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 and Pro 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: too many high-usage scorers costs you, 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.
The four modes
- 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.
- Pro — same pools, no stats, and each player is locked to one mystery season. You're drafting purely from memory of who was great, and when.
- 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.
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.