Rules & Regulations

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

Hours of operation: 1:00 PM to 1:00 AM eastern weekdays. Saturday and Sunday 6:00 PM to 1:00 AM eastern. Any team that plays in this league must have passed team registration and paid the league Registration Fee. Home jersey must be predominantly white or light gray. Away jersey can be any color except white or light gray. Every team court must have a form of the MPBA Pro Am League logo on it. You find this by searching for “MPBA2K” on PS5/XBX on NBA 2K21. Courts must be all wood, color is allowed in the paint and apron. Note: The MPBA Logo must be placed on your court from “MPBA2K” GT/PSN and may not be altered. Any logo not imported from the “MPBA2K” is invalid. Logo must be near the original pixel size and placed in a way that is aesthetically appealing. Commissioner reserves right to request alterations to your court for any reason including, but not limited to, improper logos, obscenities, or any other unnamed reason resulting in a lack of aesthetic appeal. Failure to comply will result in removal from league with no refund. WE DO NOT ALLOW NBA or College team logos! Your team logo must be owned by you or a teammate and does not belong to any other entity. Failing to use a custom logo will result in a failed team registration. If you would like to change your team name, logo, and design mid-season you will have to pay the Rebranding Fee. Each team will have 10 roster spots available at registration. There will be an Additional Player Fee associated with any player added after registration whether you’ve reached 10 roster spots or not. At registration, players are required to have a primary position but can use any position as long as that player is on the roster. Roster changes lock dates will be announced on Twitter @MPBA2K. Each player may only play on one team at a time. You may not play on multiple teams with multiple accounts. A player may, however, register multiple GT/PSN for a single team. Those stats will be tracked separately. If an issue arises where the team owner/captain no longer wishes to be a captain they can transfer team ownership to another player by letting league admin know and paying a Transfer of Ownership Fee. This will allow the new owner to take ownership of the team and rebrand it the way they see fit. If the team captain leaves the team mid-season without transferring ownership, that team will be removed from the season. For Season Fees, season payouts, and schedule please visit the Season Info page. All fees are NON-REFUNDABLE.

