Question sources and scoring

Our first question library contains 1,910 prompts, 5,002 historical NBA/BAA player records, and 74,128 accepted player–prompt entries. It covers records through the completed 2024–25 season. The same library powers daily and unlimited play.

Where the facts come from

We use Basketball-Reference statistics distributed in Sumitro Datta's historical datasets, pinned to the November 1, 2026 snapshot. The tables cover player totals, career and college information, NBA draft history, All-Star selections, All-NBA/All-Defensive/All-Rookie teams, award winners, and team names.

Prompts are written from specific selection rules, and every player meeting a board's rule is included from that snapshot. Boards need at least eight eligible players and two career All-Stars. Roster boards need at least ten players and cover seasons from 1989–90 onward. Daily games and game IDs draw seven different categories, rather than seven variants of one question.

What counts

• NBA regular-season games count, including the NBA's BAA history. ABA seasons, playoffs, preseason, and training-camp membership do not.
• A traded player qualifies for every team they actually played for. Combined multi-team rows are excluded when adding individual team stints, so statistics are not counted twice.
• Franchise history includes earlier names and cities. Seattle counts with Oklahoma City. Charlotte's original Hornets and Bobcats count together; New Orleans is a separate franchise.
• Award boards include winners, not players who only received votes. Career award and All-Star achievements may have come with a different team from the franchise named in the question.
• All-Star selections include injury withdrawals. All-NBA history includes earlier All-BAA teams.
• Draft boards use 1966–2024 NBA drafts, after territorial picks ended. The original drafting team counts before a trade. A player must also have appeared in an NBA game by the cutoff.
• College boards include attendance at any listed college, including transfers.
• Average-based boards require at least 50 games in one season, using a one-decimal average. They do not claim the player won an official statistical title.
• Steals and blocks use the recorded statistics available from their introduction. Missing older statistics are not treated as evidence that a player never made a steal or block.

How fixed points are assigned

Every board ranks eligible players by a fixed career-profile formula: 12 times their All-Star selections, plus 30 for an MVP winner, plus three times the natural logarithm of one plus career points, plus the natural logarithm of one plus career games. This is an estimate of how familiar a career is, not a measured percentage of player guesses.

Names with the strongest profiles start at 5 points. The remaining range rises toward 95. The least prominent eligible name receives 100; boards with at least 30 answers have two 100-point names. These values are frozen for this library version and do not change after you play.

Checks and known limits

The builder checks independent NBA-published reference facts, including Stephen Curry's 402 threes in 2015–16, John Stockton's career assists and steals, and Hakeem Olajuwon's career blocks. Automated checks also cover team membership, award winners, answer completeness, duplicate identities, and stable game IDs.

This is a historical snapshot, not a live NBA feed. Achievements after 2024–25 are outside its scope. Different historical players can share a name; if your input identifies more than one eligible player, the higher qualifying score is used. The full answer board is available after each shot.

Daily and unlimited results

Daily games change at midnight UTC. Unlimited game IDs preserve the same seven prompts, order, and points. Unlimited and daily progress use separate browser records. Only the first completion of a daily game counts toward your daily streak. Up to 100 recently opened unlimited games are kept in this browser; older IDs remain playable from their links.

New data will use a new library version rather than silently rewriting existing unlimited game IDs. There are no accounts or shared leaderboards.