Real names, arcade editions
RosterArcade uses recognizable basketball player names with independently assigned arcade ratings. The pool mixes legends and modern players. Ratings, budget costs and career curves are original entertainment values. They do not come from an official league, live statistics feed or commercial video game. The roster is an imagined basketball lineup.
A simplified budget
The shared cap is 150 budget units. Each player has a visible fixed arcade cost, and a sixth-man signing adds its cost in Save the Season. The engine prevents a trade or signing from exceeding the cap. Units are deliberately separate from money: the game does not reproduce current salaries, contracts, luxury taxes or collective bargaining rules.
The team strength model
Simulated strength combines overall (42%), offense (20%), defense (20%), spacing (10%) and playmaking (8%). Chemistry adjusts the combined strength, while fatigue and injury lower it. In Trade Tree, yearly career curves and retained picks also change the five-year outlook. All displayed roster metrics update when you make a decision.
Season and playoffs
A seeded schedule samples game outcomes from the team’s strength. Stronger teams get a higher win probability, but even strong teams can lose. Forty regular-season wins earns a playoff berth in this simplified league. Playoffs use four best-of-seven series against increasingly strong opponents. Trade Tree runs five 82-game seasons; Save the Season runs the remaining 32 games from 18–32, followed by any qualifying playoffs.
Fair shared runs
The same seed, game version and decision path reproduce the same result. Daily modes give everyone the same starting situation. A friend challenge starts from that same seed, but later trade offers adapt to each person’s assets and earlier choices. The scoreboard computes submitted scores from those decisions on the server instead of accepting a score sent by the browser.
Reading your score
Trade Tree rewards regular-season wins, rings, playoff wins, fifth-year strength and up to six retained picks. Save the Season rewards wins in the run-in, playoff wins, a championship and chemistry. Scores are capped at 1,000. They describe this game’s outcome and are not predictions or scouting evaluations.