Questions people ask about HoopSim

HoopSim is a free, browser-based basketball general manager simulation game (a GM sim). You run a pro basketball team: draft, trade, sign free agents under a real salary cap, and set the depth chart and game plan while every possession is simulated. Play solo or in multiplayer leagues with friends, a commissioner and AI-run GMs that negotiate trades in chat.

Every league has 30 clubs. The ones without a human owner are run by AI GMs, each with a personality and a plan. A season is 3 preseason games, an 82-game regular season, a play-in, best-of-7 playoffs and a full offseason with a lottery, a two-round draft and free agency. The rulebook at How to Play explains every rule the game enforces.

Yes. HoopSim is free to play, and the first season in every league you join is free, including the offseason after it. There are no ads.

After that first season, each new season has to be opened, and play is how you open it cheaply or for nothing. The Participation Points (PP) you earn by running your team, counted since your last season opened, put you in a tier set by the admin; a tier can make the next season free outright or set the price of a season pass. One pass covers your whole account and opens one new season in every league you play in. Only PP you earned yourself counts; gifts from a commissioner never lower the price. Nothing else is sold: collectible cards come from packs opened with PP. See Points & Side Games.

No. HoopSim runs in a web browser on a phone or a computer, and there is nothing to install from an app store.

On a phone you can add HoopSim to your home screen in about ten seconds (iPhone: Safari, Share, Add to Home Screen; Android: Chrome, the menu, Install app), which gives you an icon, a full-screen app and push notifications. On a computer, HoopSim has a desktop app that runs in the browser at the same address. One account works everywhere: the league you run from your phone is the same league you open on your laptop, because leagues live on HoopSim's servers, not in the browser. The steps are on Get the app.

Yes. Create a league, share its invite link in your group chat, and each friend takes one of the 30 clubs. Every club nobody takes is run by an AI GM, so a league works with 2 friends or 30.

Whoever creates the league is the commissioner: they advance the league on a schedule or by hand, review trades in a 24-hour veto window, set the trade deadline and cap rules, and move the offseason along. Nobody has to be online at the same time. You set your depth chart and game plan ahead, the league advances, and results arrive by push notification. League chat, direct messages and team walls are built in, and trade offers can be sent from inside a DM. See League Office.

AI GMs are the computer-run general managers of every club without a human owner. Each has one of eight personalities (The Quant, All In, The Rebuilder, Old School, The Wildcard, The Rival, The Developer, The Mercenary), a plan for the team (contending, retooling or rebuilding) and needs it is trying to fill.

You deal with them in chat. Send an AI GM a message in plain words ("my backup center and a second for your wing"), and they read it into a deal card, answer in their own voice, and accept, pass or counter with a package of their own. They trade with each other, pitch you players that fit your weakest spot, and remember how you have treated them. Their best players are off the table, and they tell you why. See Trades.

A regular season is 82 games per team spread over about 170 league days, so its length in real time depends on how fast the league advances.

In a multiplayer league the commissioner's auto-advance runs 1 to 7 league days per run, on a 24-hour cadence by default. At one league day per real day a regular season takes about five and a half months; at seven league days per run it takes under four weeks. Add the play-in, up to four best-of-7 playoff rounds and the offseason phases, which move when the commissioner (or autopilot) advances them. In a solo league there is no clock: you press SIM to the next game, the next event or up to 14 days at a time, so a whole season can take an evening or a month. See The Season.

A basketball GM sim is a game where you make a team's front-office and coaching decisions and the computer plays the games. You are the general manager, not a player: you pick who to draft, who to trade, who to pay and who starts, then a simulation engine turns those choices into box scores, standings and seasons.

A typical decision: your starting center is in the last year of their deal and wants a raise you can only afford with Bird rights, which pushes you over the luxury tax. Extend them, trade them at the deadline for a pick, or let them test free agency? The game then tells you how it worked out. More terms are defined in the glossary.

Most days you set a 12-slot depth chart with 240 minutes to hand out, a game plan (pace, defense, key players, closing five), then the league sims a day and you react.

