You're sitting on the couch, checking the standings, and it hits you. Every single year, these guys are flying back and forth across the country for months on end. It feels like the season lasts forever. Honestly, if you feel like there are a ton of games, you aren't wrong.
But exactly how many games nba season are we talking about?
The short answer is 82. That is the magic number. It has been the standard since the 1967-68 season, and despite a million fans and analysts screaming for a shorter schedule, it isn’t going anywhere. But there is a lot of "fine print" now. Between the new NBA Cup, the Play-In Tournament, and those strict rules about resting stars, the actual math of a season is a bit more complicated than just 82 nights of basketball.
The 82-Game Grind Explained
Basically, every one of the 30 teams in the league is scheduled for 82 regular-season games. It’s a marathon. You’ve got the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference, and how they fill those 82 slots is actually a specific formula. It isn't just random.
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Teams play their four division rivals four times each (16 games). Then they play other teams in their own conference either three or four times. Finally, they play every team in the opposite conference twice—once at home and once on the road. If you’re a Lakers fan in Los Angeles, you know for a fact you’ll see the Boston Celtics exactly once at Crypto.com Arena every year.
Why on earth is it 82?
Back in the 60s, the league was expanding. They needed a schedule that made sense for travel and revenue. Once they hit 82, it just stuck. Nowadays, it’s mostly about the money. Local TV deals and stadium revenues are built on the back of having 41 home games. If the league cut the season to 60 games, players would have to take a massive pay cut because the "Basketball Related Income" (BRI) would tank. Nobody—not the owners and definitely not the players—wants to see their bank account shrink by 20%.
The "New" Games: NBA Cup and Play-In
Here is where it gets sort of tricky. The NBA recently added the Emirates NBA Cup (the In-Season Tournament). When people ask how many games nba season has, they often get confused about whether these tournament games count.
Most of them do.
All the group stage games and the knockout rounds (Quarterfinals and Semifinals) count as regular-season games. They are baked into that 82-game total. However, the Championship game of the NBA Cup is the one exception. It’s essentially "Game 83" for the two teams that make the final. It doesn’t count toward the standings, and the stats don't count toward season averages. It’s just for the trophy and the cold, hard cash prizes for the players.
The Play-In Chaos
Then you have the Play-In Tournament. If a team finishes between 7th and 10th in their conference, their season isn't quite over, but it isn't quite the "playoffs" yet either. These games are a statistical "no man's land." They don't count as regular-season games, and they don't count as playoff games. They just... exist. So, a team like the Miami Heat might actually play 84 or 85 games in a year before they even officially start the first round of the playoffs.
The 65-Game Rule: You Have to Show Up
You can't talk about the length of the season without mentioning the "65-game rule." The league got tired of "load management"—which is basically a fancy way of saying stars were sitting out healthy just to rest.
Now, if a player wants to win MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, or make an All-NBA team, they have to play at least 65 games. And it’s not just "stepping on the court." They have to play at least 20 minutes in those games for them to count.
There are a couple of small loopholes:
- Two games can count if the player played at least 15 minutes but got injured.
- If a player has a season-ending injury but played 85% of the games up to that point, they might still qualify.
This rule has fundamentally changed how many games the top stars actually play. Before this, guys were missing 25 games a year and still winning awards. Now? If you miss more than 17 games, you’re out of the running. Period.
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Is 82 Games Too Many?
Ask any player in the middle of a January road trip through the Midwest, and they’ll tell you: yes. The wear and tear is real.
The league has tried to help. They've almost entirely eliminated "four games in five nights" and have significantly cut down on back-to-back games. Travel is better than it was in the 80s (private jets vs. commercial flights), but your body still doesn't know what time zone it's in when you're flying from Miami to Portland.
Despite the talk of shortening the season to 66 or 72 games to improve "game quality," it’s a non-starter. The 82-game season is the bedrock of the NBA's $76 billion media rights deal. Broadcasters pay for volume. They want games on TV every night.
What This Means for You
If you’re a fan trying to keep track, here is the breakdown of what to expect:
- Regular Season: 82 games for every team.
- NBA Cup Final: 1 extra game that doesn't count in the standings.
- Play-In Tournament: 1 or 2 games for teams ranked 7-10.
- Playoffs: Anywhere from 4 to 28 games depending on how deep a team goes.
If a team goes from the Play-In all the way to Game 7 of the NBA Finals, they could realistically play over 110 games in a single year. That is a massive amount of basketball.
Actionable Insight: When you're looking at the schedule for the rest of the year, keep an eye on that 65-game tracker for your favorite stars. If a guy like Joel Embiid or Kawhi Leonard misses a couple of weeks with a sore knee, their chances at All-NBA honors (and the massive "supermax" contract bonuses that come with them) could vanish instantly. If you're betting or playing fantasy, the last three weeks of the season are where the 82-game grind really shows—expect "healthy" players to suddenly find their way into the lineup just to hit that 65-game mark.
To stay ahead, track the "games played" column in the standings more than the "points per game" column. In today's NBA, availability is the most valuable stat there is.