsible for the team. The Commissioners and Committee will look to the Primary Contact first to resolve matters involving the team.
The 3-2-3 Rule
All team staff must be accessible via Discord. The 3-2-3 Rule outlines this requirement.
The 3-2-3 Rule states that team staff have to respond to messages regarding their team within 3 days. If not, the person attempting contact can reach out to the committee or commissioners to request their help getting ahold of the contact.
If the team contact fails to respond to the committee member or commissioner after 3 days, they are given a warning. After 3 warnings over the course of a season, that team contact will be relieved of their team duties.
To sum up, the 3-2-3 rule states that 3 times per year, a team contact has 2 chances to respond within 3 days.
The FBA Season
The FBA calendar has four main phases: Free Agency (also known as the Off-Season), Preseason, the Regular Season, and the Playoffs (also known as the Post-Season).
All dates for events throughout the season are approximate. Dates of specific events or entire sections of the season can vary depending on circumstances.
Free Agency
Free agency normally takes place in late summer and early fall. This is when team staff build their team for the coming season.
The main components of free agency are making contract offers, negotiating trades with other teams, and planning for Draft Night. All of these actions are done while also managing the team's salary cap, both for the current and upcoming seasons.
Much of free agency involves team staff deciding which players would be the best fit for their teams. The following is a list of useful resources for deciding which players would be a good fit:
- Past seasons' box scores. These provide a detailed, game-by-game look at how a player performs.
- Past seasons' stats. These stats give an aggregated look at how players performed over the course of the previous season. You can access these by going to the FBA Assets and Data section of the wiki's left sidebar, and clicking on Season Stats.
- The scouting report. This spreadsheet contains letter grades for each of a player's abilities. As a note, there can be a lot of variation within a single letter grade. To access the scouting report, go to the Regular Season section of the wiki's left sidebar, and click on Scouting Report.
For the rest of this section, we will play out some free agency actions from a made up FBA team, The Whitehorse Blackouts, during the 2021 free agency period. These examples are contained in the Example boxes.
Salary Caps
The salary cap is the maximum amount of money that a team can pay out on players' contracts in a given year.
Every year, teams have a budget of $90m to spend on players' salaries. At the start of free agency, some of this budget will already be allocated to spend on a team's existing contracts, as well as their draft picks for the coming season. The money that's left is what is available for offering new contracts.
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Each team's page contains a table that details their salary for the current season. Below is the salary cap table for the Whitehorse Blackouts at the beginning of free agency.
In the above example, the Blackouts have a total of $90.0m for the season. $64.0m is already allocated for their players' pre-existing contracts, and $5.5m is allocated for the salaries of any players they will draft this season. As shown, this leaves the Blackouts with $20.5m to use at the start of free agency. Each team's page also contains a table detailing their players' salaries. Below are the Whitehorse Blackouts' current contracted players coming into the 2021 free agency period.
The table shows all players that are currently on contract with the Blackouts, as well as their salary for each year of their contract. In most cases, a team can only have 15 players on their roster for a year. |
Exceeding Salary Cap
A team can increase or decrease their salary cap from $90m via trades, which we'll cover below.
It's possible for a team to exceed their salary cap. If a team winds up in a position where their total contracts paid exceeds their total cap, the team's trades are locked down until the situation is resolved. They can make trades to either reduce their contracts paid or increase their cap space, but they are not allowed to make any trades that don't contribute to solving the problem.
A team that starts the season having exceeded their cap space, or that winds up in a position during the regular season where they've exceeded their cap space and don't resolve the situation in a timely manner, is excluded from participating in the playoffs.
To check a team's salary cap for future seasons, navigate to that season's draft page. For example, to check a team's salary cap for the 2022-23 season, search the wiki for '2022 FBA Draft.'
Contract Offers
The bulk of free agency involves team contacts making contract offers to players with no current contract (free agents). When a free agent accepts a contract offer from a team, they move onto the team's roster, and their salary comes out of the team's available budget.
There are two types of free agents:
- Unrestricted free agents (or FAs) are players that have had a contract during the past season. Contracts for FAs can last from 1 to 5 years. The annual salary for an FA can range from $1.0m to $30.0m.
- Restricted free agents (or RFAs) are players that have not had a contract during the past season. Contracts for RFAs are all for 1 year at $1.0m.