Reacting means reading the box scores and your inbox, handling an injury or a disgruntled player, answering a trade pitch from an AI GM, talking to a reporter, and asking your coaching staff for advice. During the season you can extend your own players, work the trade block up to the February deadline, scout draft prospects and sign free agents. In the offseason you decide team options and qualifying offers, hire coaches, run the draft lottery and two-round draft, bid in free agency and set training camp plans. See Game Day.

No, not with a controller. Every game is simulated possession by possession from the ten players on the floor, their fatigue and both game plans, on a real 48-minute clock.

You can watch any game afterward in Court View, a 3D replay built from the stored play-by-play, and read the box score and play-by-play. If your league turns on 1 on 1 games, you can play your team's scheduled game live: the engine plays the first 9 minutes of each quarter on its own and you call the last 3 (or every possession), choosing the play, the pick-and-roll read and the subs, against the CPU or against another GM who accepts your challenge. The result counts like any simulated game.

Yes, at heart. HoopSim is built on decisions and numbers: contracts, ratings as your scouts read them, box scores, standings, and a league that advances in days. Nothing is scripted, and nothing depends on your reflexes.

Around that core there is more than text: a 3D possession replay (Court View), highlight clips, an AI coaching staff you talk to, fictional reporters who interview you, and a league chat where AI GMs negotiate. It suits people who like franchise modes, fantasy basketball group chats, spreadsheets and the salary-cap side of the sport. It is not for someone who wants to shoot the ball themselves.

HoopSim is made by the HoopSim team at HoopSim.app. It is an independent game, not made by, licensed by or affiliated with any professional basketball league or team.

It launched in autumn 2026. The game is in English only. Accounts are email sign-ups, and leagues live on HoopSim's servers. The engine's own numbers are published in the State of the Game column, and the rules are in How to Play.

No ads, and no purchases that buy an edge. The only thing HoopSim sells is a season pass, which opens a new season after your free first one, and even that can be earned by playing instead (see Is HoopSim free?).

Collectible ability cards are earned, not bought. You open packs with Participation Points (PP), which you get for running your team: submitting a depth chart or game plan before a sim, bidding in free agency, drafting, answering trade offers, posting in the league feed. Rookie, Mystery, Pro and Hall of Fame packs unlock as your Legacy level grows, and Legacy comes only from results on the court. No money changes hands for cards, points or players. See Points & Side Games.

No. Nobody can pay for cards or points, so there is no paying player to get an edge.

Cards give small in-game boosts, and the total power you can have equipped is capped by your Legacy level, which only rises through results: games played, playoff runs, titles and your players' awards. PP is spent on packs, crafting and upgrades and comes from effort in the game, with daily limits on the repeatable sources. Spending PP never lowers your engagement tier. AI-run clubs are given matching parity cards so that cards do not tilt a league toward its human GMs, and the commissioner can switch cards off for the whole league. Everything else, including the salary cap and the scouting fog, applies to every team the same way.

Yes. HoopSim is an installable web app: you add it to your home screen from the browser, and it opens full screen with its own icon and push notifications, like any other app. It is not in the App Store or Google Play.

On an iPhone, open HoopSim.app in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen, then Add. On Android, open it in Chrome, tap the menu at the top right, then Install app (or Add to Home screen), then Install. Both take about ten seconds and the same account works on a computer too. The steps with pictures are on Get the app.

Because it doesn't need to be: HoopSim is built as a web app, so it installs straight from the browser and every update reaches you the moment it ships, without a store review or a download.

You lose nothing. The installed app has a home-screen icon, runs full screen, sends push notifications and keeps you signed in. What you gain is that the phone app, the desktop app and the website are one game on one account, updated at the same time. It also means HoopSim is free of store billing, which is part of why there are no ads and nothing to buy inside the game except a season pass.

iPhone: open HoopSim.app in Safari, tap the Share button in the bar at the bottom, scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen, then tap Add.

Android: open HoopSim.app in Chrome, tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Install app (on some phones it says Add to Home screen), then tap Install.

