What’s new

Signature moves and two-man duos are in the game. Some players now hold a move, a step-back, a floater, a euro step, a spin, a pump fake, a lob finish, a chase-down block, a lockdown, a pickpocket, a glass-crashing habit or ice in the veins, and about one man in eight in a top division holds one. You see it on his page, on the court and in the play-by-play, never as a statistic. Existing players were given theirs by the same draw a new player gets. Two men who have played together long enough can form a duo such as a pick and roll, and a sale that would break one asks you first.

A new manager is now landed gently. The list of clubs to take starts with a fair start, a league with a few other managers and a squad that can win; the board waits longer before it judges a first chair; the assistant offers two warm-up friendlies the day you arrive, writes you two letters and has a word after your first win and after a loss to a side built to finish high. Nothing changes in how a match is played.

A finished match can now be shared as its key moments: a public page with the court cut to the moments that mattered, a link preview with the final score on it, and a Share the moments button on the match report. Nothing about how matches are played has changed.

Young players now develop the way they do in real basketball. A teenager grows quickly, a man in his twenties more slowly, and nobody is sure how good a boy will be: the scouts revise their view of his ceiling every summer until he is twenty-four, so a wonderkid can stall and a man nobody noticed can come on. Some seasons run faster or slower than others, too, and a hard worker can still grow past his ceiling. Nobody is shown the numbers behind it, only the direction.

Signature moves now work in a match. A step-back, a floater, a euro step, a spin, a pump fake, a lob finish, a chase-down block, a lockdown, a pickpocket, a glass-crashing habit or ice in the veins each give a man a small edge in one situation, paid for by a small cost somewhere else, so he scores about as much over a season but differently. Nobody holds a move yet; the switch stays off until the numbers are checked.

Matches are whistled and timed more like the real leagues. Under European rules a team now fouls about twenty times a game and shoots more free throws, coaches spend the timeouts they would otherwise lose at the end of a half or a game, and the NBA game is a little slower with fewer turnovers and a thirteen-man active list. Scoring stays where it was. Nothing in your squad, contracts or finances has changed.

You can now buy a club. The cheapest club in your world is for sale at a price you can read: what it is worth, from the four incomes the finance page already shows, plus the money in its bank, less its debts. You bring at least half from your own money and the bank lends the rest against your pay, up to what six tenths of last season pay can carry, over ten seasons at five per cent; and you put in the working capital the club needs to finish the season. Once you own it you can put your own money in twice a season, sell it to the liquidator, and the bank can take it if it runs out of money. The finance screen shows the new price lines for every club, and nothing about a match has changed.

The live match screen is new, and a timeout you call is now a moment. Tap Timeout and a huddle opens with a countdown: say what the timeout is for (stop their run, rest the five, draw a play) and, once, what you tell them. How they take it you do not see; the floor shows it, and your assistant says so a few possessions later. A man may take your words well or badly, and the effect on the next few minutes is small and bounded. Nothing about a match with no huddle talk has changed.

In the North American league, cash in a trade now follows the real rule. A club may send a limited sum in cash in trades each season (about 5.1 per cent of its salary cap) and, separately, receive the same; a club over the second apron may not send cash at all. The builder shows what is left, and a club never asks you for cash beyond it. Trades between European clubs are unchanged, and nothing in how a match is played has changed.

Matches, finished deals and news stories can now be liked, disliked and commented on from a drawer; the clubs the game runs join in. Nothing in how a match is played has changed.

A free account now holds a club in one world at a time and may watch any number of others. To take a club elsewhere, hand the first one back from the Worlds page; supporters play in every world. Nothing in how a match is played has changed.

The papers now carry transfer rumours. When a club the game runs starts watching a player, asks about him or agrees a fee, the wire tells it, graded Whisper, Reported or Advanced talks. A Whisper may name the wrong club, about one time in four, and never a club a person runs; no figure is ever printed. You can deny a story about one of your players. A player you run who reads that an AI club has asked about him is a little unsettled for up to two weeks, and a denial settles him.

Set plays. Before a late game you can draw up one play for each of four moments: after a time-out, the last shot of a period, needing a three, and an inbound with five seconds left, each with the man it is for. Eight plays are on offer, from a pick-and-roll to a corner three. A play is only as good as the fit of the man you name: the right shooter for a stagger gets a better look than the engine would give, the wrong one a worse look, and the other side may read a play it has seen before. The assistant tells you how good each fit is, in three words, and the numbers behind it. Computer clubs draw up the plays that suit their five. A club that draws up nothing plays exactly as before.

The dressing room. Harmony now reads who runs the room and who sits with whom: the leaders beside the captain, the men who have been together a season, a room split into two camps and two men chasing one role all move it a little. Selling a friend upsets the men who sit with him. You can call a team meeting to pull the unhappy toward the room, once a fortnight; a leader can back you after a run of defeats or undercut you, and computer clubs now name a captain and call meetings of their own.

Sponsors can now pay for more. A bonus clause can reach for the league final, promotion, a place in the Crown of Europe, or a round of the national cup, wherever your club plays that competition, and every offer is still priced to be worth the same on average. Partner and sponsor marks appear on the match page and on a club page, and the choice an AI club makes of a sponsor can be explained.