Chemistry & Morale

Morale is how one player feels about their situation. Chemistry is how well the whole locker room holds together. They're linked: unhappy players drag chemistry down, and a team with good chemistry tends to keep its players happy. Both update as the league sims and right after anything that moves them: trades, signings, cuts, coaching changes, the trade block, the Inactive list, depth chart saves, sit-downs and DMs with players, rumours and trouble off the court. You can see both on the Chemistry page, and the Cohesion Ledger there lists every change and what caused it.

Chemistry falls into five tiers, from best to worst: Brotherhood, Solid, Neutral, Unstable and Fractured. The commissioner can adjust the tier lines or turn chemistry off for the league.

Four things decide a player's morale:

• Role: whether they get the minutes they expect. This is the biggest single factor. The expectation comes from the minutes you set on the depth chart. Recent games count more than the season average, so fixing a player's role pays off quickly.
• Winning: players on winning teams are happier.
• Tenure: players who have been with your team for a few seasons are comfortable. A newcomer arriving mid-season feels like an outsider for a while.
• The coach: some head coaches are naturally good with players, like a player's coach, a relationship-builder or a laid-back personality. Others, like old-school, demanding or disciplinarian types, create friction.

Each player's card lists the main reasons they're happy or unhappy, such as "Starting role", "Winning team" or "Wants more minutes". Morale resets to a fresh start each new season.

Good players care about minutes, and stars care the most. A star who plays a bit less than they expect will get annoyed. A solid rotation player only complains when their role shrinks a lot, and fringe players mostly don't complain at all. A frustrated player plays worse: they make poorer decisions, and at the worst levels they stop working on defense and the boards. Your coach calls this sulking.

Once morale drops far enough, a player is marked disgruntled on the Chemistry page. An unhappy player's agent will ask you for permission to shop him, and turning the agent down three times makes the player ask out in public.

A healthy player stuck on the Inactive list is furious, and the better the player, the angrier they get. It hurts their morale badly and shows up in team chemistry. (Healthy rotation players can't be made Inactive anyway. See Injuries.)

Team chemistry comes from four parts. The Chemistry page shows each one.

• Roles: how satisfied the roster is with its minutes. It's the biggest part. A few furious stars hurt more than an average suggests, so one or two badly unhappy players can outweigh a bench full of contented ones.
• Continuity: rosters that stay together gel. Chemistry grows as your core spends seasons together, and it takes a hit from this season's trades and from a roster full of new faces. Trades from earlier seasons no longer count. A player's time with the team starts over when they're traded or signed as a free agent.
• Momentum: winning. During the preseason your preseason record counts, and from opening night the regular-season record takes over.
• Coach fit: your head coach's style and personality.

In a brand-new league everyone starts out new together, so continuity starts neutral instead of low.

Putting a player on the trade block costs you. The listed player's morale drops, and it drops further each week they stay listed. Stars take the news hardest. The rest of the locker room notices too, so team chemistry dips a little for each player you list. After you take a player off the block, the sting fades over about two league weeks. The listing sheet shows the chemistry cost before you confirm. You can list a limited number of players each month.

Chemistry is felt on the floor. A tight team moves the ball better, so you get more assists and fewer turnovers, and it holds up better in clutch moments. A fractured locker room does the opposite: the ball sticks, you get sloppier, and you fold late. Chemistry also shapes home and road games. A close team gets more out of its home crowd and stays composed on the road, while a fractured one struggles to use home court and falls apart away from home.

Chemistry only changes games once it's clearly good or clearly bad. Between Neutral and Solid there's a dead zone where nothing changes; from Solid up the bonuses start, and under Neutral the penalties start. Every chemistry effect is stronger in the playoffs, clutch most of all.

Chemistry won't make a weak roster good, but it can decide close games between evenly matched teams. The quickest fixes are clear roles with fair minutes, keeping your core together and winning.

Some things move morale and chemistry away from the box score:

• Rumours: when a player keeps coming up in trade talk, word can leak. He finds out, and his morale takes a hit that fades over two league weeks.
• Agents: telling an agent his client isn't going anywhere costs morale, and a public trade request costs more. Both fade.
• Trouble off the court: a missed flight, a broken curfew or a fine for comments about officials hurts the player and the room. How you respond (back him, fine him, sit him or say nothing) changes how he feels about you and how fast it fades.
• Trust in the front office: sit-down interviews and DMs with your players build or wear down his trust in you, which nudges his morale either way. Crossing a line in a DM costs the whole room.
• The draft: skipping a prospect's pre-draft meeting and then drafting him means he arrives feeling passed over.
• Awards: a fresh award lifts a player's morale for a couple of weeks.

A leaky locker room (low chemistry or several disgruntled players) makes all of this worse: rumours leak more often and trouble off the court is more likely. Unhappy players are more likely to get into trouble too. A tight room stays quiet.

The Chemistry page keeps a ledger of every change to your chemistry: the date, what happened, the score before and after, which parts moved (tenure, roles, momentum, coach, the trade block, the locker room) and the players whose morale moved most, with their reasons. Sim nights roll into one line per advance, with your record over the run. The full ledger lets you filter by roster moves, sim results, media and off-court, and front office. The commissioner can read any club's ledger.