Then open HoopSim from the icon rather than the browser tab; that is the version that sends push notifications. If you are on a computer, Get the app shows a QR code and can text or email the link to your phone.

Yes. HoopSim has a desktop app that runs in the browser at the same address, open to everyone, with every page of the game laid out for a wide screen.

It is the same account and the same league as on your phone. Leagues are stored on HoopSim's servers, so you can set a lineup on your laptop in the evening and read the result on your phone in the morning. Nothing is downloaded or installed. Signing up, creating a league and joining with an invite link all work from a computer, and the public pages such as How to Play read the same on either.

Any current browser: Safari, Chrome, Edge and Firefox on a computer, and Safari or Chrome on a phone.

Two things to know. On an iPhone, adding HoopSim to the home screen (which is what gives you push notifications) has to be done from Safari. On Android, Chrome offers the Install app option. The game itself runs in the browser you already have, and because it is served from HoopSim's servers there is no version to keep up to date on your side.

No. Your league lives on HoopSim's servers and is shared with the other GMs and the AI GMs, so the game needs a connection to load pages, save a depth chart or send a trade offer.

If you open the installed app with no connection, it shows an offline screen until you are back online. Nothing is lost: everything you saved while connected is on the server, and nothing is stored only in your browser. When the connection returns, the app picks up where the league is.

Yes, if you install the app and allow them. Push notifications cover your turn (your pick is on the clock, a trade offer, a free agent's answer, a 1 on 1 challenge, the league waiting on you), results (your team's scores after each sim, awards, the playoff race), league news (phase changes, your trades going through, injuries, roster moves, notable signings, power rankings) and messages (direct messages, league chat).

Each category is a switch in Settings, and many can also go by email or Telegram. Urgent items go out at once; the rest are bundled so a sim advance produces one notification, not ten. Quiet hours (11 pm to 8 am by default, adjustable) hold everything except your draft pick being on the clock, and deliver the held items as one bundle when quiet ends.

Yes. A solo league is your franchise against 29 AI GMs. There is no clock and no commissioner to wait for: you press SIM to the next game, to the next event that needs a decision, or up to 14 days at a time, and the offseason steps run as you reach them.

You set the pace, from a season in an evening to one game a day. Everything else is the same game: the salary cap, trades negotiated with AI GMs in chat, scouting fog, injuries, the draft lottery, free agency, your coaching staff and the league media. If friends want in later, a solo league can be switched to multiplayer, which keeps its schedule and standings and gives it an invite code. See League Office.

One. A league has 30 clubs, so it can hold anywhere from 1 to 30 human GMs, and every club without a human is run by an AI GM.

Two or three friends make a perfectly good league, because the other 27 teams still trade, sign players, tank, contend and talk in chat. A full 30-human league is possible but not required, and a league never waits for a seat to be filled. When a GM leaves, their club goes back to an AI GM and the league carries on. See Solo and multiplayer leagues.

The commissioner runs a multiplayer league. They advance the league (by hand or with auto-advance on a cadence, 1 to 7 league days per run), decide how many GMs must be marked Ready, pause or skip a run, and post a next-advance notice that hangs as a clock on every GM's screen.

They also move the offseason along (or switch on autopilot), run the draft lottery and the staff free agency rounds, review every accepted trade in a veto window (24 hours by default; they can veto, fast-track or later reverse it), set the trade deadline, decide whether AI GMs trade at all, and change sim settings and cap numbers. They invite GMs with the league link or personal invites, and can unassign a GM, hand a team to someone else or remove a GM. They can also send League office memos to everyone. Full list: League Office.

Their team keeps playing. Every team always has a depth chart and a game plan, so the games go on without them, and the league never waits for one GM.

A GM who is going away can turn on GM vacation, which freezes their roster moves while their team keeps playing. If a GM has not opened a new season, their team is run by an AI GM until they return. If they are gone for good, the commissioner can unassign them and the club goes back to an AI GM, or reassign the club to a new friend. The new GM gets a clean slate: the previous GM's private messages and AI GM relationships are deleted, while the public record (trades, standings, league chat) stays. See Vacation.

