SIDE GAMES · SEPARATE FROM YOUR RECORD

Garbage Time

Three side contests that have nothing to do with your fantasy matchup. Winning them does not help your record. Losing them does not hurt it. They are their own thing, running the whole season on their own scoreboard.

What's actually in here

  1. The Envelope. Three hot takes and four award picks, sealed before the season and opened on tip-off night. Fill it out once. You cannot change it after that.
  2. Pick 'Em. Every week, call the winner of the three matchups you are not playing in. Right answers score a point. It runs all season and there is a standing leaderboard.
  3. Call Your Shot. One real NBA game a week, picked by the commish, usually something close and nationally televised. Everybody calls it. The next week the box score shows up here with who ate and who did not.

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

The EnvelopeOpen now · seals at tip-off

Five takes and four award 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 takes4 awardsSealed 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 awards, 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.

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 game 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 record book permanently. There is already a working version of this on the matchup page if you want to see how it grades.

Guess the marginClosest winsDead on gets a banner

Opens week 1