How the TRUE 82 season engine works
TRUE 82 projects every drafted lineup through an 82-game season using a BPM-based player-value model plus roster-fit adjustments. The engine rewards genuine value and shooting, penalizes overloaded usage and weak positional defense, then converts your lineup's net rating into a projected record. Stack five ball-dominant legends and it will notice.
The draft format
The game runs five rounds. Each round deals a ticket: a random NBA franchise paired with a random decade. You draft one player who actually appeared for that franchise in that era, filling a five-man lineup of two guards, two forwards, and one center. In Classic you get one team reroll and one era reroll per draft; Presti Mode replaces that with a salary-cap economy. A player's eligible positions come from his whole career, and you can re-slot drafted players during the draft — where a guy plays matters.
The season model
Every player-season carries a value score built mostly from Box Plus/Minus (BPM) — its offensive and defensive halves, OBPM and DBPM, are why the pool only goes back to 1974. The engine sums your five players' value, then adjusts for fit: a five that needs more than one ball costs you (add up their usage: past 120, every point costs 0.3), two small guards or two undersized bigs pay for their size, adequate shooting around the lineup pays off, and a backcourt or wing rotation full of poor defenders takes a slot-specific penalty. Players from the low-3PT and pre-3PT eras get shooting credit based on reputation, because the box score of 1978 can't tell you who would let it fly today.
The result is a net rating for your lineup, which maps to a per-game win probability and, from there, a projected 82-game record. A projection good enough rounds all the way up to 82–0.
Why roster fit matters
Five MVPs who all need the ball is a worse basketball team than four stars and a role player who defends and spaces the floor. The in-game guidance is blunt about it: aim for at least three shooters and one role player. TRUE 82's whole premise is that a lineup is more than the sum of its counting stats — the engine is built to reward teams that would actually win, not teams that look best on a trading card.
Ways to play
- Classic — full stat lines and badges for every player, and you choose which season of his career to draft. The teaching mode: see exactly what you're picking and why.
- Presti Mode — every player has a price and you've got $50 for five guys. Prices lie — there are steals, rip-offs, and $1 gems — and rerolling the board costs a buck. Read the market, build a contender, and watch for surprises. The deepest mode.
- Kaman Mode — five Chris Kamans. Only Chris Kamans. You cannot lose. A tribute.
The Daily adds competition without changing the core draft: everyone gets the same board and the same twist each day, and a challenge link lets a friend try to beat your five. Some Dailies play as Classic+: no stats, and each player is locked to one mystery season, so you draft purely from memory of who was great, and when.
Data and disclaimer
Player and team data comes from Basketball Reference and Stathead, maintained by Sports Reference LLC — the definitive public record of basketball history. TRUE 82 is an independent, non-commercial fan project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the NBA, any team, or Sports Reference LLC. Their data is used for non-commercial commentary, analysis, and historical reference.