Start a solo league today, and invite people later if you want to. A solo league plays the full game against 29 AI GMs with no waiting, and it can be switched to multiplayer at any time, which gives it an invite code you can share.

Inside the app, the Find a League page also lists open leagues that their commissioners have made public, with the team count, season number and current phase, and you join any league with its invite code. Private leagues are hidden and need the code from the commissioner. See Inviting GMs.

Yes. Nothing in a league requires everyone to be online at once. The league advances on a schedule (or when the commissioner presses advance), and each GM sets their depth chart and game plan ahead of time, including a different lineup for a specific upcoming game.

The commissioner can post when the next advance will happen, you can mark yourself Ready, and you get a reminder an hour before if you are not. Push notifications bring the results, trade offers and messages to you, and quiet hours keep them from waking you. The only live feature is optional: 1 on 1 games, where two GMs play a scheduled game possession by possession at a time they both agree on. See How the league advances.

Yes. Messenger holds League chat (everyone), private direct messages with other GMs, and team walls, where anyone can post on a team's page.

Trade talk happens there: you can build and send a trade offer inside a DM, and AI GMs answer DMs in plain words, read your proposal into a deal card, counter with their own package and pitch you players. Your coaching staff, your own players, prospects' agents and the league's fictional reporters also talk to you in Messenger. The Media feed posts about trades, signings, firings and big games, and quotes what GMs say in League chat; private DMs never leak. See The Messenger and Media.

Yes. An AI GM judges a trade on what the deal is worth to its roster, not on how you word it. Every trade passes the same salary-matching rules, and a lopsided offer is turned down with a reason in the AI GM's own voice.

AI GMs counter rather than just refuse, and they pitch deals of their own. Each has a plan (contending, retooling or rebuilding) and needs, so a rebuilder wants your first-round pick, not your 31-year-old scorer. Their best players are untouchable, and they tell you so.

They remember lowballs and walkouts; that colors what they say, never their prices. See Negotiating with AI GMs.

Yes. The staff room is a chat with your head coach, your scout, a trainer, a capologist, the league office and a PR adviser. Ask in plain words and they answer from the same information you can see.

Ask the coach which defenses your staff can run cleanly, who should close games or why a player is sulking; ask the scout for a read on a prospect; ask the trainer about a day-to-day injury; ask the capologist how much you can take back in a trade or who you hold Bird rights on. The answers link to the rulebook chapter they come from. The staff advise; you decide. They never see other teams' private plans or any hidden number. See The staff room.

No. Nobody in HoopSim sees a player's true ratings, including the AI GMs. Every team, human or AI, works from its own scouts' read, and the public draft consensus that AI teams fall back on is looser than a good scout's view.

AI teams play by the same rulebook: the same salary cap, tax line, aprons and salary matching, the same roster limits, the same Bird rights and extension limits, the same injury rules, and the same scouting fog. They do not get extra cap room, free players or a peek at your depth chart or messages. Where humans have something the AI does not, it is the other way around: AI front offices do not hold pre-draft interviews, and their collectible cards are parity cards. See You never see true ratings.

No. The reporters, insiders and talk-show hosts are a fictional cast, written by the game. They react to real events in your league: a trade, a signing, a firing, an injury, a 40-point night, a losing streak, a rumor, or something a GM said in League chat.

They post to the Media feed, DM you for comment when a story is about you, and in The Show a host may ask you for a quote after a big moment. Answer on the record and they print your exact words; off the record and it runs as "a source close to the team." Nothing they do touches your roster or the sim. See The Show.

Every possession of every game is simulated on a real clock: four 12-minute quarters and 5-minute overtimes, with the ten players on the floor, their fatigue and both game plans deciding what happens. Nothing is scripted and no result is drawn from a table.

The engine produces full box scores and play-by-play, and the game computes the standard advanced stats from them (effective field goal percentage, true shooting, usage, pace, offensive and defensive rating, PER, plus-minus). League-wide numbers such as shooting splits and pace are published in State of the Game, the column about the engine, so you can check them against the real league yourself. The commissioner can tune pace, scoring, fouls, three-point frequency, injuries and more with sliders where 5 is the real-league-like value. See Game Day.

