Game Rules & Settings

Play basketball. No Iso 5 out plays, zig-zag rim-running, pushing the fast break with centers, etc. This league promotes realistic basketball gameplay.

Three principles decide every ruling in this book:
• Realism over exploits — if it would never happen in a real NBA game, it does not belong here.
• Balance over spam — if nobody can stop it and you would run it forty times a game, that is the thing to stop running.
• Skill over animation — win with reads, personnel and preparation, not with a mechanic the game cannot answer.

This is a MyNBA online league built to run for years. Wins and losses reset every season; the dynasty you build and the way you carried yourself do not. Play like you plan to be here in Season 4.

Play basketball a real coach would recognize. These are the standard exploits every serious 2K league bans, and they are banned here — judged on patterns, not single possessions, one slip is a slip, forty is a scheme:

• No running fast-breaks after a made basket. After the opponent scores - you are not allowed to push fastbreak, outlet pass, or turbo down the court. The only exception is then the shot-clock is off (under 24 seconds).
• No zig-zag / rhythm-dribble cheese. Sprinting left-right-left across a defender to farm ankle-breakers is an animation exploit, not a handle. Attack with purpose.
• No steal-spam. Mashing the steal button all game to fish for reach-in animations is not defense. Play position, contest, and take the steal when it is there.
• No excessive full-court pressure. Turning on a full-court trap every possession to farm chaos is a gimmick, not a defense. Pick it up in the half court unless the situation genuinely calls for pressure.
• Zone defense can only be used 50% of the time, do not run it for more than 2 quarters on average in total.
• No intentional-foul or timeout abuse to stop the clock beyond what a real team does late in a close game.
• No exploit farming, period — freeze glitches, unblockable animations, camera tricks, anything the game cannot answer. If it would never work against a real NBA defense, it does not belong here.
• Transition & Fastbreak — Power Forwards or Centers who don't have PG/SG/SF mentioned on their player card are allowed not to push the fast break after grabbing a defensive rebound. You must can not run with the ball up the court with your big after a rebound. Slow it down! Pass to your PG or a good ball handler to initiate the offense. Exceptions are made for bigmen on fastbreak list. You can find the fastbreak list on discord under #rules.
• Outlet full-court passes are only allowed for players with Gold Break Starter badge. There are only a handful of players in the league who are able to make those passes. This is league is not NBA Jam and spamming outlet passes will not be tolarated.

Run your team's identity — pace-and-space, grind-it-out, run-and-gun — all of it is welcome, run like the real thing. Sixty possessions of the one action a defense cannot stop is not a scheme, and it is the thing this section exists to prevent.

• Pause only on a dead ball — a made basket, a foul, a timeout, out of bounds. Never pause during live play; it freezes an advantage in place.
• Say why. A quick note in chat — "controller," "phone," "back in two" — keeps a pause from looking like a stall.
• Keep them short and rare. Pauses are for real life interrupting the game, not for icing a shooter or resetting a bad possession.
• Use in-game timeouts as your team's tactical stops; they are part of the game and fully legal.

The game does not know the difference between a dropped connection and a rage-quit, so the league rules on intent:

• A genuine disconnect — console crash, internet drop, power — gets both GMs together to finish. If you can pick up from a saved state, do. If not, bring the score at disconnect and any film to the office, and let the commissioner rule on how to close it.
• A quit is not a disconnect. Walking out of a game you are losing is a conduct violation. The commissioner can award the win to your opponent, apply an LP fine, and put it on your record.
• Report it right away, with what you have — the score at the time, the clip, the game state. The GM who reports honestly and fast is the one the office believes.

Some games will not get played — a GM goes inactive, two schedules never line up, a deadline runs out. Those games can be simmed so the season keeps moving.

• Simming is a commissioner action or an agreed last resort, not a way to duck a matchup you would rather not play.
• A sim earns zero LP for both teams — see LP & Discipline. Nobody profits from a game that was not played.
• A sim still needs to be recorded as a sim so the standings and the pacing math stay honest.