The Guide
From XOPedia
Welcome to XO Hoops! This guide assumes you've created a team already in a newly forming league. If you haven't yet, you can read about doing so here. If you've decided to take on the challenge of taking over a previously inactive team, you can skip past all the sections labeled "League Start" by using the table of contents below.
This guide will first give you a short introduction on how to shift your mindset from traditional fantasy sports to XO Hoops. It will then take you through the phases of a year, briefly touching on what you need to know about each one. Note that this guide is not designed to contain all the information and rules in each phase, it's just meant to give new players an idea of what to think about and what to expect. There will be links throughout the guide, however, to pages that contain all the detail you'll want.
Contents |
What is XO Hoops?
Let's start with the basics: there are 26 teams in an XO Hoops league, each of which plays a full 82 game schedule. Games are played out using a simulation that runs on the actual stats put up by NBA players, which are updated about once every month (for this reason an XO season starts about a month after the NBA season). Teams are split into two conferences, and the top 7 teams from each conference make the playoffs. The best team in each conference gets a bye, the rest battle it out in a best of 7 first round matchup. Each subsequent round is also a best of 7 series. The last team left standing is your XO Hoops league champion.
Of course becoming that last team standing is far easier said than done. As a GM, you want to build that championship roster, but you've got to follow some rules along the way. Rosters are governed by two main restrictions: roster size and the salary cap. Rosters cannot exceed 15 players, and during the regular season you must always have 12 active players. That means you have 3 slots for inactive players who you can rotate in and out of your active lineup whenever you want. You don't have to have any inactive players at all if you don't want, but the space is there if you want to use it to increase your depth.
Salary cap rules in XO Hoops are much simpler than those in the NBA. Instead of the NBA's soft cap system, XO Hoops has a $60 million hard cap, which cannot be exceeded at any time for any reason. That gets rid of having to understand a lot of the complicated NBA cap rules while still maintaining the basic NBA roster restrictions.
How is XO Hoops Different?
The hardest part of adjusting to XO Hoops is changing your mindset - whether you come from a fantasy game background, a video game background or just a traditional fan's background.
XO Hoops is not typical fantasy basketball. It's not about assembling as many stars as possible, it's not about collecting the big names or the players that just put up big numbers. You need to put together a real team. In fantasy basketball, how players play together doesn't matter at all. In XO Hoops that's the point of the game.
Now, XO Hoops may sound similar to video games, or "sim leagues", leagues based off of video games that simulate seasons. But there are two very large differences (and many, many small ones, which we won't go over here): first, XO Hoops uses actual stats produced by NBA players to run the simulation. We don't rely on arbitrary ratings to decide how a player plays, and we don't have to guess at potential or injuries — what happens in the NBA happens in XO. Secondly, XO Hoops moves at real life speed. While you can often simulate very quickly with video games and sim leagues, getting many years ahead of what's currently happening in real life, XO Hoops stays in sync with the NBA. This really makes you pay attention to just how long a year actually is: and it makes you shy away from potential a little bit more, since if you have to wait 2 or 3 years for a player to blossom, you really have to wait 2 or 3 years. There are no shortcuts in XO.
Building a Team
This, obviously, is your focus. I've just told you that you can't think like you normally do — so how should you be thinking? This is the hardest part of XO Hoops and also what makes it fun. There are many different takes on what makes a good team and what doesn't. My best advice to you is: use your intuition. As a GM, you can follow your own philosophy and hope to ride it to the top.
The simulation is designed with very advanced statistical research to try and model how players would actually play together. And while it might fall short of reality in certain areas, for the most part it will give you an accurate picture of how a team would actually play. In the areas that it does fall short, we're constantly doing more research to try and make the simulation as accurate is possible. Your goal should always be to build a team that you think you would win in the NBA - if the simulation doesn't include something that you think it should, let us know and we'll be sure to let you know the state of our research in that area.
So try and build a team the way you think a real (not fantasy) team should be built. That being said, while there is no one way to the top, there are some things to keep in mind:
Scoring is not that important
Looking at points per game doesn't always tell you anything. And winning basketball games is about far more than putting scorers on the court together. If your players turn the ball over like crazy and jack up shots all over the place, sure they might average 20 to 30 points a game, but are they really helping your team? You want to look at how efficiently players convert their scoring opportunities, not just at how much they score.
Defense matters
It's very hard to measure defense statistically, but at XO Hoops we do as good a job as we can. Defense matters in the simulation, and can change your team's fortunes drastically. Blocks and steals are important, of course, but we also have measures to see how a player impacts the opponents' shooting percentages. This means that some players can be a major liability at the defensive end of the floor, while others can help your team a lot without contributing that much offensively.
There's only one ball
You hear that phrase a lot when people talk about an NBA team with a lot of scorers: "There's only one ball to go around, how are they going to share?" Well, the same thing happens in the simulation, and it's a key to understanding player interactions. Offensively challenged big men rarely touch the ball - scoring superstars dominate it. If you stuck three star scoring guards on the floor at the same time, none of them would put up numbers close to what they do in real life because they'd all touch the ball less.
From a team building standpoint, you've replicated one skill (scoring) and you probably don't have much defense or rebounding. So while that scoring backcourt isn't bad, it's not necessarily optimal. And you certainly don't want to stick a center in there who only scores and doesn't rebound or play defense.
Contracts
While the simulation marks a big difference between XO Hoops and traditional fantasy, there's another big difference: you have to pay attention to player salaries as well. One of the current GMs remarked to me once that "in XO, there are no good players and bad players. Only players on good contracts and players on bad contracts." I think that's a great comment because it pinpoints that in XO Hoops (like in the NBA) the contract a player is on is often as important as his abilities. Getting a very good player on an average contract could be better than getting a great player on a max contract. Because you have to pay attention to the salary cap when building a team, contract matters almost as much as talent.
