Fantasy Basketball Glossary
A plain-English glossary of the salary cap and dynasty fantasy basketball terms used across Fantasy Dynasty. New to the format? Start here, then read the rulebook for the full mechanics.
Salary & contracts
Salary Cap - the total budget a team can spend on player salaries. On Fantasy Dynasty, NBA leagues use a ~$200M cap and WNBA leagues a $7M cap.
Hard Cap - a cap that cannot be exceeded under any circumstance (trades or auctions are blocked if they would break it).
Soft Cap - a cap that can be exceeded under specific rules, sometimes with a penalty (luxury tax).
Salary Floor - the minimum a team is expected to spend on salaries.
Contract - a multi-year deal binding a player to a team for a set salary and length.
Rookie Wage Scale - the pre-set, scaled-down contracts automatically given to drafted rookies (cheaper at later picks).
Dead Cap / Dead Money - the guaranteed salary that stays on your cap after you release a player mid-contract. You pay for a player who is no longer on your roster.
Retained Salary - when the team trading a player away keeps a fraction of his salary so the deal fits under the receiving team's cap.
Luxury Tax - a penalty for spending over a threshold, in formats that allow it.
League formats
Dynasty League - you keep your roster across seasons and build a franchise over years.
Keeper League - you retain a subset of players each season and re-draft the rest.
Redraft League - every season starts from scratch; nothing carries over.
Public Salary Cap (DFS) - a DFS-style league with a shared player pool; pick a lineup under a cap and compete on a public leaderboard, no private league setup.
Drafts & picks
Live Auction Draft - a real-time draft where managers bid on nominated players; the highest bid wins and is deducted from the cap.
Rookie Draft - an annual draft of incoming rookies, usually ordered by the previous season's standings.
Protected Pick - a traded draft pick with conditions (e.g. "Top 3 protected"); if it lands in the protected range, it stays with the original owner.
Rollover Pick - the compensatory future pick the engine generates for the owed team when a protection triggers.
Rosters & players
Taxi Squad - a practice squad to stash and develop prospects without using active roster spots.
Poaching - when a rival team tries to sign a prospect off your taxi squad.
Matching Rights - your right to keep a poached taxi player by promoting him to your active roster within a set window.
Injury Reserve (IR) - roster slots for injured players that free up positional space and grant partial salary relief.
Scoring
Fantasy Points (FP) - a single score per player computed by weighting their real stats (points, rebounds, assists, etc.).
Head-to-Head (H2H) - you face one opponent per week; the winner takes the matchup.
Categories (9-Cat) - you compete across statistical categories (points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, threes, turnovers, FG%, FT%).
DvP (Defense vs Position) - a measure of how many fantasy points a team allows to a given position, used to spot favorable matchups.
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