To submit a contract offer, a team contact goes to the player's wiki page, and clicks on the 'Submit Contract' button at the top of the page. They then fill in the amount of money they're offering to the player for each given year of the proposed contract.
In the Comments section, the team contact can put any additional information that they'd like. This can include an in-character appeal from the team's general manager or head coach. It can also include in-character additional perks for the player, like promises of access to certain facilities, personalized trainers, etc. None of these serve any mechanical effect, with the exception of No-Trade Clauses, which we will cover in the Additional Rules section below.
Team staff can begin making contract offers in late August or early September. Players cannot accept contract offers until after the first night of the draft. The deadline to accept contract offers is often in late September. A player's actor can review the player's offers during this time. Upon deciding which contract to accept for their player, the actor emails the commissioners with their approval. In this scenario, only the player's actor has to provide approval.
Current contract offers for the preseason are tracked on the Contract Offers page of the Wiki, under the Regular Season section of the sidebar. All Open Offers are in the table on the left, including the contract's duration and total value. Once a contract is accepted, all offers for the player in question are removed from the Open Offers, and the accepted contract moves to the table on the right under Accepted Offers.
If a team needs to update an offer, they should create a new contract offer rather than updating the old offer. If they need to withdraw their offer for any reason, they should go to their most recent contract offer for the character in question, and clear out the page. Remember, people will assume that a team's most recently submitted contract offer for a player is the correct one.
Any unrestricted free agent signed to a contract cannot be traded until after December 15 of their contract year.
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| The Whitehorse Blackouts want to sign Biff Trimble to their team. Biff Trimble played for a team during the 2020-21 season, and as such is an unrestricted free agent. The Blackouts want Biff Trimble for three years, and are willing to pay them $4.0m per year. The team contact fills in '4' for the years 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Biff Trimble's actor reviews the offer from the Blackouts. They like it, so they send an email to the commissioners stating that they accept the offer. Upon the actor's approval, Biff Trimble moves onto the Whitehorse Blackout's roster.
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Many free agents will receive multiple contract offers from different teams. Team staff have to ensure that their offer is attractive to the player while still respecting their team's available salary cap. During free agency, it can be helpful for team staff to discuss contract offers with a player's actor.
Trades
A trade involves two or more teams exchanging assets. While most trades occur during the Free Agency period, trades can continue into the regular season.
Trades normally involve team contacts from two teams negotiating out a fair exchange in private. Trades can involve:
- Players
- Current or future year cap space
- Current or future year draft picks
After the team contacts agree on a trade, they must reach out to the commissioners to announce and confirm the trade. Once this is done the trade can not be cancelled by either team. At this point, the commissioners will review the trade for fairness and compliance with the rules. If the commissioners decide the trade is reasonable, they will process it. If not they will inform the teams and allow them to resubmit the trade after addressing the issue.
In this scenario, the team contacts from both teams need to send their approval.
While a player's actor doesn't need to provide approval on a trade, it is best practice to discuss potential trades with or at least give warning to them.
Trades can involve more than two teams. In these cases, the team contacts from all teams involved must send their approval.
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The Whitehorse Blackouts know that Manny Horvitz, a player for the Wichita Mariners, would help complete their starting lineup. One of the Blackouts' team contacts reaches out to the Mariners' contacts, and offers them Westley Virgino for Manny Horvitz, as well as $2.0M of the Mariners' 2021 and 2022 cap space. After some discussion, the Wichita Mariners' team contacts agree to the trade. The Whitehorse Blackouts' contacts then email the commissioners, proposing the trade. The Wichita Mariners' team contacts reach out to confirm the trade. The commissioners review the trade, determine that it's fair and won't violate any other rules, and approve it:
Westley Virgino leaves the Blackouts' roster, and Manny Horvitz is added. Westley Virgino's 2022 contract is for $5.0m, and Manny Horvitz' 2022 contract is for $9.0m, so grand total the Blackouts' Contracts Paid for 2022 goes up by $4.0m to $72.0m. Additionally, the Blackouts traded $2.0m of their 2021 cap space, so their Total Cap goes down by $2.0m for a total of $88.0m. As a note, part of the trade involved $2.0M of the Whitehorse Blackouts' 2022 cap space. As a result of this, the Blackouts will start the 2022 Free Agency period with $88.0m of total cap, and the Mariners will start with $92.0m of total cap. |
Sign-and-Trade
A sign-and-trade is an exchange where a team signs back a player whose contract has just ended with them, and then immediately trades that player to another team. In many ways, a sign-and-trade is like any other trade
Sign-and-trades are important during Free Agency, as they are the only contract offers that an FA can accept ahead of draft night. Because of this, sign-and-trades can take valuable FAs out of the pool early. Additionally, sign-and-trades can be useful for a team that wants to sign a player that is in free agency, but doesn't have sufficient remaining cap space. By trading away one of their current players as part of a sign-and-trade to get that free agent, they open up the necessary cap space to afford the player.
