How to play Circled Hoops

The week

Weeks run Monday to Sunday. Lineups lock on Monday at 7 PM in your league’s time zone, unless your commissioner moves the lock. Until then you can change anything. After the lock, your starters and their circled games stay as they are for the week.

A league that starts after the NBA season has begun plays from the next week that locks.

Your lineup

You start eight players: 2 guards, 2 forwards, a center and 3 utility players, who can be any position. Everyone else sits on your bench. IR slots (2 by default) hold players who are ruled out and do not count against your roster.

Circling a game

For each starter, pick one of the games he plays that week. Only that game’s stats count for his slot. A player with four games that week counts as much as a player with two, so the schedule stops deciding matchups and the question becomes which night: the slow defense, the first night of a back-to-back, the game he is most likely to finish.

Streaming the waiver wire every night gets you nothing, because each slot only ever counts one game.

When a player sits

Before the week locks, you can name a bench backup for any starter and pick one of the backup’s games. If your starter is listed out, is inactive at tip-off or never gets in the game, the backup’s game counts. Rest days and postponed games count as out. The backup’s game has to come on or after the starter’s.

With no backup named, and if your league allows injury subs, you can put another player in for one of his games that has not started. If your starter plays at all, even three minutes, that game counts as played.

Auto-set

One tap fills your lineup with your best projected players and their games. If you don’t set a lineup before the lock, the app sets one for you, so a forgotten week never becomes a forfeit.

Scoring

Each stat in a circled game is worth this many points by default:

• Point: 1
• Three-pointer made: 0.5 extra
• Rebound: 1.2
• Assist: 1.5
• Steal: 2.5
• Block: 2.5
• Turnover: −1
• Missed field goal: −0.5
• Missed free throw: −0.5

Missed shots cost a little, so shot volume isn’t free. Leagues can switch to scoring in the style of ESPN, Yahoo or DraftKings, or set their own weights.

Matchups, standings and playoffs

Each week you play one other team, and the higher total of circled games wins. Leagues can also turn on a median game, where every team also plays the league’s median score that week, so a week is worth two results.

A season of 10 weeks or more ends in single-elimination fantasy playoffs, one week per round, with byes for the top seeds. By default 6 teams make it in leagues of 10 or more, and 4 in leagues of 6 to 9.

Drafts

New leagues start with a live snake draft; commissioners can choose an auction instead ($200 budgets by default). Every manager can queue players ahead of time. The pick clock is 90 seconds by default and can run from 5 seconds to a full day for a slow draft. A manager who misses a pick goes on autopick, which takes their queue first and then the best player available. Each team gets a letter grade when the draft ends.

Free agents and waivers

Once the draft is done, players on no roster can be added at once. A dropped player is on waivers for 48 hours. Claims go by rolling priority, or, if your league turns it on, by blind FAAB bids from a $100 season budget. FAAB dollars are a game currency only and are never bought or paid out.

Trades

Propose, counter, accept or decline; offers expire after three days. Your league chooses how trades are reviewed: they go through at once, the commissioner approves them, or the league votes. Commissioners can set a trade deadline. A player traded mid-week keeps counting for his old team until the week ends.

Bots

A bot plays any team without a manager, so a league can start with a few friends. Bots draft for their lineup, set a full lineup every week, keep their roster healthy and, if your league allows it, answer trade offers. Anyone with the invite link can take over a bot’s team, roster and record included.

Keeper and dynasty leagues

In a dynasty league rosters carry over from season to season. Each new season adds a rookie draft, in reverse order of the final standings by default, and draft picks can be traded.

League chat

Every league has a chat with messages, @mentions and reactions. The app posts there too: who joined, when the week locked, trades, waiver results, and a recap every Monday with each result, the best read of the week, the luckiest and unluckiest teams, and any league records.

What it costs

Every feature is free for every league. The iPhone app shows one small banner ad, and an optional Ad-free subscription ($0.99 a month) removes it. There is no betting, no entry fee and no prize, and no money changes hands in the app.

Start a league or join one with a code.

Not the NBA’s game

Circled Hoops is an independent game from Purplelink LLC. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by the NBA or any of its teams.