How to Play FTG Basketball
Set the rotation, work the cap, run the draft and sim seasons a possession at a time. The FTG Basketball job in ten minutes.
You run one basketball club. The sim plays every possession. You set the rotation, make the trades, run the draft and sign the free agents, and the box scores tell you whether you were right. Every player comes out of real NBA history, 1976-77 to last season.
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Start a league
Play a demo league from the home page with no account, or sign in with Google or an email link and create your own. A league has thirty invented clubs in two conferences. You take one club and AI front offices run the other 29. Send the invite link and friends can take clubs of their own.
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Know your players
Every player is a real one, but a real career is a starting point, not a verdict. Each league gives each player his own small swing up or down, so the star you remember can disappoint and a role player can break out. OVR is what he is now. POT is how high he can go, and you only see it through your scouts' estimate.
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Set the rotation
Pick five starters and hand out minutes, up to 48 a man. The sim chases your targets and adjusts for fatigue and foul trouble, so a man you give 34 minutes plays close to 34. Auto set builds a sane rotation in one tap. Every healthy player dresses; the rotation decides who plays.
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Split the season budget
Each season you get 12 credits. One credit buys a development program for a player, such as three-point shooting, finishing at the rim or defense. One credit also buys six scouting looks at draft prospects. Pick the split before game 1 and it locks. Looks open one week at a time through the season.
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Play the season
An 82-game schedule by default, 58 if the league chooses the short season. The commissioner advances by hand, or sets a schedule that advances on its own, as often as once a day. Advance one day or a week at a time; the results come out the same either way. Players get hurt in games and miss the games after. An All-Star weekend lands near midseason.
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Make trades
Build a trade with players and draft picks from both sides. Every AI club judges the deal on its own needs and its own outlook, rebuilding or chasing a title, and tells you why it said no. AI clubs also call you with offers through the season. The trade deadline falls 60 percent of the way through the schedule.
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Win in the spring
Seeds 7 through 10 in each conference play a play-in for the last two spots. Then eight teams a conference play best-of-seven series down to the Finals.
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Work the offseason
Awards, retirements, player development and aging run on one advance. Then the lottery: fourteen teams, the top four picks drawn on the real odds. Then a two-round draft with a four-hour clock for each human pick. Let it run out and the clock picks for you, starting with the top name in your draft queue. Then free agency over six rounds, where each player's price falls every round until he will sign for the minimum.
That is the loop. Draft well, pay the right players, stay out of the tax until the title window opens, then spend. The league keeps every box score, record and banner, so the stories pile up season after season.