A team may not initiate a sign-and-trade until after 72 hours have passed since the start of Free Agency. This is the FBA's Moratorium Period. This period allows all teams an opportunity to express interest in players before they can perform a sign-and-trade.
When negotiating a sign-and-trade, the player being signed has to provide their approval for the transaction. Once the two teams negotiating the sign-and-trade and the player being signed and traded come to an agreement, one of the team contacts must reach out to the commissioners to propose the sign-and-trade. After this, the contacts for the other team and the player's actor approve the trade. As per usual, the commissioners review the exchange for fairness before approving the trade.
In this scenario, the team contacts for both teams and the actor for the player being signed and traded need to send their approval.
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The Whitehorse Blackouts would like to trade for another player - the Roanoke Ghosts' Helen Highwater. Helen Highwater is currently on the last year of her contract, which will pay out $3.0m this season. The Whitehorse Blackouts' staff reach out to the Ghosts' staff, and offer them Phil McCracken in exchange. After some discussion, the Ghosts' contacts say that in addition to McCracken, they would like former Blackouts player Ima Hogg. Hogg played for the Blackouts during the 2020-21 season, and is currently in Free Agency. The team staff from both the Blackouts and the Ghosts reach out to Hogg's actor, and discuss what would be a reasonable contract. After some discussion, Hogg's actor agrees to a one year, $5.0m contract. The Ghosts' staff agree that this is reasonable. The Blackouts' staff reaches out to the commissioners to propose the sign-and-trade, and the Ghosts' staff and Hogg's actor respond to confirm the sign-and-trade.
Phil McCracken leaves the Blackouts' roster, and Helen Highwater is added. McCracken's 2022 salary was for $1.0m, and Highwater's was for $3.0m, resulting in a total increase in $2.0m in Contracts Paid for the Blackouts. As a note, as part of the trade, Ima Hogg accepted a $5.0m contract, but was then immediately traded to the Roanoke Ghosts. Because of this, the $5.0m is not reflected anywhere on the Blackouts' roster or budget. The Ghosts are the ones paying for Hogg's 2022 salary, so the $5.0m applies to the Ghosts' Contracts Paid. If this is confusing, consider it like this instead. For a few moments while the transaction was taking place, Hogg signed a $5.0m contract with the Whitehorse Blackouts, raising the Blackouts' Contracts Paid by $5.0m. Immediately afterwards, she was traded to the Roanoke Ghosts, so the Blackouts' Contracts Paid dropped back down by $5.0m. |
Draft Night
Draft Night is an annual event when teams sign rookie players to contracts.
Draft Night occurs in early September, spread across two evenings. 24 players are drafted each night of the draft, for a total of 48 draftees.
During the draft, the teams take turns selecting draftees from the pool of available candidates. After each selection, the next team has a set amount of time (normally a few minutes) to provide their selection to the commissioners. In the event that a team's staff cannot attend draft night, there will be a form they can fill out to indicate which draftee they would like to sign, in ranked order.
Draftees' salaries are always 2 years in length, and their values are set by when they were chosen during the draft. Because of this, draftees don't get to negotiate their contracts.
| Draft Pick | Salary |
|---|---|
| 1-2 | $5.0m |
| 3-8 | $4.0m |
| 9-24 | $3.0m |
| 25-48 | $1.5m |
After the draft has finished, any remaining draft candidates that went undrafted become RFAs and become open for contract offers.
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For the 2021 draft, the Whitehorse Blackouts have the 6th and 30th overall picks. The Blackouts' staff are able to attend the first night of the draft. After the 5th pick has been announced, a commissioner reaches out to ask the Blackouts for their selection. The Blackouts' staff look at the list of remaining available draft candidates, and select Gina Maple. They inform the commissioner of their selection. Gina Maple is added to their roster. The value from Gina Maple's contract comes out of the Blackouts' Draft Picks section, and moves into their Contracts Paid section. In reality, because adding players to teams is a manual process, you won't see the contract value move until after the draft, when all drafts have been processed.
