Depth Chart & Minutes

Your depth chart has 12 slots. Slots 1-5 are your starters, and each is locked to a position: 1 is the point guard, 2 the shooting guard, 3 the small forward, 4 the power forward and 5 the center. Whoever you put in a starting slot plays that position. Slots 6-12 are your bench.

A bench player's position pills say which spots they can fill when a teammate comes out. Bench order barely matters. When someone needs a breather, the sim sends in the freshest, best available player who still has minutes left and can play the open spot. If the new player can't play the open spot, a teammate on the floor who can slides over.

A game is 48 minutes with five players on the floor, so your team has 240 minutes to hand out. No player can be given more than 48. The meter on the depth chart shows whether you're balanced, over or have minutes left.

If your total isn't 240, the sim scales everyone up or down to fit. It also keeps starters within a sensible range and caps what bench slots can play, so very big or very small numbers get pulled toward normal. Minutes are a target, not a promise. Foul trouble, blowouts, hot hands and fatigue all move the real numbers, and the minutes flex setting on the Game Plan decides how tightly the coach sticks to your targets.

Subs come in waves through every quarter, paced to each player's minutes. Early in the second quarter the bench gets its longest run while one key player stays out there as an anchor. A player just subbed in gets a few minutes before they can come out again. A player pushed past their minutes tires faster, and a player who wants more minutes than they get gets frustrated and plays worse. As a rule of thumb, stars play in the low-to-mid thirties, a real sixth man in the twenties, and a short bench beats a long one.

In the playoffs the rotation tightens on its own. Starters play a little more, the main bench a little less, and slots 11 and 12 sit.

Setting a player to 0 minutes is an intentional DNP. Scaling never gives them minutes, and a starter set to 0 doesn't start: the best eligible bench player takes the spot. A DNP player comes in only when a foul-out, ejection or injury leaves nobody else. Turn on the DNP lock (Game Plan, Rotation tab) and they won't come in even then.

Injured players who are out can't be slotted, and neither can Inactive players (the ones over the 12-man active limit) until you activate them from the Roster. Day-to-day players can play, but they play hurt and noticeably worse. When one of your players gets hurt, their slot is held for them. On game nights the best healthy option fills in, using the minutes you gave that slot, and the player goes back into the same slot when healthy. Filling a held slot yourself releases the hold.

Every position asks for certain skills. A point guard needs handles, passing and quickness, plus a bit of shooting. A shooting guard needs a jumper, three-point range, quickness and handles. A small forward needs a jumper, perimeter defense, strength and athleticism. A power forward needs inside scoring, rebounding and strength. A center needs all of that plus rim protection.

A player who meets a spot's demands loses nothing there. Where they fall short, they lose some effectiveness, and the further short they fall, the bigger the loss. The loss is capped, so nobody becomes useless. Size and versatility can help: a big, strong guard, a point forward or a stretch big can gain an edge where they have more than the spot needs. Guards at center and centers at the point are the costly ones. Bench players can only be pencilled in at positions next to their own (a small forward can cover shooting guard or power forward, for example).

If you keep a player lined up at a different position for a long stretch of the season, and never at their natural one, they convert to it for good. Their listed position changes, they're re-graded at the new spot, and your scout and the league feed announce it. Conversions only go up to two spots along the line, from point guard through center. A center will never become a point guard this way.

The battery next to each player shows how fresh they are going into the next game. It has four states: Fresh, Rested, Tired and Gassed. It's based on the last week: how many games they played, how many minutes, and how much rest they got in between. Back-to-backs hit hardest. Younger players and players with good stamina bounce back faster.

A player below Fresh starts the game already partly tired, plays with slightly weaker physical tools (and, once Tired or Gassed, weaker skills and shooting), and is more likely to get hurt. Resting someone for a game, or trimming their minutes, is how you refill the battery.

The game switcher at the top of the depth chart lets you set a lineup and minutes for one specific upcoming game ("this game only"), such as resting a star on a back-to-back. Games with their own settings are marked. Reset all custom games puts every game back on your default chart. Per-game settings are used every time the league sims, whether the commissioner advances by hand or on a schedule.

AI Suggest builds a full 12-slot chart for you with minutes that add up to 240. It fills each slot with the best fit it can find, weighing overall quality and how well each player suits the position, as your scouts see them. It tunes the last two bench spots to your next opponent (or to the game picked in the switcher), and AI Plan Next 5 Games does the same for each of your next five games. It doesn't consider chemistry or fatigue, so treat it as a starting point.

If you leave a starting slot empty, the next save fills it for you and tells you who went in. If you leave bench slots empty, healthy players who aren't on the chart fill them on game night. They only get minutes you haven't already handed out, so a chart that already adds up to 240 keeps them as emergency depth.