NBASim Rule Book

Quick Links:
Lineup Editing Guide
General UBA Help
Get UBA6.0 (it's free)
Get UBA6.0 Add-Ons (it's also free, runs with excel 2010)


Rosters and Roster Moves:
-Rosters have 14 slots that players can be assigned to. Teams are expected to have at least 12 players on their teams during the regular and post season.

-During the regular season, FAs can be signed as long as you have an "open" spot on your team. Post FA signings in the "Transactions" section in the forum. Players will receive a 1yr 500k contract that will be taken out of your team funding right away. That player is usable right away. You do not need to have enough "Cash Available" to sign a FA in the regular season.

-Players can be cut but teams will have that player's next season's salary taken out of it's team funding right away. If you cut a player with a 1yr contract no cash will be taken out of your team funding.

-Players, Draft Picks and Cash can be traded. Trades are valid as long as both teams have enough "Cash available" left after the trade (read below for more info on team funding)... If you trade an uneven amount of players with another team, word it as follows (ex: OKC gets Player A and Open, LAL gets Player B and Player C).

-Use UBA6.0 to edit your lineups. If you sign a player, make a trade or cut a player, you can process the transaction(s) then set your lineups. This will allow you to add in your new roster additions.

-You can turn in Rosters in the "Rosters" section of the forum.



League Outline:
-Regular season starts. Typically there will be 16 sim dates. Sims will be on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That's about 5ish games per team per sim.

-Allstars will be announced midseason. The trade deadline and FA signing deadline will be about 2/3rds of the season in. There will be a league schedule with this info posted in the message boards.

-Once the regular season ends, the playoffs will start (standard NBA rules). Also the final awards, draft lotto, draft class and resign files will be released. All non playoff teams will join the draft lotto.

-Playoffs will start. There will be 8 postseason sims (games 1-4 then games 5-7 for each of the 4 rounds). That Schedule will be posted on the forums. Teams will turn in their rosters as usual.

-The draft will start right away and last through the post season and offseason. Teams will post their picks on the "Draft Thread."

DRAFT rules:
----Once "on the clock" teams have 24 hours to pick. Teams make their selection on the forum in the "Official Draft Thread" thread.
----If a team goes past the 24 hour mark, then the next team is allowed to draft.
----NBAsim management has the right to select for expired teams.
----NBAsim management will draft for unowned teams in the order of the draft class draft list.
----Teams can make trades with other teams, but the trade can not "officially" be made until once the new season stats.

-Once the Postseason ends the Offseason will start. Resignees will be processed, players retire, and contracts will be updated. Rosters will be updated as well. A Free Agent bid file will be released so teams can bid on Free Agents. The Draft will continue on.

-At this point the Draft and Offseason FA are the only two things active. There will be a free agent list so that teams can view the FAs. There will also be an updated team rosters list, so that teams can view their needs and how many open spots they have.



Offseason FA rules:
-Teams can bid on free agents in the offseason using the free agent bid file.
-Teams can only offer, in total, up to the cash available amount that their team has left
-Teams submit their bids on players (via message to me)
-The AI will process these bids and make bids for non human controlled teams
-FAs will always accept the highest $ bid.
-Each player will have a 15% chance of signing per day
-There will typically be 6 days to offer players, to beat an offer, you must offer 10% or 500k more than the current leading bid.
-after the last day of free agency, all players unsigned will sign with their top offer
-Bids are not retractable, so be sure of what you want to bid.
-All free agents not signed during offseason free agency will stay FAs and may retire prior to the start of the new season.

-Once offseason fa ends, the draft will end. Signed players and drafted players will be assigned to their teams. A cut file will be released. Each team will need to cut their roster down to 14 players. Cut players' salaries will be taken out of your team funding.

-Once cut rosters are processed, the new season file will be built, salaries will be processed and the new season will start



Salary System:
-Teams have a "Team Funding" amount and a "Cash Available" amount. Team Funding is the amount of actual cash a team has whereas "Cash Available" is the amount of cash a team is allowed to spend when trading, resigning players, or signing offseason free agents. The Cash Available amount is Team Funding minus Next Season's salary.

-At the start of each season, each team will carry over excess cash from the last season, get 80 million dollars, playoff bonuses and have their team's salaries ("This Season's Salary") taken out of their team funding. At this time no team may have more than 125 million dollars.

-During the season, any Trade, FA signing and Cut will adjust the "Team Funding" amount. Remember, if you trade for a guy with a multi year contract, your "Next Season's Salary" will go up and as a result your "Cash Available" amount will go down.
----FAs will cost 500k over 1 year
----cut players will have next season's salary taken out of your team funding right away. If you cut a player with a 1yr contract no cash will be taken out of your team funding.

-Once the season ends, the postseason starts and teams can resign players. Players can be resigned up to the "Cash Available" amount. If you choose not to or can't resign a player, he will become a free agent and will be available to be bid on by everyone during the off-season.

-Once the postseason ends, the offseason starts and teams can bid and sign offseason free agents up to their "Cash Available" amount.

-Rookies will be signed to a 3yr 500k contract. You do not need money under your "Cash Available" amount to sign drafted players.

-New season will start and the process will start again!



Extra Info
-All sims will be done by sim officers. A sim officer may not sim his own team's playoff series. That playoff series will be simmed by a neutral party.

-All owners are required to keep all personal info up to date.

-All new owners joining NBAsim must read the rules. Any questions can be answered by any of the other owners. Just post on the forum

-"This league operates on the basis of Honesty, Integrity & Overall Fair play by all GMs. Any wavering from these guidelines will result in immediate expulsion."

-Rookies will be signed to a 3yr 500k contract.

My suggestion would be to amend this rule a little. A sliding scale for both contract values and contract length based on draft positions would seem most appropriate.

Jayzel wrote:

-Rookies will be signed to a 3yr 500k contract.

My suggestion would be to amend this rule a little.  A sliding scale for both contract values and contract length based on draft positions would seem most appropriate.

Having a 5 mil contract or something like that for that top 3 pick doesn't really change much, but having pick 25 be a 1.2mil contract does. I've seen leagues that have owners who give away first round picks because of that same sliding scale. I find that annoying. I want good teams with somewhat big payrolls to be able to draft someone whom they value late in the first round. Those picks actually have value because of the favorable contracts, and making mid to late first rounders more valuable is important, since they are not really valued to highly to begin with.

Whether it's 5 mil or .5 mil for that #1 pick isn't too significant. The rules make it tough to hoard a bunch of money, since the most you are allowed to have at any time is 125 million. If a team has that 125 mil and a great player from that #1 pick and tries to sign a bunch of FAs with that money they have, they will risk losing that guy on his rookie contract when it's time to resign him (it's unsustainable). So, as always, teams are forced to have some fiscal responsibility.

Just to reinforce an important matter with the financials, the salary system is designed to allow teams to keep franchise players forever (Lebron, Jordan, Shaq, ect) Since the most they can make is 20 mil, he always wants to resign and your team gets 80 mil every year. and you will have 60 mil to build around him... if you have two of those guys you will only have 40 mil a year to build around them... if you have 3 of them (Miami) you will have 20 mil a year to build around them... if you have 4 (OKC)... well, you are going to lose 1 of them and have no one that is any good surrounding them...

See how dynamic this makes the league?!?! Incredible!!!