ACCOUNT

SIDE GAMES · SEPARATE FROM YOUR RECORD

Garbage Time

Four side contests that have nothing to do with your fantasy matchup.

What's actually in here

  1. The Envelope. Once, before tip-off Five takes and five ballot picks, sealed now and opened on opening night. You fill it out one time. There is no edit button after that, and that is the whole point.
  2. Mystery Player. New one daily Six guesses to name an NBA player, same player for everybody. Each guess tells you how close you are on team, conference, position, height, age and scoring. Solve it and you get a spoiler-free grid to paste in the group chat.
  3. Pick 'Em. Every week Call the winner of the three matchups you are not playing in. Right answers score a point, and there is a standing leaderboard.
  4. Call Your Shot. Every week One league matchup gets flagged as the game of the week. You guess the exact final margin. Closest wins it, dead on goes in the book. It grades itself the second the week ends.

All four are tied to your account, so your picks follow you between your phone and your laptop and nobody can enter for you.

Before the seasonOne time only · closes 20 October
The EnvelopeFill out once · seals at tip-off

Five takes and five ballot picks. No takebacks. Fill it out now and it gets sealed. Nobody sees anybody else's until opening night, then every envelope opens at once with your name on it.

We crack them back open at the All-Star break and again at the buzzer, next to what actually happened. There is no edit button after tip-off and there never will be. That is the entire point.

5 takes5 ballot picksSealed until Oct 20Permanent record

This League

Same questions for everybody. One line each. In April we stack all eight answers next to each other.

Take 1
Take 2

The NBA

Three numbers. No wiggle room, no arguing about it in April.

Take 3 Seed, 1 through 15
Take 4 Out of 82
Take 5 Out of 82. Games they both suit up for

The Ballot

Real NBA hardware, not fantasy. One name each. Blank is fine if you have no idea.

Sealed

In the vault until opening night. Nobody else can read it, including the commish, and you cannot pretend you never said it.

The VaultOpens 20 October

Checking the vault…

All season longThese keep running · from 20 October
Mystery PlayerNew one daily

Six guesses to name the player. Every wrong guess tells you how close you were on team, conference, position, height, age and scoring, with arrows pointing which way to go.

Same player for everybody, changes at midnight. Solve it in fewer guesses than the rest of them and say so.

6 guessesDailyStreaks tracked

Loading today's puzzle…

Pick 'EmWeekly, all season

Every week you pick the other three matchups you are not playing in. Takes ten seconds. Season long leaderboard.

The whole point is that it makes you care about games you have no business caring about. Suddenly you are checking somebody else's box score on a Thursday.

3 picks a weekLocks at tip-offRunning leaderboard

Opens week 1

Call Your ShotWeekly, one game

One league matchup a week gets flagged as the game of the week. You guess the exact final margin. Closest guess takes it.

Nail it dead on and it goes in the book permanently. The game of the week picks itself: whichever matchup has the two hottest records that week, so nobody has to flag it by hand.

Guess the marginClosest winsDead on gets a banner

Opens week 1