The Whitehorse Blackouts' next pick, the 30th overall pick, takes place during the second night of the draft. The Blackouts' team staff cannot attend the second night, so they fill in a draft selection form with their ranked list of which candidates they would like to draft. After the 29th pick, the commissioners consult the Blackouts' draft selection form. The highest remaining draft candidate is Sandhya Balbina. The Blackouts draft Sandhya Balbina, and Sandhya Balbina is added to the Blackouts' roster.
You may notice two things. Firstly, the Blackouts currently have 16 players, which is more than the allowed 15. This is something that the team will have to address before the regular season starts. We will outline this in the next example. Secondly, the Draft Picks section of the Blackouts' budget table now says Buyouts. After the draft, this column of the table gets relabelled for the regular season. We'll cover buyouts below. |
In the event that a team's contacts aren't available, and they haven't filled out their draft selection form or none of their selections remain, the commissioners will make a draft pick for the team. Primary Contacts are not allowed to pick their own submissions in the 1st Round, Secondary Contacts are allowed to have their player selected in the 1st Round.
The Draft Combine
The Draft Combine is an annual event held ahead of the draft. In-universe, it's a multi-day event where all declared draft candidates gather, take part in skills challenges, and are ranked ahead of draft night. At the end of the combine, the league releases its top 24 draft candidates. Shortly afterwards, the top 24 compete in a pair of televised games, after which they are ranked.
Out of character, the draft combine is mostly a roleplay event for new characters. Team staff have the option to be present for the combine to look over the draft class themselves. Team staff will often set up interviews for candidates to fill out, normally comprising of either Google Forms or one on one interviews via DMs.
Draft Order
Draft order is determined by teams' records from the previous season, in reverse order. The team with the best record from the previous season drafts players at 24th and 48th, the team with the second best record drafts players at 23rd and 47th, etc.
To review draft order, search the wiki for the year in question's draft. For example, heading into the 2021 draft, search for '2021 FBA Draft.' This page lists each team's available draft picks. In the event of any traded picks, the page will show which team a pick comes from. Once specific draft order is determined, it will also be listed on this page.
The first 8 picks are determined by a lottery. At the end of each season, the 8 teams that did not qualify for playoffs are entered into a lottery to determine the draft order for the top 8 picks.
Additional Rules
Buying-Out Players
When a team buys out a player, they pay out the sum total of the remainder of the player's contract using the current year's budget, and immediately release the player from their contract.
Players that are bought out of their contracts become FAs.
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The Whitehorse Blackouts currently have 16 players on their roster, which exceeds their limit of 15. The Blackouts need to remove a player from their roster before the regular season starts, or else they will not be allowed to qualify for playoffs.
The Blackouts decide that they will buy out Aires Rammsey's contract with their remaining available cap space. Aires Rammsey's contract is for $3.5m in the 2021-22 season, and $4.0m in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons. The $3.5m from the 2021-22 season moves from the Blackouts' Contracts Paid amount and into the Buyouts amount. The remaining $8.0m is also added to the Blackouts' Buyouts amount, for a total of $11.5m. Aires Rammsey is removed from the Blackouts' roster.
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The Amnesty Rule
The Amnesty Rule allows a primary contact to cancel a single contract at no cost, even if a No-Trade Clause is active.
Each PC only gets one use of the Amnesty Rule for their team for the entire duration that they are PC for that team. To review which PCs have used their Amnesty Rule, go to the League Info section on the left sidebar of the wiki, and select Team Staff Contacts. Teams that have used their Amnesty Rule will be highlighted in blue.
The Amnesty Rule must be used during free agency. The Amnesty Rule cannot be used on a rookie contract, or on any player signed during the current free agency period or season. After a team uses the Amnesty Rule on a player, they cannot make a new contract offer for that player until the next Free Agency.
To initiate a use of the Amnesty Rule, a team contact must email the commissioners with their request. In this scenario, only the team contact has to provide approval.
Renegotiations
A contract renegotiation is an additional option for teams or players to cancel contracts. Contracts can only be renegotiated during Free Agency. Either a team contact or a player's actor can initiate a renegotiation, and they do not need the other party's approval.
