The NBA section is built around two pages: a schedule that lists every game the league has announced, and a simulator that turns that list into a question you can answer yourself. This guide covers what each shows, the rules behind them and what a simulated season means.
How the schedule pages are laid out
The NBA schedule is split by month, October through April, and every month has its own page, such as November 2026. The page opens on the month that holds the next unplayed game and tags it Next up. A bar gives that month's games and game nights, and a counter above it totals the season's games, teams and nights.
Inside a month, games are grouped by night. The home team is on the left, the tip-off time is in US Eastern, and the arena sits under the matchup. A finished game shows Final and its score, and games that belong to the NBA Cup carry an NBA Cup tag. Eastern time keeps a night together: a 9:30 p.m. tip is already after midnight UTC.
The games total counts what the league has scheduled so far. The NBA announces 80 of each team's 82 games before the season and sets the last two after the NBA Cup group stage, so the total grows once they are added. The Cup's knockout pairings are listed only once both teams are known; until then the page leaves them out rather than show "TBD at TBD".
The season behind the standings
Each of the 30 teams, 15 in each conference, plays 82 games between October 20, 2026 and April 11, 2027. The NBA Cup runs inside that calendar from October 30 to December 11, and its group and knockout games count in the standings; only the final does not. Seeding is by winning percentage within the conference. The top six teams in each conference go straight to the playoffs, and the teams in places seven to ten play the play-in tournament, April 13-16, 2027.
The play-in takes three games. The seventh-place team hosts the eighth and the winner takes the No. 7 seed. The ninth hosts the tenth and the loser is out. The loser of the first game then hosts the winner of the second for the No. 8 seed. That leaves 16 playoff teams, and every round is a best-of-seven series. A division title no longer guarantees a seed, so each conference needs only one table. When two teams finish level, the NBA starts with their head-to-head record and works through division, conference and playoff-team records, with point differential near the end of the list. Our play-in study shows how each seed has fared since 2021.
Using the simulator
The NBA simulator starts from the real schedule with every finished game locked. Pick a month, then a night, and type a final score into any open game. The Eastern and Western tables rebuild as you type, with columns for wins, losses and winning percentage. The first six places carry the Playoffs marker, places seven to ten carry Play-in, and the heading above each table changes from Live standings to the number of results you have added.
Three buttons run it. Simulate night draws every open game on the night on screen, replacing any scores you typed there. Simulate season draws all the open games in one go and replaces everything you typed. Clear puts both tables back to the real standings. A night is marked complete once each of its games has a score.
How the model draws a score
Each team is rated by its 2025-26 point differential per game, and the expected margin is the difference between the two teams' ratings plus a home edge of 1.7 points. The home edge was measured game by game on last season, when home teams won 55.4 percent of the time. Real games stray far from any expectation, so the model adds random variation of about 14 points, draws a game total near 230 points and splits it into the two scores. A tied draw is settled the way an overtime would be. The constants are listed on the methodology page.
What a simulated season leaves out
- Ratings are frozen at last season's numbers. Trades, injuries, lineups and rest days are not in the model, so a rebuilt roster is rated by its past.
- Equal records are separated by point differential, not by the NBA's tiebreakers, so two teams level on winning percentage can sit in a different order from the league's.
- The tables mark the play-in places, but the simulator does not play the play-in or the playoffs.
- It can fill only games that are on the schedule, so a simulated season stops short of 82 games a team until the last two are added after the Cup group stage.
- Nothing is saved. Reload the page and the tables go back to the real standings.
Run Simulate season several times rather than once. A team that lands in a playoff place in nearly every run is in a strong position, and one that keeps flipping in and out is on the edge. A single run is one possible season, not a forecast.
Where to go next
- NBA schedule and NBA simulator: the two pages described above.
- How many times NBA teams play each other explains how the 82-game schedule is built, and NBA home-court advantage measures the edge the model uses.
- Basketball here also includes college basketball with its Top 25 schedule and polls, the WNBA and Australia's NBL.
Free, no sign-up, nothing saved. Rules checked on November 3, 2026 against Wikipedia's pages on the NBA playoffs, the play-in tournament, the NBA Cup and the 2026-27 season.