the Game
Gaps keep closing as the league takes shape
Twelve thousand more games are in the book, and most of HoopSim's key checks are moving toward the real league. A few are moving the other way, and those are on the list.
Marv Floss's Franchise has reached opening week, so this is a good moment to measure where HoopSim stands. The Engine Lab now holds 13059 regular-season games across 97 HoopSim leagues, and the real league benchmarks are the 2025-26 season.
Of the 22 realism checks, 17 are on target (77%), 21 are within striking distance (95%), and 1 is still in the lab. That is the picture I wanted to see before the next stretch of games.
within striking distance
dead on target
What moved since Volume 13
Since the last column, 12027 new games have come through the sim. Turnovers slid from 15.0 to 14.3, now close to the real league's 14.5, and the three-point share climbed from 39.6% to 40.8%, edging toward the league's 41.5%.
- ▲Rebounds43.5 → 46.0real-league 43.8
- ▼Turnovers15.0 → 14.3real-league 14.5
- ▼Rim + paint share47.1% → 45.6%real-league 44.0%
- ▲3PA share39.6% → 40.8%real-league 41.5%
- ▲Points / game116.3 → 119.4real-league 115.6
- ▼Three-point %36.8% → 35.9%real-league 36.0%
Three-point percentage eased from 36.8% to 35.9%, which brings it back toward the real league. Two numbers moved away from the league: rebounds rose from 43.5 to 46.0 against an real-league mark of 43.8, and points per game rose from 116.3 to 119.4 against the real league's 115.6. Both are in the lab for the next round of measuring.
“Thirteen thousand games in, the numbers are telling a story I want to keep reading.”
Shooting touch is nearly league-exact
Shooting splits are where HoopSim looks most like the real thing. Field goal percentage sits at 46.7%, against the real league's 47.1%, and effective field goal percentage is at 54.0% versus 54.6%.
Free throws are a pleasant surprise: HoopSim shoots 79.3%, ahead of the real league's 78.3%. True shooting lands at 57.6%, a half-point-plus gap from the league's 58.1%, which is exactly the sort of small distance I like to chase.
Scoring finds its rhythm week by week
Across 42 league weeks, points per team-game have mostly stayed between 116 and 121. The high came in the week of 12/21 at 122.0, and the quietest week was the week of 12/20 at 116.4.
Scoring has not yet settled into a flat line. The gap to the real league line is still in the lab, and the weekly pattern will tell us whether that gap is narrowing.
Close games and home court behave
Games still finish tight. Of the 13059 games, 20.4% were decided by 5 or fewer points, and the average margin was 14.2. The most common final margin band was 5 to 9 points, with 2894 games.
Home teams won 54.8% of games, more often than not, which is a healthy home-court pattern. There were 387 overtime games, and the margin distribution has a long, realistic tail of blowouts.
Pace is still in the lab
Pace is the clearest gap still on the board. HoopSim averages 106.6 possessions per 48 minutes, against the real league's 99.4, and that is the number I'm studying most closely.
Weekly pace has ranged from a low of 103.3 in the week of 10/16 to a high of 108.9 in the week of 11/15. That range is where I'll look for whether this is a real tempo preference or a question of how possessions are counted.
Thanks for reading along, GMs. See you in the lab next week.
— Dr. P