MATCHING UP AND RULES

Use these rules as a guideline for teams to solve issues on your own before bringing any issues to the commissioner. The rules contained herein are intended to be explanatory in nature. MPBA can not predict every case that may come up in advance. Additionally, unintended loopholes in the language may exist. If the technical language of a rule doesn’t fit with the intent of the rule, there’s a loophole, or other abusive behavior is occurring, MPBA reserves the right to amend and enforce any and all of its rules retroactively conforming to its intents and in the spirit of fair competition. Any rules posted on @MPBA2K Twitter under the hashtag #MPBARules are enforceable, in addition to this rules page and the Terms of Service. Any discrepancies in rules will be left to commissioner’s final ruling. The MPBA commissioner will make a determination as to the outcome of any dispute (in his/her sole discretion) and such ruling will be final. By signing up for this Tournament, you accept any and all decisions that the MPBA commissioner makes, regardless of what this rule page states. Teams will match up using Private Matchmaking. Ranked games will not be considered league games. Only Private Matchmaking games found in the MPBA server or otherwise agreed to will count as league games. Random ranked games will not count towards league record. If you or anyone on your team gets a game from the MPBA server, it will count regardless of if you put pickups in your team name. You must play on the court with your registered team name and logos. Every team name must have “MPBA” before or after the name. MPBA has no rule for which server regular season games should be played on. We encourage each team to practice some on each server to prepare for the playoffs. Solving playoff/tournament server host disputes: All MPBA playoff/tournament games will alternate if both teams are on North American servers. Higher seed will always have the option to host Game 1, lower seed Game 2, and so on until the final game of the series. The final game of the series host option will be based on point differential. Example for a Best of 3: Game 1: Team A (higher seed) hosts and wins 78-70 (+8 to Team A). Game 2: Team B (lower seed) hosts and wins 87-70 (+17 to Team B). Game 3: Team B [has higher point differential (+9)] hosts Game 3. Tie in point differential will favor the higher seed. If a team quits a tournament/playoff game early, they will net -50 points. The max point differential if quitting early will be 50, the 50 will not be added on top of the current difference. Example: Team A (higher seed) hosts and is winning 78-58 with 3 minutes to play and all 5 players from Team B quit. That will be a total of +50 point differential in favor of Team A. All 5 players must quit for this rule to apply. If a single player remains in the game, the team that is winning should remain in the game. If there is a dispute on server, commissioner’s ruling will be final regardless of what these rules state. MPBA recommends as a strategy to designate at least one player to remain in the game until the game clock strikes zero to avoid any mishaps and grab the screenshot. Note central and eastern time zones are east server; mountain and western time zones are west server. If a player lags out before tip-off, it is an automatic restart. Quit the game and contact the opposing team to match up again. The following rules apply ONLY to lag outs or other unforced 2K related errors. If you choose to quit out of a game in a tournament or playoff situation, it may be a forfeit. If a player lags out while winning and the entire rest of his team immediately quits, that will be a replay in the regular season. If any player on your team keeps playing after a teammate lags out before quitting, it will be a loss. “Immediate” is defined as under 30 seconds. During the regular season, spreads will not be enforced. If a player lags out, you must play it out. If a team is consistently having players lag out against them (indicating a timeout glitch is being used), appropriate action will be taken, including possible expulsion from the league with no refund. This will ultimately be the commissioner’s decision. Teams may mutually agree to take a spread. However, if they do, DO NOT submit more than one screenshot. Only one screenshot per game should be submitted during the regular season. It is recommended common sense is used. If a lag out occurs in the 1st quarter of a game and it’s not a 10+ point game, the game should be restarted and the game will not count. Ex: You are up 7-2 in the first quarter and someone lags out. That will not count. The ultimate decision on if a game counts is the commissioner’s. MPBA values teams that work things out on their own and decide things on the court. Teams should not consistently try to get free wins or try to exploit the rules to get a restart. Remember, these players and teams develop a poor reputation in the competitive community over time. If you are really competitive, you don’t do these things. The MPBA commissioner reserves any and all rights to make a unilateral decision on if a regular season game result counts after being presented with the evidence. During the playoffs or during tournaments, if a lag out occurs, you may be required to restart the game and play the time remaining with the same score differential at the time of the lag out. Example: Team A is up 78-70 with the ball on Team B with four minutes remaining. Team B lags out. Team A and B must play the first four minutes of a new game, with Team A winning the tip and given a +8 advantage. (Round to nearest minute). Do not count points to the spread that occur after the first player has quit/lagged out. The team with a lag out must immediately quit as described above for this rule to apply. This rule applies to the timeout glitch and all lag outs. If a team is suspected to be repeatedly abusing this rule, MPBA reserves the right to not grant that team spreads and disqualify them. The final decision is the commissioner’s. Teams are strongly encouraged to work it out themselves. No player may switch builds during a same spread game. You must restart the game with the original archetypes. All games must be streamed on the registered Twitch account(s) and must have MPBA in the title. All games must be archived in the event MPBA administrators need to review gameplay. MPBA reserves the streaming rights to all MPBA league games. Should MPBA exercise its right to be the only live stream, that team’s designated streamer will receive $100 compensation. This right may be exercised or not exercised at MPBA’s sole discretion. Failure for the whole team to comply will result in a forfeiture of the season with no refund. Should MPBA not exercise its rights to stream games, the streamer will be required to edit the Twitch overlay in any way MPBA deems necessary,