Possession by possession. On each trip one player starts the action (guards and your key players most often), the play is a pick-and-roll, isolation, post-up, drive, cut, handoff or spot-up, the ball may swing to an open teammate, and the trip ends in a shot, a turnover or a foul.

Each shot is judged by how close the nearest defender is, so wide-open looks go in far more often than contested ones. Fatigue builds every minute and costs quickness first, then skills. Fouls follow pro basketball rules: six and you are out, five team fouls put the other side in the bonus. The coach subs in waves paced to your minutes, sits players in foul trouble as your settings say, calls timeouts to stop runs, adjusts at halftime, and sends in your closing five for crunch time. Chemistry, home court, blowout effects and in-game injuries all apply. See Game Day.

Yes. Court View is a 3D replay of any game, built from the stored play-by-play: every shot, rebound, turnover, foul and substitution in order, with a scrubber to jump by possession. The same game always replays the same way.

Besides the replay, each game has a full box score (score by quarter, every player's line) and a quarter-by-quarter play-by-play. Highlight clips from your team's last game appear on your dashboard and can be shared into chat or outside the game. On sim nights in a multiplayer league, everyone is taken into a live room where the night's games air quarter by quarter on the same clock, at a pace the commissioner sets. See The box score and play-by-play.

Yes, in 1 on 1 games, when your league has them switched on. You play your team's scheduled game live, possession by possession: choose the play, make the pick-and-roll read, go after loose balls and make the subs, on a shot clock of your own.

The default format lets the engine play the first 9 minutes of each quarter from both game plans and hands you the last 3, so a real box score takes about ten minutes; a full format puts every possession in your hands. Against an AI-run team you just play. Against a human's team, the game is live only if that GM accepts your challenge, and either of you can hand your side to the CPU and watch. The result is recorded exactly like a simulated game, with the same stats, standings and injuries, and anyone in the league can watch it live.

Mostly yes. HoopSim has a soft salary cap ($154.6M by default), a luxury tax line ($187.9M) with a tax rate and repeater penalties, a first apron ($195.9M) and a second apron ($207.8M) that works as a hard cap, a salary floor, maximum salaries by years of service (25%, 30% and 35% of the cap), 8% and 5% raises, the mid-level, taxpayer mid-level and low-level exceptions, Non-Bird, Early Bird and Full Bird rights, rookie-scale deals with team options, restricted free agency with qualifying offers and offer sheets, extensions, dead money and the stretch provision.

What it leaves out: there are no sign-and-trades, no trade exceptions, no room or bi-annual exception, no cash in trades and no draft-pick protections or swaps. Salary matching in trades is tiered by payroll, with stricter rules at each apron. The commissioner can change every number. See Money.

No. Nobody sees a player's true ratings, not even on your own roster. Everything you see is your scout's read, shown as letter grades or numbers depending on the league's display setting, and it can be a step off.

Your head scout has two separate skills, reading what a player is today and projecting what they can become, and a better scout gives you a closer read from the start. You know your own players best: a read sharpens when a player joins you and keeps sharpening over a season. Draft prospects need a scout assigned to them, and each look every few weeks of league time moves the read closer to the truth, shown as Low, Medium or High confidence. A player's durability stays hidden until you run a medical. See Draft & Scouting.

It can. When a league is created you pick its roster file: real-style rosters, with real cities and real player names on 30 clubs, or a generated league of fictional players. The choice is made once, per league, and leagues with either kind play the same game.

HoopSim carries no league branding, logos or official marks, and it is not affiliated with any professional league. Real-style leagues can also draft from real historical draft classes instead of generated ones; the draft room tags which kind a class is. Whatever the source, you never see a player's true ratings, only your scout's read of them, so even a roster you know well keeps its surprises. See The draft class.