The following conditions must be met for a contract to be renegotiated:
- The player must have completed two (2) seasons of their contract
- The player must have at least two (2) season left on their contract
- A team can only initiate one (1) Renegotiation each off-season
- The player must not have an active No-Trade Clause (a player can waive it if they are initiating it)
After renegotiation, the remaining years of the player's contract are cancelled. The player becomes an FA, with the restriction that they can only be offered a maximum of a 2-year contract.
As the name suggests, renegotiations can lead to a player remaining with their current team, just with an adjusted contract.
To initiate a renegotiation, either the player's actor or a team contact must reach out to the commissioners and notify them about the renegotiation. In this scenario, either the player's actor or a team contact must provide their approval - not both.
No-Trade Clauses
A no-trade clause is an agreement in a player's contract stating that the player can veto any proposed trades involving them.
No-trade clauses can be included in the Notes sections of contract offers, and can be for a specific number of seasons or the entire length of the contract. A team may have no more than 3 no-trade clauses active at any given time.
The Atwood Rule
The Atwood Rule is a rule stating that no team may have more than 5 players of the same species family. Any team that begins the regular season in violation of this rule, or that comes into a situation during the season where they're in violation of the rule, will be ineligible for playoffs.
The Atwood Rule is named after Thomas Atwood, one of the in-universe founders of the league.
Hybrid Species
Hybrids count against ALL species involved for the Atwood Rule. For example, a wolf-hyena hybrid would count as both one canine and one hyenadae.
As a note, after a league vote during the 2017-18 season, the only hybrids allowed moving forward are those of the same family. The family classification rule for hybrids is for any characters that were grandfathered in under the league vote.
Legendary Species
For purposes of the Atwood Rule, the following legendary species are classified as the following:
- Unicorn: Equidae
- Pegi: Equidae / Aves
- Hypogryphs: Equidae / Accitripidae
- Dragon: Varanidae (lizard)
- East Dragon: Varanidae
- Hippogryph: Accipitridae Equidae
- Gryphon: Accipitridae Felidae
- Phoenix: Accitripidae
- Cockatrice: Chicken
- Basilisk: Varanidae (lizard)
- Manticore: Felidae (Lion) / Scorpion
Preseason
The Preseason consists of final team setup and scheduled exhibition games between teams. It normally starts in mid to late September, and finishes at the end of October with Howlereen.
Preseason Games
Preseason Games are exhibition games scheduled between teams ahead of the regular season. Teams use these games to test out lineups after the changes during the offseason. Further details on managing lineups are detailed in the Regular Season section.
While these games do not contribute to a team's season record, players can receive injuries during preseason games.
In-universe, these games also serve as marketing and outreach for the league. Many preseason games take place in special locations or other countries.
To schedule a preseason game, team contacts need to communicate among themselves. Once the contacts for both teams agree on a date and location for a game, they must both communicate this game to the commissioners to schedule it.
The Regular Season
Comprising the bulk of the year, the Regular Season lasts about six months and encompasses all of the scheduled games between the teams. In most seasons, this amounts to 80 games played for each team. The results of these games provide the rankings for the league to determine the sixteen teams that advance to the post-season (playoffs), and the eight teams that enter the draft lottery.
Game results are mostly posted on a nightly basis. Recent game results are listed in the left sidebar of the wiki, under the Boxscore section. To review older results, go to the Regular Season section of the left sidebar of the wiki, and select Regular Season Schedule. The FBA Twitter account also tweets out nightly game results, along with any new injuries or players that have recovered from injuries.
Lineup
A team's lineup determines what players are playing in which positions, and how much time each player spends on the court. The commissioners pull down the current lineup before each game. Because of this, it is important for team staff to keep their team's lineup up-to-date.
To edit a lineup, go to the team's page, and scroll down to the Current Roster section. At the bottom of the team roster box, there is a button with the team's name on it. Press this button to view or edit the team's current lineup. As a note, only the team's contacts may edit a lineup, and a user must be logged in to make any changes.
The top section of the page lists all of the team's current players, with dropdown boxes showing their current position in the lineup. We'll review specific positions below.
Note that with the exception of 'DNP', each position on the lineup must be filled, and can only be filled once - so for example, one and only one player must be set to play "06 - 1st Bench."
