Sports Reference Blog
1984-85 NBA Box Scores Now 100% Complete
Posted by Mike Lynch on March 5, 2019
At Basketball-Reference, we have a box score for every game in NBA history. However, the depth of those box scores is variable. In the 1940s and 1950s, they're generally barebones (points and FG/FT made) and for the last 35 seasons or so they're complete. A little over three years we announced that we had added ~99% coverage for NBA box scores for the 1984-85 & 1983-84 seasons. At the time, we were missing some ancillary statistics in 28 games over those two seasons. We're happy to announce that we've whittled that down to seven five games and each of those seven five is in 1983-84, meaning 1984-85 is now 100% covered.
Here is a list of the seven five games in 1983-84 for which we're still missing some details:
Bulls at Jazz on November 23, 1983- Bucks at Jazz on February 4, 1984
- Pacers at Bullets on February 4, 1984
- 76ers at Hawks on February 4, 1984
- Spurs at Sonics on March 16, 1984
Celtics at Knicks on March 22, 1984- Jazz at Suns on May 10, 1984
If you have details on any of these games, please let us know. You can see what details are missing by clicking the hyperlinks, but the only categories missing in any of them are Offensive Rebounds, Turnovers, Blocked Shots and Steals.
Additionally, for better perspective on the completeness of various seasons in our database, please see our data coverage map here. As you can see, we have rebounds and assists for over 97% of player games in 1982-83 and are making progress on fleshing out older seasons on a daily basis.
One of the things the most overlooked aspects that should stand out about Michael Jordan's rookie campaign is his defensive effort and well-rounded game, despite being the team's offensive workhorse, such as can be seen in his first 21 games in the league. For instance, he holds the database-era records for:
1. Consecutive games with at least one steal and one blocked shot, from start of career: http://bkref.com/tiny/AAuH2
2. Consecutive games with at least one steal and one blocked shot, from start of season: http://bkref.com/tiny/CInQr
as well as the obvious positional record of:
3. Consecutive games with at least one steal and one blocked shot, by a guard, career: http://bkref.com/tiny/CInQr
If you look at that 1984-85 stretch for a bit longer, and then use the finder, you can see that he either set and/or currently holds other database-era records pertaining to both:
1. steals, in general, such as consecutive games with at least one steal to start a career
2. positional records for guards re. blocked shots, as well as the combo of steals and blocked shots
The finders are not currently set up to make most of these records show at #1 and must instead be analyzed a bit.
He also blocked four shots in his NBA debut. Four blocked shots is rare for a guard in any NBA game, let alone one's debut: http://bkref.com/tiny/Fyii4
I guess I should clarify that they cannot show at #1 in most cases due to insufficient search criteria options.