NBA pool
An NBA pool is the one where the schedule itself is the edge. Back-to-backs, rest days and the NBA Cup all sit inside the same 82 games. The schedule and the scoring run automatically, under your brand.
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The NBA doesn't have weeks the way the NFL does. It has a calendar with roughly a dozen games most nights. A pool week can be a calendar week, a single night's slate, or a fixed number of matchups you nominate. Most commissioners run weekly with a Monday or Tuesday deadline, which turns a continuous season into something with a rhythm.
Tip-offs, lock countdowns and reminders render in each player's own time zone, so the East Coast and the West Coast see the same slate on their own clocks. Game-level locks mean an early tip closes on its own while the late West Coast games stay open.
Games finish across the night, and the standings move as each one ends. By the morning the whole slate is in and the recap is waiting, which turns an NBA pool into a daily habit rather than a weekly chore.
Basketball breaks the assumption that the team you picked on Monday is the team that plays on Tuesday. Almost every scoring problem in an NBA pool comes back to who is actually on the floor.
Stars sit out games they're fit for. A matchup that looked one-sided when the week opened can invert when an inactive list drops an hour before tip-off. If your locks sit at tip-off, informed players hold a real advantage over the people who filled their card on Sunday night. That's either a feature or a fairness problem, and you should decide which before October rather than in January.
Teams play on consecutive nights, often in different cities. The second night of a road back-to-back is measurably harder than the first, and it's visible in the schedule months in advance. In a pool where nothing else is predictable, the travel calendar is the one repeatable signal, and the players who read it will win your season.
NBA scores run into the hundreds and margins spread wide, so a margin prediction is a real weekly scoring mechanic rather than a season tiebreaker. This is the one pool where you can score margin every week and have it separate the field honestly.
Friday group-stage games in November are regular-season games and tournament games at the same time. Decide whether your pool scores them once, as ordinary games, or runs the Cup as a separate short pool on top. Running it separately gives you a five-week pool inside the season, which is a genuinely good hook for players who won't commit to 82 games.
Overtime resolves every game. The tie rule a soccer pool needs does nothing here, and the settings that actually matter are how you define a week, your lock timing relative to the inactive list, and whether margin is scored weekly.
Group a week of games into one slate with a single deadline. The format that turns a continuous 82-game season into something an ordinary office can actually keep up with.
Wide, stable margins make this the one pool where predicting the number is as playable as predicting the winner. Score it weekly rather than saving it for the tiebreaker.
Five weeks from the end of October to a single championship game in December. A short, self-contained pool for people who won't sign up for a six-month season.
Sixteen teams, four rounds, best of seven. Fill it out in April, then watch it survive until June. The bracket that brings back everyone who stopped picking around the All-Star break.
A nightly calendar becomes a weekly pool, or a nightly one, or a slate you nominate. The format bends to your players rather than the other way around.
White label on every paid plan. Pro and above add a custom domain and a custom email sender, so every reminder and every recap arrives entirely in your branding.
Tip times, countdowns and reminders show on each player's own clock, so a pool that spans Boston and San Diego runs on one set of locks without anyone converting a thing.
October to June, with the NBA Cup in November and the playoffs in April. Three distinct hooks in one season, all running on the same hub with the same player list.
Free to start. No credit card.