Conference standings
Seeds come from win-loss record with head-to-head and net points breaking ties.
BUILD A BUCKET NBA
The NBA is the whole setting. Every ability you draft comes from an archived NBA player profile, and your career runs through a thirty-team league with a real playoff structure.
Build your playerREAL NBA NAMES, ORIGINAL PLAYER
The draft pool is built from an archive of NBA player profiles: 677 portraits, 30 team logos and 658 player versions. Each profile carries ten game abilities and the measurements that go with them.
Your player is always original. You are drafting one ability at a time from those profiles, not playing as the player himself. A build can only take two abilities from any single source, so a finished player is a genuine mix of the league.
THIRTY TEAMS, EIGHTY-TWO GAMES
Your career sits inside a full league. Every other team plays its own schedule in the background, which is what makes the standings, the playoff race and the seeding real rather than cosmetic.
The play-in
Seeds seven to ten fight for the last two playoff spots. Win the 7/8 game and you are the seventh seed.
Best-of-seven
Four rounds, four wins each: first round, conference semifinals, conference finals and the NBA Finals.
Awards and legacy
MVP, Rookie of the Year, All-League and Finals MVP feed a Hall of Fame score at retirement.
WHERE THE NUMBERS COME FROM
Ratings in the archive are imported game ratings rescaled onto a 25 to 99 range. They are not real NBA statistics, and they are not an independent scouting model. A career-era profile keeps its career period rather than pretending to be a single season.
Team names and logos are used to identify the source of a profile. The league, the schedule and every result in the game are fictional.
NBA QUESTIONS
Can I build a bucket with NBA players?
Yes. Every ability in the draft comes from an archived NBA player profile, shown with its source so you can see exactly where each rating came from.
Is this an official NBA game?
No. Build a Bucket is an independent fan-made game. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NBA or any team.
Are the ratings real NBA stats?
No. They are imported game ratings rescaled to 25-99 and labelled as such. They are not real per-game statistics.
Which NBA players are in the archive?
The archive holds 658 player versions across current rosters and career-era profiles, with 677 portraits and all 30 team logos.
How many games are in an NBA season here?
Eighty-two regular-season games per team, then the play-in and four best-of-seven playoff rounds for the teams that qualify.