SCHEDULES, PLAYOFFS, AND ACTIVITY

Schedule The regular season schedule will be an OPEN SCHEDULE. Teams can play any team a Maximum of 3 TIMES in the regular season. There will be ~2 WEEKS in the regular season (schedule below supersedes this sentence). Each team is required to play a minimum of 20 Games by end of the season. If you are not ON PACE for 20 games after each week, you may be removed from the league with no refund. PLAYOFF AND SEEDING: Instead of going solely based on the standings, we will use a combination of your record and a strength of schedule (SOS) ranking system called WRPI to determine what teams make the playoffs. A small factor for total games played will also be included. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WRPI: You will be rewarded for playing good teams. Beating weak teams won’t be worth as much. WRPI will be based on an in-house weighted average formula utilizing your win percentage, your opponents’ win percentage, and your opponents’ opponents win percentage. In general, just play who is on, don’t cherry pick opponents. The WRPI will be available to us for making determinations for individual awards and the playoff seeding and selection. Note: Should time constraints or technical issues arise, WR reserves the right to elect to do seeding based on win percentage. Playoffs 20 Games are required to make the playoffs. A small total games played factor will be included in seeding so playing more than the minimum is recommended. Note the league management reserves the right to drop the games played limit if necessary. The top teams will be selected based on a combination of WRPI, W/L ratio and a small factor for games played. Some teams may be awarded a bye for a higher seed depending on the number of teams in playoffs. Note the league management reserves the right not to use WRPI for seeding. WR Open brackets will be released prior to the start of each season (refer to schedule below). All teams registering by the deadline will be entered into this tournament. Seeding will be determined by the order of signups (i.e. first to signup is the 1 seed). Each round will be 24 hours After the 3rd round, a 24 hour extension will be granted upon request if requested prior to 5 PM Eastern. You must be available the following day prior to 10 PM Eastern to request the extension and you must play the next round back to back. The extension must be requested and approved by the commissioner in a group chat with your opponent. Both teams must agree to lock a time for the following day for the extension being granted. Other leagues, series, or tournaments are not grounds for an extension. Emergency related requests only. Each round will be BO1 until the finals which will be BO3 WR Invitational Tournament (WRIT) brackets will be released the same day as the playoffs (refer to schedule below). 48 hour rounds and no extensions will be granted. All teams which play 20 games and do not make the playoffs will be invited. This tournament will be BO3 from the first round through the finals. Rounds will run concurrent with the playoffs. WR Playoff brackets will be released a few days after the end of the regular season (refer to schedule below). The Playoffs will be Best of 3 for first round and Best of 5 for every other round except the WR Finals which will Best of 7. Each round will last 48 hours. After the 2nd round, a 24 hour extension may be granted upon request if requested prior to 5 PM Eastern. You must be available the following day prior to 10 PM Eastern to request the extension and you must be able to play the next round back to back. The extension must be requested and approved by the commissioner or WR in a group chat with your opponent. Both teams must agree to lock a time for the following day for the extension being granted. Other leagues, series, or tournaments outside of NBA 2K League tournaments are not grounds for an extension. Emergency related requests only. Tournament and playoff games must be scheduled to tip off by 12:30 AM eastern. The exception would be if both teams agree to start at a later time. If a playoff/tournament series begins it must end the same night. If a team signs off without consent, it is considered the same as conceding the series. The only exception would be if both teams agree AND you have attained admin consent to finish the series the next day. Playoff/Tournament Games that are not played are subject to be simulated where a random winner will be selected. Or the team that shows to be more active. If during the playoffs or tournaments you have exhausted all efforts to schedule the game and your opponent has not set a time, post proof on Discord before the end of the round (but not more than 8 hours before the end of the round). TIMELINESS RULES FOR PLAYOFFS/TOURNAMENTS The intent of the timeliness rule is to create a competitive environment that is respectful of an opponent’s and viewers’ time. After a game time is established, create a chat with your opponent and @WRProAmLeague twitter reporting the game time. Both teams must agree. If you do not report your game times to WR in advance as described above, we will not enforce the on time rules. You must notify the opposing captain 90 minutes in advance to reschedule. The scheduled series can only be pushed back a maximum of one hour. The series may not be pushed back past 11:30 PM Eastern, even if that’s less than one hour from the original start time. The primary accepted form of communication is Twitter for scheduling purposes as the captain and team twitter are listed on the website. Discord is also an accepted secondary form of communication and will be upheld as valid but twitter should be used for scheduling first. Psn or Xbox messages are not the correct way to contact teams. Games must begin within 30 minutes of the scheduled game time, and each team’s stream must be up showing 5 players in the arena. If this does not happen, the team that is late will lose game 1 of the series. Every 20 minutes after that a team is late will result in a forfeit of a game in the series. Example: 50 minutes late will be an 0-2 deficit (series forfeiture if a 3 game series). 1:10 minutes late will be an entire 5 game series forfeiture. Series should have no more than 15 minutes between games and this violation will result in a forfeit of one game of the series. Subsequent 15 minute periods will be an additional forfeit. WR reserves the right to not enforce this rule for emergency situations handled on a case by case basis. The team with an emergency should attempt to find a sub and immediately notify @WRProAmLeague via DM and the opponent. WR reserves the right to not enforce the timeliness rule for any reason. Reasons WR may elect to not enforce the rule include but are not limited to first time offenders, it’s a late round of the tournament, the team is deemed to have a significant emergency situation (ex: incapacitated, hospitalized, etc.) Spread rules are in effect (see spread rules section). But, you may not choose to quit out of the game. If you choose to quit out of the game for reasons such as “it feels laggy” repeatedly without the opponent agreeing, your team may be forfeited. The only acceptable reason to quit a game is that you lagged out or another reason beyond your control. You may be given one warning or forfeited. If the game does not start within 10 minutes of both teams being in the arena, WR may elect to coin flip the series. If it is one team causing the hold up, WR may elect to forfeit the series. Teams should be respectful of the viewers’ time.

