Description: The Draft is a system by which teams choose young (formerly amateur players) to come to their team. Teams choose in roughly the reverse order of the way they finished the season.

Topics

How the Draft Works
When the Draft Starts
When the Draft Ends
Rounds
Multiple Picks
Selecting Players
Swapping Players
Removing Players
Viewing Last Seasons Draft Choices
Current Draft Order
Signing Players to your Team
Draft Strategy

How the Draft Works: The Franchise Basketball draft works slightly differently than a professional draft. Since it is nearly impossible to get all owners together at the same time to draft players, and the total draft would end up taking weeks if we waited for them to make selections, Franchise Basketball uses a 'wishlist' system. Basically what happens is each team selects their top 10 picks (this can vary by league but the default is 10) and places them on a 'wishlist'. When the draft executes, the game takes your wishlist and drafts the highest player still available on that list. For example, if you made a wishlist with 1. Jones, 2. Johnson, 3. Wallace and 4. Yost on it, and when it was your time to pick, Jones and Wallace were gone, your team would select Johnson. Johnson is the highest player on your list still available. The game works through 2 rounds of the draft. If no player on your wishlist is still available or you didn't fill one out for that round, the computer will draft the next available player in order of skill (the computer rates the skill level of players). It is almost always best to make your list. The computer often will not draft the player that fits best into your system.

When the Draft Starts: Players become available in the draft section as soon as the last game of the regular season is played. You will get a blank list up until this time.

When the Draft Ends: The draft ends and is executed the day after your player's stats are zeroed out. That is the same day that your team's record is zeroed out.

Rounds: There are 2 draft rounds. Meaning, all teams make their first round pick, then, all teams make their second round pick, etc. The pick order does not reverse for the second (or subsequent) round. You may view (and add players to) your individual round wishlists by selecting the round from the "Draft Action" drop down list and clicking on "Go".

Multiple Picks: If you are a subscribed user it is possible to acquire multiple picks in one round through trade. It is also possible to trade away all of your picks in a round (or even the entire draft). In either case you will only be able to make up a wish list for a pick that you have control of. So, if you have traded away all of your first round picks, you will not be able to construct a first round wish list. On the other hand if you have multiple picks in a round, you will have a unique wish list for each pick. Each wish list will be labeled "Round X - Pick Y" where X and Y are the round number and pick number in that round. The picks are sequential, so, you will have to refer to the draft order in order to determine what position each pick will be. Pick 1 will always be the first pick your team makes, pick 2 will always be the second pick your team makes and so on. It does not matter where each pick originated, if it is yours, if it is another team's, or if you acquired it through a third party.

The wish list for pick 1 will ONLY be used for pick 1. If you have multiple picks in a round and all of the players on your wish list for that pick are gone, the game will NOT go back to a previous pick's wish list to see if all players are gone from that one. It will also not go forward to another wish list you created in that round OR another Round's wish list. In the event that all the players on a wish list are gone, the game will draft the next available player by what it (the game) determines to be skill level.

Selecting Players: Once you are viewing the proper round (displayed in the Draft Action drop down list - make sure you click "Go") you may add players to your wishlist. Just click on "Add Players". If you don't see any players see When the Draft Starts. If you do see players, you may check multiple players that you want to add to your wishlist. When you are done selecting players, click on the "Add Players(s)" button at the bottom of the draft list. This will take you back to the Draft Round that you are working on. You should now see those players added to your list. You may add more players by following the same process. Since there is a 10 player limit (in most leagues) you can select up to 10 players for your wishlist (per round).

Swapping Players: When you have your wishlist populated with players you will most likely want to reorder those players. Like the Locker Room, there is a swap function in the draft as well. If you check two players and click on the "Swap Players" button, the two players should swap positions in your wishlist. This is how you order the players exactly like you wish them to be drafted (if they are still available).

Removing Players: If you decide that you don't want a player in your draft wishlist you can always remove them. If you check the player and then click the "Remove Players(s)" button that player will be removed from your wishlist. You can check and remove as many players as you would like at once.

Viewing Last Seasons Draft Choices: If you would like to view all of the draft picks from the previous season, you can select the "XXXX Draft Picks" from the Draft Action drop down list where XXXX is the current year and click "Go". This will display picks 1-64. Halfway through the regular season this list will be removed.

Current Draft Order: At any point in the season you can see where teams stand in the draft order. Select "Current Draft Order" from the "Draft Action" drop down and click "Go". This list of teams basically says, if the draft were held today, this is what the draft order would be. This list can change drastically during the course of a season. Tiebreakers are the same as they are for playoff seeding and standings.

Signing Players to Your Team: Draft picks are automatically signed to your franchise and given a 1 year contract (which is basically two seasons, this season and next). You have to do no negotiation with rookies. When their contracts expire you will have to, but that is not needed at this point. Draft picks are also signed without regard to the salary cap. Signing draft picks may exceed not only the cap, but the cap variance.

Draft Strategy: There is quite a bit of strategy to drafting players using the wishlist system. If you are one of the top 10 teams drafting, round one is pretty easy, you are assured of getting someone that is on your wishlist (if you enter all 10 choices), however, beyond that the remainder of the first round and all subsequent rounds are often tricky. As an owner, you kind of have to come up with a 'mock' draft and speculate what players might still be available at the time you draft. Of course you always want the best players, but, obviously other teams are trying to get the same. For example, if a team is drafting 20th overall, there are going to be 19 guys drafted before that team gets to pick. For that reason, it is probably best to pick a couple of guys who you think will be gone, but would like if they are still available, a couple of guys who probably will still be available, and maybe even a few that most likely will be there and that you wouldn't mind having on your team. The later rounds of the draft are good for filling in some of the positions that might be vacant on your team or that you don't have a lot of backups for.