Ottoneu Fantasy Basketball is an attempt to recreate how professional basketball teams build teams over time. All teams have a salary cap and all players must be paid from that cap to be on a team. Players are acquired via open-market auctions, and the weekly head-to-head format combined with the difficult choices teams have to make in terms of building for the future or trying to win today make Ottoneu Fantasy Basketball a unique, exciting game format.

1. Each league consists of 12 teams
2. Each league has 1, 2, or 3 divisions
3. Each team has at least one manager. Multiple managers are allowed

1. Each team has $400 in cap space and 25 roster spots.
2. Teams must either have 25 rostered players or enough available cap space to roster 25 players.
3. A team's roster can consist of a mix of NBA, G-League, NCAA D1 and other prominent players. The player universe currently consists of all NBA, G-League, and NCAA D1 players.
4. If a team has more than 25 rostered players, more than $400 in salary, or not enough cap space to roster 25 players, the team will be locked out of normal activities until a player is cut or moved off the team via trade. These activities include:
   • Setting lineups
   • Offering or accepting trades
   • Bidding on auctions
5. At no time shall a team willingly go over roster and salary cap limits. If a team knowingly does this, they will face penalties at the discretion of their league's commissioner.

1. Only active NBA players are eligible for points.
2. Players can be moved in and out of a team's daily lineup until their team's NBA game has started.
3. Players can only accrue statistics and points for a team in official regular season NBA games.
4. Once a player's NBA game has started, their stats will accrue for their team at the moment their NBA game began. If the player is subsequently cut or traded during the game, their stats will still count towards the team they were on when their NBA game started.
5. Each position slot in the lineup will have a weekly max of 3 games. A player locked into a lineup spot because their NBA game started will count against this cap.

1. Players can be added in-season via 48-hour blind auction
2. The minimum bid required is equal to the player's cap penalty if applicable or $1 if the player has no current cap penalties
3. The team that bids the highest on a player wins the auction and will have that player added to their roster with a salary equal to the bid of the second highest bid plus one dollar
4. These auctions are Vickery-style in order for the winning bid to closely reflect the true value of a player
5. In the case of a tie with the highest bid, the team with a worse winning percentage will receive the player
6. In the case of identical winning percentages, the system will flip a coin and award the player accordingly
7. The bid is 'made' once it is submitted on the site
8. New bids cannot be submitted and existing bids cannot be modified by a team that is over roster or cap limits

1. Players can be cut from a team at any time during the regular season
2. A cut player does not count against a team's roster limit but has a cap penalty equal to half the player's previous salary, rounded up.
3. A cut player cannot be auctioned or bid on by the team that cut them for 30 days after the team cut them
4. A cut player may be claimed on waivers within 24 hours of being cut (see below)
5. If a player that was previously cut during the season is acquired via waiver claim or in-season auction, their cap penalty is removed

1. Players can be claimed on waivers within 24 hours of being cut by another team
2. If a player is claimed on waivers, they will be added to the claiming team at their full previous salary
3. If more than one team claims a player on waivers, the tiebreakers used are the same as in the case of a tie on the highest bid on an in-season auction

1. Trades can be completed between two teams after arbitration (see below) up until the trade deadline. The trade deadline is the 15th of February.
2. Trades can involve any players on either team's roster.
3. During the regular season, trades can also involve loaning cap space between two teams.
1. Loans automatically end at the end of the regular season.
4. Once a trade is accepted, the league has 24 or 48 hours to approve or veto the trade.
1. 50% + 1 (7 out of 12) managers must vote against a trade in order for the trade to not be processed
2. Abstaining on a trade counts as approving the trade

1. The regular season begins on the start of the NBA season
2. The team with the higher score in each game is considered the winner. If two teams finish with the same score, rounded to a tenth, or with the same number of categories won, that game will be considered a tie
3. The team with the highest winning percentage in each division is the division-winner
4. The first division tie-breaker is head-to-head record
5. The second division tie-breaker is a coin flip

1. The winner of each division makes the playoffs
2. The remaining playoff teams are picked based on the best record of the remaining teams, regardless of division
3. The number of playoff teams depends on the league's playoff setting.
4. If multiple potential playoff teams have the same record, the team with the highest points scored will be awardded the playoff spot.

5. Playoff Schedules

   • Playoffs start on the third-to-last week of the NBA season.
   • 2024-25 playoffs start on March 10, 2025
   • Leagues with 6 and 8 playoff teams will have their championship game on the final week of the NBA regular season.
   • Leagues with 4 playoff teams will have their championship game a week before the end of the NBA regular season.
6. After the opening week of the playoffs, subsequent matchups are based on re-seeding. The remaning team with the best record in the regular season will always play the remaining team with the worst record in the regular season and so on.
7. The winner of the championship game is the league champion
8. The loser of the championship game is the second place team
9. The winner of the third-place game is the third place team
10. In the case of a playoff game ending in a tie, the tiebreaker will be regular season head-to-head record, followed by playoff seed (higher seed advances).

1. The Ottoneu Fantasy Basketball season ends at the end of the NBA regular season.
2. Prizes will be dispersed as necessary once the season ends.
3. Standard salary increases occur at this time as well:
   1. $3 for players that played at least 1 NBA game in the season that just ended
   2. $1 for all other players
4. Cap penalties and loans are no longer in effect immediately at the end of the season

1. Arbitration starts on May 1 and lasts until June 1
2. Arbitration allows teams to add dollars to players on other teams in their league
3. Every team has a $25 allocation budget to utilize as they see fit
4. Every team must give every other team in their league at least $1 and no more than $3 in additional salary
5. No player can be allocated more than $3 of additional salary by another team ($33 league max)
6. If a team does not use their entire $25 allocation budget, none of their allocations will count and it will be as if they did not participate at all.

1. The keeper deadline is annually on the first Monday of September
2. Teams can make cuts without any penalty between the end of the season and the keeper deadline
3. At 12:00am E.T. on the morning of the first Monday in September, teams must meet their base salary and roster limits.
4. Once the keeper deadline passes, teams will be unable to make roster transactions until after their league's Auction Draft

1. A league's Auction Draft can occur any time after the keeper deadline up until the beginning of the regular season
2. Teams can nominate players for auction. Nomination order is the reverse of the previous season's standings
3. Once a player is nominated, a countdown timer starts at 15 seconds
4. If another team bids, the timer is reset to 15 seconds
5. If no team bids for 15 seconds, the player is added to the team with the last bid with a salary of the last bid
6. The auction draft continues until all the teams have full rosters, all the teams voluntarily finish their draft, or a league commissioner marks the draft as done in Commissioner Tools