How Hoop'd works

Nine players. $60,000. One lineup a week.

Pick nine NBA players under the cap before the week tips. Each player scores his average fantasy points across the games he plays that week. Add the nine averages and that's your week. Highest score in your league wins it.

Your lineup

You fill 9 spots with 9 different players, and their salaries have to add up to $60,000 or less. You only see players who are eligible for the spot you tapped.

Prices come out before entries open and do not change during that week. Next week gets its own prices.

Scoring

Every game a player appears in is scored like this:

Fantasy points = points + 1.2×rebounds + 1.5×assists + 3×steals + 3×blocks − turnovers

It's about the average. A player's score for the week is his average across the games he appeared in, not his total. A player with four games doesn't out-score a player with two just by playing more.

• A DNP doesn't count against him. Games he sat out are left out of the average.
• No appearances means zero. If he never plays that week, that spot scores 0.
• A short appearance still counts. Two minutes is a game, and it goes into the average.

Example, not a real game: 24 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals, 1 block and 3 turnovers is 48.6 fantasy points.

The week

• A scoring week runs Tuesday through Monday, Eastern time.
• Entries open Sunday at noon ET, once that week's prices are published.
• Lineups lock at the first scheduled tip of the week. You can change your picks as often as you like until then.
• You submit every week. Nothing carries over on its own. “Use last week's lineup” copies your previous picks into a draft at this week's prices; you still review and submit it.
• Picks are private until lock. Nobody sees anyone else's lineup before it locks. At lock, every lineup in the league is revealed at once.

Results

Scores update after games finish, from complete box scores. This is not play-by-play scoring. While the week is in progress your score is provisional: averages can go up or down with each game.

A week becomes final once every game is in and a short window for stat corrections has passed. A rescheduled game counts in the week it is actually played.

Standings

Each league picks its own run of weeks when it's created. In a standard league your weekly scores add up to a season total.

• Weekly wins. The top score each week wins it. Ties share the win.
• Drop weeks. A league can drop each manager's lowest weeks. With drops, your best weeks count and the rest fall away. A league with no drops counts every week.
• Missing a week scores zero. A missed week can be one of your dropped weeks.
• A weekly win stays on your record even if that week ends up dropped from your total.
• Joining late. You start from the week you join. Earlier weeks count as missed; no scores are made up for them.

Drop weeks and the standings format are set when the league is created and don't change mid-season.

The belt

Whoever wins a week holds the belt going into the next one. That makes them the champ, the one to beat: the coverage tracks who topped the champ's score, who took the belt and how long anyone has held it.

• It's bragging rights. In a standard league the belt never changes the standings. Your season total decides those.
• A champ who doesn't submit is beaten by every lineup that week, and the week's winner takes the belt.
• Small leagues. The belt appears once a league has four or more managers.

Belt-points leagues

A commissioner can choose to rank the league by belt points instead. It's set when the league is created.

Whoever won last week is the champ. Beat the champ’s score for 1 point. The champ earns 1 when more than half the league fails to beat them. Winning the week is worth 2, split on ties. Week 1 has no champ; a missed week earns nothing, and a champ who misses is beaten by everyone. Standings order by belt points, then the cumulative total.

A week in progress carries no belt points until it's final.