How to play — Basketball
Five names decide everything here. Basketball is the shortest roster on the site, so there is no depth to hide behind and no bench to absorb a bad pick — the five you seat are the five that play all eighty-two nights.
The board
5 seats: PG · SG · SF · PF · C. A starting five, one seat per position. Because the roster is this small, a single seat is a fifth of your team score, which is a far larger share than any seat carries in the twelve-man sports. Positional fit matters less than it looks: taking the strongest available player is usually right.
The rounds
Each round opens one club era and shows the players who actually wore that uniform. Basketball's archive starts in 1947 — shorter than baseball or hockey — so the eras crowd together and a modern spin sits closer to the all-time greats than it would in another sport.
The season
82 games — 82–0 for the sweep. Eighty-two games and no postseason: the regular season IS the run. Nobody in the real record has come near unbeaten, because eighty-two nights on a travelling schedule always contains one where the legs are gone and a lesser team is fresh.
- 82–0 — the perfect season.
- 79 wins or more — the top tier.
- 67 or more — a strong finish.
- 60 or more — you made the cut.
- 29 or more — middling.
- the rest — the roast comes with the verdict.
What the record holds
The archive opens in 1947, the league's first season, and holds 463 hall-of-fame figures — more than any other professional league on the site. That is a shorter history than baseball or hockey, so a modern spin sits unusually close to the all-time names, and the board splits every franchise into the eras it actually fielded, including clubs that relocated or folded outright.
What decides it
Per-game scoring moves with pace, so a 1960s line and a modern one cannot be compared raw. All-NBA selection is the steadier signal — it is what a player was voted at the time, by people watching the same league. How the ratings work · the full rulebook.
Take a basketball board The basketball game
Basketball rulebook questions
How do you play the all-time basketball draft game?
Each round opens one club era and shows the players who actually wore that uniform. You seat a starting five in any order, then eighty-two games simulate at once.
How many players do you draft in basketball?
Five — one per position, and no bench. That is the smallest roster on the site, which is why a single miss shows up so plainly in the result. Seats: PG · SG · SF · PF · C.
What counts as a perfect season?
Winning all eighty-two. There is no postseason on this board, so the regular season is the whole run and one defeat anywhere ends it.