BOX SCORES AND STATS

Regular Season: After every game, the winning team will submit the box score with the game results. Only one screenshot is needed from the winner, which must include the stats for both teams. Playoffs/Tournaments: The winning team of the series must submit ALL game results for that series, including the losses. Failure to comply with this rule may result in a forfeit. Game results, including regular season, must be submitted the same night the game is played or no later than the following morning. Repeated failure to comply with this rule may result in forfeits and removal from the league with no refund. Preseason and Mid-Season Tournament games are eligible to be used for the regular season but must be submitted into the regular season screenshot channel. We will only accept high-quality images from PSN. We will not accept blurry images or pics of your TV screen displaying the stats. Our stats team needs to easily see the stats on the box score. The box score must be submitted by posting them in the Game Screenshot channel in the MPBA Discord Server. All games posted must be labeled. The format for labeling game screenshots in Discord must be “Team A vs Team B”. Team A is the top team in the screenshot, and Team B is the bottom team in the screenshot. Labeling games properly will ensure no errors are made in stat logging. Games submitted by 3 AM EST will typically be updated by the next night by our stats team. Stats are updated nightly, except Saturdays. To send a dispute of a game result or report incorrectly recorded games, please send a message to @MPBA2K on Twitter. MPBA will not make any decisions or accept any proof of disputes on the Twitter timeline or via direct messages. If it has been 3 days since team stats were submitted but results aren’t showing in the standings, please contact @MPBA2K on Twitter. Posting results on Twitter is strongly encouraged for your own social media marketing benefit. However, it is insufficient for reporting tournament results. You must use the Discord. If during the playoffs or tournaments you have exhausted all efforts to schedule the game and your opponent has not set a time, post proof on Discord before the end of the round (but not more than 8 hours before the end of the round).

ROSTERS

During registration teams are allowed 10 roster spots including the Captain/Team Owner. Every registered player will be required to provide a Primary Position but can use any MyPlayer or Position they want. Once you’ve registered your team with your roster, any additional players added will be charged an Additional Player Fee. Doesn’t matter if you’ve used all available roster spots or not. Teams can pay to add up to an additional 6 players on their roster after the initial 10 roster spots. Teams can only play league games with players that are on their roster. If a team member changes their name then a Player Name Change form must be filled out and paid for. If the player’s name is not updated and is found playing on a team it will result in a forfeit for playing with players not on the roster. A player can only play on ONE team. Playing on multiple teams at once will result in all parties being removed from the league with no refund. 1st time playing with a player not on your team roster will result in a forfeit or warning. 2nd time playing with a player not on your team roster will result in being removed from the league with no refund. Please visit the Roster Changes page to adjust your roster. For postseason, only one emergency roster change will be allowed per team for entirety of playoffs. This is to be used for emergencies only. To be eligible, the player must not be on another postseason roster and the change must be approved by an admin prior to eligibility.

ACCOUNT SHARING

All gamertags/psn’s on a team’s roster must be valid. The gamertag/psn must be legitimately owned by the user on the roster. Legitimate ownership: You may not share, buy, sell, rent, trade, or transfer to acquire any account on the roster. The actual owner of the account must play on it. A team may not allow an individual who is not the registered owner of an account to play on that account in a game and/or you may not play in a game while logged in to an account registered to someone else. Opponents are responsible for identifying violations of these rules in advance of playing the game. It is not the responsibility of the WR staff to police your game. If a team begins a game knowing that their opponent is in violation of any league rule, they are automatically accepting the results of that game.  An opponent should identify a violation by requesting a mic check before playing the game. If it is clearly not the correct person on the account, you can request to wait until they have a legitimate team. Timeliness rules will still be in effect. Proof must be provided to support any claims of an ineligible player playing in a game. The proof must be clear to read/hear and not edited, cropped or otherwise tampered with. Video proof is necessary. Text forms of proof are unlikely to be accepted if not overwhelming. When disputing account use, you MUST have proof to back up your claims. You cannot dispute without providing valid proof. If you do not have proof to support your claims, you should NOT dispute. Disputing without providing valid proof may result in you getting banned.