Yes. A generated league fills all 30 clubs with made-up players, and every draft class after that is generated too: raw athletic bigs, ready-now shooters, pass-first points, defensive stoppers, boom-or-bust gambles, late bloomers and steady journeymen, 60 prospects by default.

People choose fictional rosters for two reasons. There is no hindsight: nobody knows which 19-year-old becomes a star, so the draft and scouting matter the way they should. And it is fair for everyone: a friend who follows the real league closely has no edge over one who does not. Real-style leagues can also shuffle real players across the 30 teams in a balanced snake or tier order instead of their real clubs, which keeps the names and removes the hindsight. See Draft & Scouting.

Yes. When creating a league, choose a creation draft instead of pre-stocked rosters. The 30 clubs start empty and every player in the roster file goes into one pool, and the GMs draft their whole rosters from it before the first season starts.

The creation draft runs in snake order in the league's draft room, and AI GMs draft for the clubs without a human. It works with real-style rosters or a generated pool, and the game refuses a source that has too few players to fill 30 rosters. After the draft the league goes on to its first preseason like any other, with the normal rookie draft and lottery at the end of the season. See Draft order and draft night.

A few minutes on a normal day: read last night's score and your inbox, check the depth chart, answer anything that landed in Messenger. The game's own daily engagement goal is 20 minutes, and nothing in a league requires more than opening the app once between advances.

Some days ask for more. The trade deadline (February 6 on the league calendar by default), the draft (24 hours per pick by default, with your ranked list picking for you if you are away), free agency rounds and training camp are where GMs spend real time, and the people who enjoy HoopSim most spend it talking trades with AI GMs and friends in chat. If you set a depth chart and game plan once and leave them, your team still plays every game, and your coach fills any gap an injury leaves. See The Season.

Yes, you need an account, and yes, your league is saved on HoopSim's servers, not in your browser. You sign up with an email address and a password and confirm the email.

Because the league lives on the server, it is there when you clear your browser, switch phones, reinstall the app or sign in on a computer; the same account opens the same league everywhere. Nothing about your team is stored only on your device, so there is no save file to lose and no "my leagues are gone" moment. A multiplayer league is also shared: every GM and AI GM is working on the same copy, and the commissioner's advances move it for everyone. Push notifications, email and quiet hours are set per account in Settings.

HoopSim is a basketball GM sim like the browser classics, built for leagues with friends. The core is familiar from any text sim: a salary cap, a draft with scouting, trades, free agency, a depth chart and a game plan, and a season simulated a day at a time.

Four things set it apart. It is multiplayer first: up to 30 human GMs in one league with a commissioner, invite links and a shared clock, and solo play is the same game. The other clubs are AI GMs you negotiate with in chat, in plain words; they pitch, counter and remember you. The cap rules are the real ones (soft cap, tax, two aprons, exceptions, Bird rights, restricted free agency), enforced on every team. And it runs as an installable phone app and a desktop app, with a 3D possession replay and live play-calling, and nothing to download.

No, although it scratches the same itch. Fantasy basketball scores real games played by real players this week. In HoopSim you own a simulated team for as many seasons as you like, under a salary cap, with a draft, free agency, trades, injuries and a locker room, and the games are played by the sim engine, not by the real league.

What carries over is the group chat. A HoopSim league has League chat, DMs and team walls, trade talk at the deadline, a draft night, free-agent bidding and a commissioner, and it keeps going all year, through the offseason, with no real-world schedule to wait for. Friends who know the real league well have no edge: nobody sees true ratings, and a league can use fictional players so hindsight counts for nothing.

The front office is the same job: draft, trade, sign, extend, set the rotation and the game plan, manage the cap, develop young players and build a dynasty over many seasons. The differences are in what surrounds it.

There is no controller and no shooting: games are simulated possession by possession, and you watch the replay in 3D or call plays in 1 on 1 mode. It is free, with no ads and no roster packs to buy. It runs on a phone, from the browser, in a few minutes a day. And the league is online and shared: your friends run the other clubs, AI GMs run the rest and talk back, a commissioner keeps order, and the season advances for everyone at once rather than when you load your save.