Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Basketball Association

Nikola Topić recently made his NBA debut after injuries and recovery from testicular cancer. He was under contract but on IR for the Thunder all of last year - should the NBA champion highlight be in his infobox? Should he appear on the OKC champs navbox? It was my recollection that we had said the playoff roster determines who shows in this way, but I definitely see players on recent champ navboxes who were not on the playoff roster (like some 2-way players). Rikster2 (talk) 13:44, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

This was brought up in 2024 at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Basketball Association/Archive 47 § NBA champion in infobox: Two-way players and Avery Bradley, but there was no input. 2-way players, outside of COVID years, were not playoff eligible. There were also examples of Kevon Looney (2017) and Avery Bradley (2020) who did not play in the playoffs when their teams won a title. —Bagumba (talk) 16:51, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

Basketball Reference shows championships for Topić, Looney and two-way players (Alex Ducas from the 2025 Thunder, for example). Bradley has no championship. I cannot locate their rationale for differentiating ineligible, injured and inactive championship participation. CalDoesIt (talk) 23:01, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

Is there any indication who the NBA considers a champion? By the way, WP:NBARING is pretty specific about criteria, and says playoff roster. Rikster2 (talk) 05:30, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

I would think that if sources generally say that a player is considered to have won a NBA championship even if he didn't play in the playoffs then it should be included in their Wikipedia article. It isn't really ours to decide if he merits a championship ring/medal or not. Alvaldi (talk) 10:03, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

Which is why I asked what the NBA’s stance is. if they do not consider a player an NBA champion, neither should Wikipedia. Rikster2 (talk) 15:42, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

It turns out NBA.com shows championships on player profiles in an awards section I had not previously known; one has to add "/career" to the end of the URL or view a profile, click "Stats", click the dropdown menu under "Profile", click "Career" and then scroll to the bottom. Of my past examples, Topić (injured), Ducas (two-way) and Bradley (inactive) are treated the same as on Basketball Reference. However, Looney only has two championships which implies the NBA believes he did not earn a championship when he missed time in 2017. Again, I can find no rationale for these decisions but at least there is an official designation from the NBA itself. CalDoesIt (talk) 16:48, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

Isn't it then settled that if the NBA considers the individual a champion then the Wikipedia article should also and vice versa? Alvaldi (talk) 13:28, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

I would think so. Rikster2 (talk) 14:54, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

What do reliable sources say about the players and their championships?

Per WP:KERSHAWRFC, championships in a WP:BLP are assigned according to Wikipedia's core policy guidelines of WP:V and WP:NPOV.

If WP:NBARING goes against these policies, it is a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS that should be ignored.

The NBA.com website and the Basketball Reference reference website have no official bearing on this question, and should be evaluated again the preponderance of reliable third-party independent sources. PK-WIKI (talk) 15:48, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

I completely disagree that the NBA’s take (in other words, the league granting the championships) on who is and is not a champion has no bearing on- and the league POV was missing in the Kershaw example. Rikster2 (talk) 16:04, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

But the NBA.com stats website is not the method for the NBA granting a championship, just as the MLB.com website was missing Kershaw's championship.

If we were talking about something like the NHL with well published rules for names on the Stanley Cup, I would agree. PK-WIKI (talk) 16:20, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Were there other MLB bios that have changed since the Kershaw decision? It could just be a one-off based on WP:RECENTISM in a perfect storm involving a future HOFer from a large-market team with inflated media coverage. —Bagumba (talk) 16:16, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

No, no other MLB bios have been changed. Tanner Scott is still not listed as a WS champ. Meanwhile, Alex Vesia is listed as a 2025 champ but the only source is Baseball Reference. Double standards. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 16:37, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

It was my recollection that we had said the playoff roster determines who shows in this way: See NBA playoffs § Team rosters. Teams can declare up to 15 players for the playoffs, and then each game allowed to designate (3?) players to deactivate. Before, they had to declare the same 12 for the entire playoffs. It might be harder to source a player if hypothetically they were on the playoff roster but never entered a playoff game.—Bagumba (talk) 01:33, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Please take part in a discussion on when to use the (NBA) draft parameter for certain situations. Discussion found here. Thanks Rikster2 (talk) 20:05, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

When I go into a NBA players wikipedia page, in their infobox there is no section titled "Career Stats as of for example 2/23/2026". NFL players wikipedia page has that feature so I was wondering if we should do the same thing for NBA players? AloofStorm5476 (talk) 16:58, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

How are those sections kept up to date in the NFL articles? Does someone have to do it manually? Or is there an automated process? Zagalejo (talk) 19:20, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

@Zagalejo They update it manually. ^{Dieter Lloyd Wexler} 21:25, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

You would have to do it manually. AloofStorm5476 (talk) 22:37, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

@AloofStorm5476 I doubt it's sustainable. NFL teams play usually one (sometimes two) game per week so they have enough time to update tables, and even with that time between games, it's not always tables are updated weekly. ^{Dieter Lloyd Wexler} 21:28, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Something I would propose would be for one person to handle an NBA team. Say for example I can handle the Oklahoma City Thunder players, that we one person is not handling such a large load. AloofStorm5476 (talk) 22:43, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

What would be the benefit of updating stats on a daily basis, as opposed to once at the end of the season? Assadzadeh (talk) 23:26, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

That could be a possibility worth thinking about! AloofStorm5476 (talk) 01:38, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

That seems untenable. This is a volunteer project and it's exceedingly unlikely there's 30 different people willing to manually update 12-15 articles on a scheduled basis 82 times per year. We barely have maybe 5-10 regulars on this page. At any rate, such a task is peripheral to building the encyclopedia which is about writing (and maintaining) sourced prose in articles. A prominently-displayed external link to a reliable stats database that itself is externally updated in (near) real-time is equally functional and has the benefit of requiring virtually no ongoing maintenance for us. Left guide (talk) 01:33, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

The NBA project has consistently rejected daily stats updates, even in the body. It's just churn. Outside of maybe MLB, there's no "magic" career stats thresholds that are inherently notable, even moreso for active players. —Bagumba (talk) 22:16, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Agree with others' sentiment. It's ludicrous, to be blunt, to update hundreds' of NBA players' stats after 82 games (plus playoffs). Even adding them at the end of the season broaches on untenable. As User:Left guide said, having a prominent external link at the bottom of their article to their NBA.com or basketball-reference.com stats pages is sufficient / preferred. SportsGuy789 (talk) 22:00, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

I have noticed editors without accounts adding dow tooltip templates to the dates of historical articles. Just in case anybody is unaware of what this does it adds dots below a specific date that tells you the day of the week the event was. Example March 1 (1957) becomes March 1. I don't think it is harmful (other than arguable pointless bytes), but I also don't think it is necessarily useful or relevant, like the NFL where non-Sundays have some relevance. I don't have a preference whether these are included or not as long as it is consistently applied. It annoys me when I see historical season articles have different formats than contemporary ones.- UCO2009bluejay (talk) 19:30, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

Just notifying members of this project that there is a Conflict of Interest edit request relevant to this WikiProject at the Charlotte Hornets article. DrThneed (talk) 02:35, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Just notifying members of this project that there is a Conflict of Interest edit request relevant to this WikiProject at the Kon Knueppel article. DrThneed (talk) 02:37, 11 March 2026 (UTC)