On Friday, we moved all of the sites over to secure http (or https, more simply). Here's the Wikipedia explainer. Basically, this just means that the data between your computer and our browser is now encrypted, rather than plain text. You should now see "secure" and/or a lock in the address bar when you are on the site. We have never stored credit card information and still don't. All payments were always encrypted and handled by third parties, Paypal and Stripe.

We have not seen any issues surface in this switch, but if you do find something, we'd greatly appreciate you letting us know.

We recently added WNBA players to our Linker Tool, which allows for bloggers to use our bookmarklet to instantly link their blogs to our player pages and then have their posts show up in the newsfeed section of the player's page. We hope to have the newsfeeds up and running on the WNBA player pages in the near future.

The 2017 NBA Playoffs are in the books and one thing is clear: people like the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors. The TV ratings reached record highs as two of the most dominant teams we've seen in NBA history rampaged through their respective conferences on the way to a showdown that featured plenty of memorable moments, even while lacking in suspense. Barring an unprecedented shakeup during the offseason, there's little reason to think we won't be seeing something a lot like this next year. However, for one night on Thursday, the basketball world will turn its attention to building a future without the Warriors and Cavs' dominance.

That's right, it's time for the 2017 NBA Draft because basketball never sleeps! This year's draft could be particularly important to the shape of the league's future, especially in light of the blockbuster trade between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, giving the latter the number one pick while the former picked up an extra asset to potentially trade for a star.

For fans enmeshed in the NBA for the last few months, it might be hard to think back to the NCAA season, so consider this blog post a refresher on the top five prospects. However, as any fan of Jimmy Butler or Kawhi Leonard will tell you, there's often talent to be found in the deeper parts of the draft. So, to pair with the big names, I'll also identify a player outside of the lottery who may have his own star-level upside. Read the rest of this entry

In advance of July's NBA Free Agency season, we have added our 2017-18 NBA Free Agent Tracker, which we will keep updated (as best we can) as deals are agreed to and signed. The headliners of this year's free agency class are reigning champions Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, but something tells us they're not going anywhere.

With the 2017 NBA Finals in the books, we've gone ahead and updated all of our NBA Finals leaderboards. This year's Finals was an important one from a historic perspective, as it saw LeBron James move from 7th to 3rd all-time in career points in the Finals. Along the way, he passed Bill Russell and Michael Jordan, among others.

UPDATED 4/30/2024

A quick blog post, just to save this table as a reference and for posterity...

A few years ago, we ran a blog post which featured a comparison of various players when facing elimination from the playoffs. At the time, LeBron James appeared to be objectively the best of the elite group we looked at. Since that time, he's played 11 more games facing elimination, winning seven of them. For his career, LeBron is now 15-13 when facing elimination, with averages of 33.5 PPG, 10.4 RPG and 7.5 APG with an average Game Score of 27.1. For comparison's sake, Michael Jordan's average Game Score when facing elimination was 23.3. Furthermore, LeBron's 33.5 PPG is the highest in NBA history by a player facing elimination with more than ten such games (Jordan averaged 31.3 and Wilt Chamberlain averaged 31.1). Some point to the 2011 NBA Finals as a case of LeBron going out meekly (and they'd be right). But since then, he's faced elimination 20 times, winning 13 times and putting up these insane numbers: 35.0 PPG, 10.9 RPG and 7.6 APG, with an average Game Score of 29.8! Here are his lines for his 28 career games when facing playoff elimination, with links to each of the box scores if you'd like further details. And remember to bookmark this page the next time someone argues LeBron hasn't been a clutch performer.

Read the rest of this entry

While the 2017 NBA Finals are in full swing, we wouldn't blame anyone who isn't a fan of the Cleveland Cavaliers or Golden State Warriors for looking ahead to the 2017 NBA Draft. In fact, after the first two games, we wouldn't even blame Cavs fans, were it not for the fact that Cleveland doesn't have a draft pick this year.

Either way, to help you get ready for June 22, we've added our preview page for the Draft to the site! You can see the full draft order, as well as the expected return and the best players to be taken in every draft slot from one to sixty. We've also got college stats on all the top prospects, such as Markelle Fultz, Josh Jackson, and Lonzo Ball. And, for you Big Baller Brand aficionados, don't forget that College Basketball Reference's recent data update included the full college career of the true star of the 2017 Draft, LaVar Ball.

Sometimes, what makes sports wonderful is the unpredictability. No matter what game you like, you've probably had plenty of that in the last year: Blown 3-1 leads, a century-long curse overturned, a 5,000-to-1 shot winning the richest league in the world's most popular sport.

But sometimes what makes sports wonderful is that it gives us exactly what we want. 346 days ago, when the curtain dropped on the 2016 NBA Finals, there was one thing every basketball fan wanted. More of that, please.

Well, after a year of arguing about triple-doubles, cap spikes, resting players, and process trusting, we're getting what we asked for. It may be in the most Monkey's Paw way imaginable, but the trade-off for having this year's NBA Playoffs sapped of any energy or suspense is this series. The Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors. The man who is perhaps the most talented player in NBA history squaring off with the team that is perhaps the most loaded the league has ever seen.

On paper, the Warriors should be enormous favorites. They enter the Finals with the best playoff point differential in NBA history, the fourth best regular season SRS in NBA history, and, oh yeah, four All-NBA caliber players including, arguably, the second and third best players in the league. It's a testament to the enormity of LeBron James' ability, and the ever-so-slightly underrated collection of complimentary players working in tandem with it, that it feels like the Cavs have a shot to do this.

But can they? Is it really possible for this Warriors team to lose four times in seven games? And what will the outcome mean for LeBron? For Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant? And for a league that's essentially spent an entire year on pause in order to pick up from the exact spot it left off last June? Read the rest of this entry

Exciting news for basketball fans; with the 2017 WNBA season underway, the WNBA section of our site is also up-and-running for this season. If you want to keep up with the Los Angeles Sparks' attempt to defend their title or check on how Elena Della Donne is doing in Washington, just go to the WNBA section of Basketball-Reference (there's a link on every page in the footer).

We'll be updating the site weekly on Mondays. Also statheads should note that, in addition to the standard box score numbers, we also have advanced stats, including Offensive/Defensive Rating, Win Shares, PER, and more.

We have rolled out an update to our search function on Baseball Reference, Basketball Reference, Pro Football Reference and Hockey Reference. If you type "random" or "zz" into our search forms on those sites, you will be taken to a random page. We have also added a random page tool to the frivolities menus on those four sites (Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey).

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