Sports Reference Blog

Last month, we added full box scores for the 1983 & 1984 NBA Playoffs. Now, once again thanks to the help of Sean Burrill, we have added full box scores and game logs for the 1983-84 & 1984-85 NBA seasons. This means we now have a full box score for Michael Jordan's NBA debut (in which he was only the fourth leading scorer for his own team!). We also now have full game logs for Jordan's rookie season. This means we now have a stat line for pretty much every game Michael Jordan has played in since high school. Please let us know if you have any of his Tune Squad box scores, though.

We have also synched these box scores into the Play Index, allowing for searches further back in many non-scoring categories in the Player Game Finder and the Team Game Finder. Some sample searches now possible:

• Moses Malone's 27 rebounds against the Celtics on March 25, 1984 were the most in a single game in 1983-84.
• The most assists in a game in 1984-85 was 25 by Isiah Thomas on Feb. 13, 1985 against the Mavericks (led by 40 points from Thomas's friend Mark Aguirre).
• Ralph Sampson, who debuted in 1983-84, double-doubled in his first nine career games. Shaquille O'Neal is the only player to match that feat since.

These new box scores also add new seasons available for search in the Player Streak Finder, the Team Streak Finder, and the Head2Head Finder. For instance, we now have full game logs and stats for every matchup between 1984 Draft class rivals Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley.

Additionally, we have extended the single-game leaders links in our Leaders Index back to 1983-84. Kevin McHale's 56-point effort on March 3, 1985 now ranks as the fifth-best Game Score in our database. And we also now have the full Celtics box score from 9 days later, when Larry Bird one-upped his teammate with a 60-point game.

As a reminder, we do have every box score in NBA history on the site. They can be accessed via this menu. However, many of the older box scores are limited to only player FGs, FTs, and points. With our update, the boxes are complete back to 1983-84, though.

We also want to mention that there are a handful of games for 1983-84 and 1984-85 for which we are missing a few statistical categories. If you are able to help fill in any of the blanks, please let us know.

Here are the games with some missing columns of data (games with strike-throughs have been completed since the original blog post):

• Lakers at Blazers on November 19, 1983
• Nets at Spurs on November 19, 1983
• Bulls at Jazz on November 23, 1983
• Warriors at Clippers on December 2, 1983
• Pistons at Blazers on December 9, 1983
• Pistons at Bullets on January 3, 1984
• Spurs at Lakers on January 6, 1984
• Suns at Kings on January 7, 1984
• Mavericks at Rockets on February 2, 1984
• Nets at Bulls on February 4, 1984
• Clippers at Cavaliers on February 4, 1984
• Suns at Warriors on February 4, 1984
• Knicks at Rockets on February 4, 1984
• Bucks at Jazz on February 4, 1984
• Pacers at Bullets on February 4, 1984
• 76ers at Hawks on February 4, 1984
• Suns at Rockets on February 18, 1984
• Spurs at Sonics on March 16, 1984
• Warriors at Blazers on March 17, 1984
• Celtics at Knicks on March 22, 1984
• Hawks at Pacers on April 11, 1984
• Jazz at Suns on May 10, 1984
• Suns at Warriors on October 26, 1984
• Jazz at Warriors on November 3, 1984
• Nuggets at Rockets on February 2, 1985
• Clippers at Pistons on March 11, 1985
• Suns at Warriors on March 23, 1985
• Kings at Warriors on April 6, 1985

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2016 at 12:22 pm and is filed under Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, Data, History, Play Index. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.