Positions
Each player has a position that they are most comfortable playing. There is some flexibility here, but if a player has to play outside of their preferred position, they will suffer a penalty for the game. A player's preferred position is listed after their species and in the infobox on their player page. For reference, here are preferred positions:
| Position Name | Position Codes | Preferred Positions |
|---|---|---|
| Guard | G | Point Guard, Shooting Guard |
| Swingfur | G/F, F/G | Shooting Guard, Small Forward |
| Forward | F | Small Forward, Power Forward |
| Bigfur | F/C, C/F | Power Forward, Center |
| Center | C | Center* |
* While centers only have center as their preferred position, they suffer a smaller penalty for playing at power forward.
Starters (Positions 01 - 05)
Starters are the core of the team. They should ideally be the best 5 active players on the team. Determining who the best players are sometimes requires experimentation over the course of games.
The starter positions are the only positions that are tied to specific roles (point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center). You should select players that fit into these roles. A player's general position (G, F, or C) is listed next to the player's name and species. It may take some experimentation or research to determine if a given guard is better at the point guard or shooting guard position.
For more information on the specific positions, please see the write-ups here.
Bench (Positions 06-10)
The bench players are the backups for the starters. Players generally can't play for all 48 minutes of a game, and at other times a player will be unable to finish out a game. Bench players take over when the starters are not on the court.
Bench players are critical to a team's success. If a starter gets injured or fouls out of a game, the bench players need to be able to fill in for that starter's position. In addition, bench players are essential to carry momentum forward during overtime games.
The first 3 bench positions get more playtime than the 4th and 5th bench positions. It is a good idea to have multiple roles (G, F, or C) represented on a team's bench, and particularly in the first 3 bench positions, to ensure that the bench covers as many skills and stats as possible.
Reserves (Positions 11-12)
Reserve players get the least active time during a game. If the bench players fill in for the starters, then reserve players fill in for the bench. Due to their reduced playing time, reserve players don't need to be quite as effective as starters or bench players. However, a team's reserve should consist of players the team can still rely on if needed.
Deep Reserves (DNP)
Players listed in the deep reserves (showing 'DNP' in the position dropdowns) do not receive playing time during a game. The main role of a deep reserve player is to fill in for a position if a player is injured going into a game. Any players that are injured should be listed in the Deep Reserves ahead of a game.
Team Focus
The team focus dropdowns allow a team to focus on two given stats for a game. The selected stat will receive a boost for all players. This dropdown can help a team emphasize its strengths, or attempt to exploit an opponent's weakness.
Floor-Time Strategy
The floor-time strategy dropdowns determine how time is allocated between players. The options are 1 to 3, with 1 spreading out playing time the most, and 3 allocating the most time to the starters. When you save your lineup, your lineup box will show how time will be allocated to each player.
For a detailed breakdown of time allocation per period for each floor-time strategy, see the table below. As a note, these values are approximate - various factors can cause the floor-time percentages to vary during a game.
| Strategy | 1 | 2 | 3 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Period | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th |
| Point Guard | 67 | 50 | 50 | 67 | 75 | 67 | 70 | 67 | 100 | 75 | 80 | 75 |
| Shooting Guard | 67 | 50 | 50 | 67 | 75 | 67 | 70 | 67 | 100 | 75 | 80 | 75 |
| Small Forward | 67 | 50 | 50 | 67 | 75 | 67 | 70 | 67 | 100 | 75 | 80 | 75 |
| Power Forward | 67 | 50 | 50 | 67 | 75 | 67 | 70 | 67 | 100 | 75 | 80 | 75 |
| Center | 67 | 50 | 50 | 67 | 75 | 67 | 70 | 67 | 100 | 75 | 80 | 75 |
| 1st Bench | 33 | 50 | 50 | 33 | 25 | 33 | 30 | 33 | 0 | 42 | 33 | 42 |
| 2nd Bench | 33 | 50 | 50 | 33 | 25 | 33 | 30 | 33 | 0 | 42 | 33 | 42 |
| 3rd Bench | 33 | 50 | 50 | 33 | 25 | 33 | 30 | 33 | 0 | 41 | 33 | 41 |
| 4th Bench | 17 | 25 | 25 | 17 | 25 | 17 | 30 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 5th Bench | 17 | 25 | 25 | 17 | 25 | 17 | 30 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 6th Bench | 17 | 25 | 25 | 17 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 7th Bench | 17 | 25 | 25 | 17 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Injuries
Injuries are a regular part of being a player in the FBA. Injuries are randomly generated during games. Generally, young players and players with a high endurance stat are less likely to be injured during games.
