We just wanted to quickly note that we've added salaries for the 1989-90 NBA season for the 64 players who made at least one million dollars that season. The source is a clipping from the Orlando Sentinel, which showed salaries for these 64 players. The highest paid player for this season was Patrick Ewing at $3.75MM.

Welcome back to Play Index 101! This series of videos will teach you how to use the Sports Reference Play Index to research statistics and facts from sports history. This is Episode 2; in this episode, you'll learn all about how to use the Game Finder:  Read the rest of this entry

We all know Oscar Robertson became the only player in NBA history to average a triple-double when he averaged 30.8 PPG, 12.5 RPG and 11.4 APG in 1961-62. Though he didn't have the benefit of first-class air travel, modern nutrition and training techniques, he did have the benefit of playing for a team that averaged an estimated 124.9 possessions per game, while playing over 44 minutes per game. Though I don't want to diminish the stamina required to perform at a high level at such a frenetic pace, the point stands that there were more opportunities for a player to accumulate counting stats in 1962 than there are in 2017, where the average game has about 96 possessions.

Still, even if we adjust statistics to a Per 100 Possessions basis, few have ever matched Oscar's production. Robertson averaged an estimated 26.7 Pts, 10.8 Reb & 9.9 Ast per 100 possessions in 1961-62. At Basketball-Reference, we have estimated per 100 possessions statistics for every player back to 1973-74 (when the advent of tracking of offensive rebounds, among other stats, made the estimates more reliable). From 1973-74 to 2015-16, a total of just four player seasons (by three players) matched The Big O's Per 100 Possession statistics. They were by do-it-all forwards Grant Hill & LeBron James (twice) and then Russell Westbrook, last season. But, now, the 2016-17 NBA season has TWO players doing that. Russell Westbrook, in his most ridiculous form yet, and James Harden, who has emerged as the perfect player for Mike D'Antoni's relentless attack. But it's not that these guys are matching Robertson's production. They're obliterating it.

Let's first consider Westbrook's numbers.

• 44.1 Points Per 100 Possessions: This is a number that Michael Jordan only topped once!
• 15.0 Rebounds Per 100 Possessions: This is a number which matches Karl Malone's best!
• 14.9 Assists Per 100 Possessions: This is more than Jason Kidd ever averaged!

And yet, saying that Westbrook is like a combination of peak Jordan's scoring with peak Malone's rebounding and peak Kidd's passing doesn't even do justice to how breathtaking his level of activity on the floor is.

As for Harden, the numbers aren't as eye-popping as Westbrook's, but his scoring and rebounding are roughly equivalent to peak LeBron James, except with 50% more assists thrown in. So, I guess that's pretty decent.

Read the rest of this entry

I'd estimate that around 99% of the time, when someone comes to a Sports Reference site, they go to a player or team page and then log off. More advanced users may find their way to the frivolities pages, experiment with features like the Oracle of Baseball, or just spend several hours following link chains to various players and games.

But, just like Westworld, there's another level to our websites, one that relatively few people know how to navigate. It's called the Play Index and, in all sincerity, figuring out how to use it will change your life as a sports fan. If you've ever wondered how people find tidbits like "Mike Trout has the most WAR of any hitter through age-24" or "Dennis Rodman had seven 0-point, 20-rebound games in his career", the answer is usually that they've used the Play Index.

While the Play Index is easy to use if you know your way around, it can seem daunting to a newcomer. We often get messages from people who are eager to learn how to use the Play Index, but don't quite know where to start. So, with that in mind, we're starting a new video series called Play Index 101! Read the rest of this entry

In the same way that the phrase that best summarized the 2015-16 season was "three-one lead," 2016-17 is shaping up to be the year of the triple-double. In general, the 2016-17 NBA season seems to be producing some absolutely insane stat lines, from Anthony Davis' early run of 40 and 50 point games to DeMar DeRozan's absurdly hot early start.

But one other thing that we've seen in the early part of this season is a ton of triple-doubles. Led by Russell Westbrook, who's threatening to make history by becoming the first player since Oscar Robertson to average a triple-double over the course of a full season, NBA players are contributing to more phases of the game than ever before, and the result has been a real delight for stat-nerds. Read the rest of this entry

With the college basketball season now up and running, we've added the 2016 RSCI Top 100 recruits to Basketball Reference. RSCI stands for Recruiting Services Consensus Index and can be seen here. It combines the rankings from various respected sources into one consensus ranking. It should be noted that this consensus can under-rank reclassifying players like Thon Maker or Jamal Murray since they're not always taken under consideration by all of the rankers.

This page contains links to college stats for this season's top freshmen (when applicable) so could come in handy if you're checking out 2017 NBA Draft prospects.

Historical RSCI rankings are available back to 1998, if you're curious about their predictive value.

This data is accessible via the "High School Season Honors" section of our NBA Awards menu.

We recently added player salaries for the 1984-85 NBA season to player pages. This is a cool addition, because 1984-85 was the first season of the NBA salary cap. Please note that these totals, as all salary data, are unofficial. These salaries are also incomplete. We have data for 210 of the 320 players who played a game in the 1984-85 season. The highest-paid player for this season was Magic Johnson ($2.5M). Michael Jordan, a rookie at the time, made a $550K, which is just barely over the 2016-17 rookie minimum salary ($543,471).

This addition gives us salary data for most players all the way back to 1984-85. The two seasons we're missing are 1986-87 and 1989-90. If you have data for either of these seasons, and would like to share it, please let us know.

As Russell Westbrook, James Harden and LeBron James do their best Oscar Robertson impressions, we thought it would be a good time to add an all-time triple-doubles leaderboard to Basketball Reference. This can be found under "Other Leaderboards" on our Leaders page. You'll also notice we added a page for quadruple-doubles and 50-Point games. These leaderboards are different than searches in the player game finder for the same thing, since these leaderboards are all-time and most statistics in the player game finder only go back to 1983-84. If you're ever looking for just active triple-double leaders, that can be done easily with the player game finder.

With the new triple-double leaderboard, you'll notice that LeBron James will pass Fat Lever for sole possession of 6th-most triple-doubles all-time with his next triple-double. But Russell Westbrook, on pace for 20 triple-doubles this season, is nipping at his heels.

There's not quite as much drama on the 50-Pt games leaderboard, where Wilt Chamberlain has as many as the next 7 players combined. LeBron James, with 10 50-pt games, is the only active player in the top 10, currently tied with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for 7th place.

There have only been four officially recorded NBA quadruple-doubles, with one each by Nate Thurmond, David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon and Alvin Robertson. This is because blocks and steals were not official statistics until 1973-74, the year after Chamberlain (who reportedly had multiple unofficial quadruple-doubles) retired from the NBA.

We have recently made an addition to the Awards section on Basketball Reference. We now have NBA Coaches of the Month all the way back to the creation of the award in 1982-83. These winners can be found not only on the page for the award, but also on season pages and coaching pages. It should also be noted that from 1982-83 through 2001-02, there was one winner per month for the entire league. Starting in 2002-03, however, there was a separate winner from the Western Conference and the Eastern Conference every month. The all-time leader in Coach of the Month Awards (through the 2015-16 NBA season) is Gregg Popovich, with 16. He's followed by George Karl, with 12, and Pat Riley/Phil Jackson with 11 apiece. The leader among currently active head coaches is Doc Rivers, with 9 (and November 2016 could well end up being his 10th).