So what are the rules for salaries? Contracts have three components - length, starting salary, and increase from year to year. (These are typically represented on XO with the shorthand of: Length/$Starting/Increase%, so for example a 5 year deal starting at $7,150,000 with 5% increases each year will be shown as 5/$7.15M/5%.) Length represents how long the contract runs for, the starting salary is the salary paid in the first year of the contract, and that salary is adjusted each year by the increase percentage. Increases can be positive or negative, and run from -15% to 15%. All contracts have a maximum length of 5 years. Starting salaries can run from $350,000 to $15M, but there are some contract restrictions to be aware of. You can click that link to find out all of the contract restrictions.
Contracts are also guaranteed - releasing players will not get rid of their contract, it will only create a roster spot, and you'll be on the hook for that player's salary for the rest of their contract.
The one last rule governing the signing of players is that outside of the free agency phase (which you'll read about in a little bit) players cannot be signed to actual contracts - instead they are picked up for a "minimum" contract, which has no salary cap ramifications. They don't count for any money against the cap, but you also don't get their restricted free agency rights at the end of the year (again, you'll learn more about that later).
The Phases
Now that you have a general idea of what XO Hoops is all about, the question is, what is a typical year like? XO Hoops divides the year up into different phases. For the most part these phases should be pretty familiar - they're just the cycle that a normal NBA team goes through. Below I'll briefly detail what you'll do in each phase.
League Start: Creation and the Draft Queue
When a league starts, you're in the "Creation" phase. This just means you're waiting for the league to fill up. In the meantime, be sure to order your inaugural draft queue to your liking. The draft will take place over several days, but it will have fairly restrictive time limits on each pick, so you'll want to make sure your draft queue is set in case you miss your pick.
League Start: The Inaugural Draft
As mentioned above, the inaugural draft will take place over several days. The draft is basically a much slower version of the traditional "live draft" method. Each pick will have a time limit, but a generous one (in the range of 2-8 hours, depending on which round it is). This is done so that each GM is given plenty of opportunity to conduct the draft themselves (live drafts often exclude a large portion of the league because of scheduling conflicts). If you miss your pick the computer will automatically draft for you off of your draft queue.
The draft will last for 12 rounds, so every team will come out of the draft with a full active roster.
League Start: Signing Your Picks
What contracts do your players sign when you draft them? There is a salary scale based on where a player is picked in the draft. Inaugural contracts do not have any increases in them. So, for example, if you have the #1 overall pick, your player will sign a contract that is $15M in every year of the deal. But how is the length determined?
After the draft you will be given a certain number of "contract lengths" to hand out. You will be able to assign these lengths to the players on your roster at your own discretion, but you will be limited by the number of lengths given to you. For example, you will be able to give three of your players a 1 year deal, but only one of your players a 5 year deal. When assigning lengths you must obey the contract restrictions.
Preseason
When your draft is done there will be a few days for all GMs to assign their players contract lengths. At the end of those days, the preseason will begin and you're ready for your season to start!
At the start of the preseason your league's schedule is generated. There are no preseason games, however. The preseason is just a waiting period until the season starts.
Season
The basics of the season are laid out at the start of the guide, but we'll go over them again, quickly. Your team will play a full 82 game schedule. The season is divided into a series of update periods usually lasting about a month. The way your players play in the simulation is dictated by that update period's stats. Because we have to have a month's worth of stats to base the simulation off of, an XO Hoops season starts a month after the NBA season.
A couple days after the last update, the trade deadline will take place.
Playoffs
The top 7 teams from each conference make the playoffs. The best team in each conference gets a bye, the rest battle it out in a best of 7 first round matchup. Each subsequent round is also a best of 7 series. The last team left standing is your XO Hoops league champion.
At the start of the playoffs, the draft lottery is run to determine where each team will pick in the rookie draft.
Predraft
One team will claim the champion's throne, and then 29 others will begin trying to unseat them. When the playoffs end, the league enters the Predraft phase. At the start of this phase, all contracts are rolled forward one year (with increases being applied as the case may be). Players who only had one year left on their contracts become restricted free agents.
Teams can once again trade their players and draft picks, and can also deal the rights to restricted free agents.
Rookie Draft
The rookie draft is here! XO Hoops rookie drafts take place a few days after the NBA Rookie Draft. The format of this draft is the same as the NBA: 2 rounds and a guaranteed rookie salary scale for first rounders. The rookie draft will also work the same way the inaugural draft did - the "slow live" format. In the rookie draft you will also be able to set a draft queue, and you will be given a 24 hour time limit to make each pick.
Offseason
The offseason is what it sounds like - it's summer, a time to relax if you want, or continue to remake your roster. Trade, plan, take a few days off, then trade and plan some more. Free agents don't sign during this time as they do in the NBA - XO Hoops has a shorter free agency period in the early fall instead.
Free Agency
The free agency period spans 3 weeks in the early fall. At the start of free agency, players are assigned a day that they sign their best offer on. Throughout the period GMs can make bids on players. At 9 PM eastern time each night the players assigned to accept that night will sign their best contract offer. The specifics of free agency can get a bit complicated, so we won't go through it all now. Click the free agency link if you want to read it over.
Note that all players who were signed to contracts the year before (as opposed to being picked up in the middle of the year on a minimum contract) are restricted free agents. That means when they sign a contract with a team, they only sign an offer sheet. The team that has the rights to that free agent then has the option to match that contract and keep the player. This rule is instituted in order to simulate the advantages given to teams when attempting to keep their own players in the NBA.
Frequently Asked Questions
This section will be updated as we get questions. Have a question? Post in the forums or send us an email.