Depending on the severity of the injury, a player may not be able to finish a game, or may be unable to play for several games.
To review current injuries, go the Regular Season section of the left sidebar of the wiki, and click on Injuries. A player's current injury status is also listed in the team lineup page.
Minor Injuries
A minor injury prevents a player from finishing the current game, but does not impact their ability to play in future games.
Minor injuries are listed after the boxscores, and will indicate which period the player received their injury.
Day-to-Day Injuries
Day-to-Day (D2D) injuries do not prevent a player from playing in future games. If the team staff and the player agree, the player can push through the injury and continue to play. However, if a player receives a new injury while having a D2D injury, that injury will be much more severe.
Day-to-day injuries normally last for a few days before clearing up.
X-Day Injuries
X-Day Injuries fully prevent a player from taking part in games. When a player received an X-day injury, the team staff has to update their team's lineup to place that player in deep reserve.
These injuries can have multiple durations, depending on severity: 7-day injuries, 15-day injuries, 30-day injuries, 60-day injuries and 90-day injuries. The longer the duration of an injury, the less common it is to occur.
Please note that the day count for these injuries is approximate. A 7-day injury might be downgraded after 5 days, or it might take 9. There is always a period where an X-day injury downgrades into a D2D injury before fully clearing up.
SEI/CEI
These stand for Season Ending Injury and Career Ending Injury. Much as the names suggest, these injuries take a player out for an extended period of time - either until the start of the next season, or permanently.
Due to their severity, SEIs and CEIs do not occur randomly. A player's actor has to request one of these injuries. To do so, the player's actor must reach out to the commissioners and committee to receive approval. It is best practice for a player's actor to also reach out to team staff ahead of time to let them know and plan ahead.
Injured Reserve Slot
The Injured Reserve Slot (also called the Inactive or IR slot) is an extra slot that a team can use for an inactive player. Team staff can place a player into the injured reserve slot to remove them from active play for the rest of the season.
A player in injured reserve still counts against the team's budget. They do not count against the team's limit of 15 total players. This allows the team to sign an additional player, in the event that a player becomes unable to play for the rest of that season.
Stat Boosts
Twice per year, team staff and players' actors have the opportunity to perform stat boosts. These boosts represent players training and improving over the course of their careers.
Team staff receive 200 points every year to divide up between their players - 100 for the first boost, and 100 for the second boost. Team staff can assign a maximum of 25 points to a single player over the course of the season.
All boosts are reviewed by the commissioners and committee. They will generally prioritize boosts for young players over old players, and actively developed players over inactive players. If a player receives a large boost to a single stat during a boost period, it is possible that another stat will suffer as a result - for example, a massive boost to strength might result in a drop in speed.
Players' actors also get an opportunity to boost their individual players during these periods. While these boosts are fully separate from the boosts assigned by team staff, it's a good idea for team staff to coordinate with their team's players' actors. This ensures that a player doesn't get too many points assigned to a single stat, and that a player can be developing in multiple areas at once.
Home Court Advantage and Promos
Teams always play a bit better at home. The Home Court Advantage (referred to as HCA) is a static percentage increase to a team's ability.
Team can also provide an additional boost to their team's HCA by scheduling a Home Game Promo for a specific matchup. Promos are special themed nights that often involve special events or deals for attendees.
To schedule a promo, a member of a team's staff submits the requested date and the details of the promo to the commissioners. Teams are limited to eight promo games that provide an additional boost to HCA. Teams may submit more than eight, but any additional promos will be for role-playing and story purposes only.
Trading Deadline
The trade deadline is the final day that teams can trade players for the season. This usually takes place in late March or early April. After the trade deadline, team staff may still use their current season salary cap to buy out players, and can sign RFAs to fill roster spots.
The Playoffs
The playoffs or postseason takes place after the end of the regular season. During the playoffs, the top eight teams in each conference compete in best-of-seven elimination matchups. The winning of this bracket becomes the champion team for the season.
Aside from the best-of-seven format, playoffs operate just like the rest of the season.
End-of-Season Awards and Draft Lottery
The End-of-Season Awards and Draft Lottery is a general meeting that occurs before the final series of the playoffs. This meeting is where the winners of any season awards are announced. Additionally, this is also where the draft lottery takes place, determining the draft order for the first 8 draft picks.