Season Stages
There are eight stages to each season. They are in the following order:
Offseason: This is the period where it is possible to change league rules as well as expand/contract teams using the league editor. Any changes for the upcoming season must be complete before moving on. The offseason concludes with the draft lottery.
Draft Period: The draft period is when rookie drafts will take place.
Free Agency: The free agency period is a 30 day period where teams can submit offers to free agents.
Training: Players are assigned their offseason training orders in preparation for the upcoming season. Any improvements will take place once camps are complete.
Preseason: During the preseason teams will play a number of exhibition games in preparation for the regular season. They will not count towards the final team records. During this time teams may carry up to 20 players.
Regular Season: Games now count and rosters must be set. Teams can carry up to 15 players with a max of 13 active players on the roster.
Postseason: The playoffs are completed and a champion is crowned.
Roster Management
Roster management is done from the roster screen. During the offseason and preseason teams can carry up to 20 players on the roster. Once the regular season begins teams can have a maximum of 15 players on the roster with 13 players active.
Player Attributes
Inside Scoring: Helps determine the player's ability to create all shots as the ability to get inside will open up outside shots as well.
Jump Shot: Affects how likely a player is to make shots away from the basket.
Free Throws: Affects how likely a player is make a free throw.
3-Point Shot: Affects how likely a player is make a 3-point shot.
Handling: Affects how likely a player is to commit a turnover
Passing: Affects the quality of a player's passes.
Offensive Rebounding: Affects the player's ability to get offensive rebounds.
Defensive Rebounding: Affects the player's ability to get defensive rebounds.
Post Defense: Affects the player's ability to defend inside shots.
Perimeter Defense: Affects the player's ability to defend outside shots and prevent drives.
Stealing: Affects the player's ability to steal the ball.
Shot Blocking: Affects the player's ability to block shots.
Quickness: Has a small affect on driving, rebounding, creating shots, and defense.
Strength: Affects play near the basket including rebounding, shooting, and defense.
Jumping: Helps determine the player's ability to get to the basket with drives.
Stamina: Determines how quickly players get tired during a game. Tired players will have decreased performance.
Depth Chart
The depth chart allows you to set your starters as well as the order players should be used off of the bench. The legal positions section allows you to set which positions a player can play during a game. If there are no eligible players that can play the position, the game will place what it determines to be the best available player at that position in the game. The playing time setting allows you to set the desired number of minutes for each player. The setting is most important for starters as any unassigned minutes will be filled by players from the bench. Players set with no legal position or no playing time are not a part of the normal playing rotation. They will be used only when it is not possible to fill the lineup with rotation players or if too many members of the rotation are in foul trouble.
Gameplan
Pace: A higher setting means your players will push the action more. This will increase the number of possessions in the game while also tiring players faster.
Motion: A high setting means your team runs a very structured offense. This is beneficial for teams with good passing skill but is harder on players who are good at creating for themselves.
3p Usage: Affects the likelihood that your team will look for 3 point shots.
Focus: The general preference for where you would like to shoot the ball. Players will be less likely to shoot if they are outside of the preferred region.
Crash Boards: How much your team should focus on getting the rebound as opposed to getting back on defense or trying to get easy baskets on offense.
Defense: Teams may specify up to two defenses that they will use. The usage settings will determine how likely you are to use each defense. If they are equal then you will use them equally. If one is 10 and one is 1 then you will mostly use the defense set to 10.
Full Court Press: How often your team will run a full court press. This will create turnovers at the expense of more fouls and extra energy use.
Key Players: Up to three key players may be selected. These players get more touches on offense, especially at the end of the game.
Additional information sent along by WigNosy himself:
PLAYER RATING BOXES
On the player and team pages, a pair of colored “boxes” denotes the way FBB scouts a player. The first box (“Cur”) represents the player’s currently-scouted ability while the second box (“Fut”) represents FBB’s best guess at his potential ability. For young players, the potential is generally higher than his current ability; for established players, these are generally the same. It is possible for these ratings to change (generally improving as a young player moves into the peak of his career and declining as a player ages past the peak of his career).
Red = A poor player, not likely to even be in a team’s regular rotation.
Orange = A bad-to-mediocre bench player; possibly a specialist that could be useful in limited minutes or specific situations (e.g., a player who only shoots threes but can’t rebound or defend).
Yellow = A decent bench player or low-quality starter.
Green = An almost certain starter, possibly able to put up “star” numbers on a bad team or in the right situation.
Blue = A star player and likely all-star.
Purple = Extremely rare, this rating indicates a once-in-a-generation talent (think Wilt, Kareem, Magic, Bird, Jordan, Kobe, LeBron).
GAME PLAN SETTINGS – DEFENSE
This is not anything “official” but rather what I’ve observed in controlled tests encompassing over 1,000 simulated games. The following assumes that “man-to-man” defense is the baseline against which other defenses are measured.
HELP DEFENSE
PRO: Your team is more likely to block shots.
PRO: Your opponent is more likely to commit “unforced” turnovers (i.e., those that do not lead to a steal for your team).
PRO: Your opponent is less likely to get assists.
CON: Your team is more likely to commit fouls.
CON: Your starters’ minutes decrease (i.e., your players become fatigued faster)
Speculation: A team set to use “Help Defense” will do better against a team set to use less “motion” in its offense.
TRAP DEFENSE
PRO: Your team is more likely to block shots.
PRO: Your team is more likely to get steals.
PRO: Your opponent’s three-point shooting percentages go down.
CON: Your team is less likely to get defensive rebounds (i.e., your players are out of position).
CON: Your team is much more likely to commit fouls (more than twice the increase with Help and Zone defense).
ZONE DEFENSE
PRO: Your team is much more likely to block shots (more than twice the increase with Trap and Help defense).
PRO: Your starters’ minutes tend to increase (you can keep your better offensive players on the floor longer).
CON: Your opponents tend to shoot a higher overall percentage and score more points.
CON: Your team is more likely to commit fouls.