Teammate Chain
Join the two of them through players who shared a season.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
2018–2027
Dikembe Mutombo
1991–2009
- ○Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
- 1…who played with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander?
How to play Teammate Chain
Teammate Chain is a daily NBA connection puzzle. You are given two players and have to join them through a sequence of shared seasons: each name you add must have played on the same roster, in the same season, as the one before it. Par is three links, which means two players to find in the middle.
The rules
Start from the player on the left and name somebody who was his teammate. If they really did share a season, the link is confirmed and the team and year appear beside it. Keep going until you reach the player on the right. There is no guess limit and no clock — a wrong name simply does not connect, and you try another. Step Back removes your last link if a route turns into a dead end.
Par, and why the score is golf
Every pair in the rotation is exactly three links apart, so par never moves and a +1 today means what it meant yesterday. Reaching the other end at all counts as finishing the day and keeps your streak — the score is the brag, not the pass mark. Taking five links through players you are sure of is a perfectly good way to play, and often faster than hunting for the three-link route.
How the pairs are chosen
Both ends are drawn from the most recognisable players in the database, and only pairs with at least five different shortest chains are used. That filter matters: about one pair in thirty has exactly one answer, and that answer is invariably some journeyman nobody would ever think of. Those are not puzzles, they are guessing games. A typical day has around nineteen valid three-link routes, so there is no single solution to stumble onto.
Where the links come from
Every NBA team-season from 1946 to today, taken from official rosters — about 24,500 roster spots across 1,719 team-seasons. Two players are linked if they appear on the same roster in the same season, which includes training-camp and ten-day additions who barely played. Long-serving journeymen are therefore the most valuable names in the game: a well-travelled role player can reach half the league.
Scoring, the leaderboard and streaks
Finishing puts you on a daily leaderboard ranked by the fewest links, then by the fewest names that did not connect, with the all-time best shown beside it. Every link is re-checked on the server when you finish — it walks your route, confirms each pair really shared a roster and counts the links itself — so a chain on the board is one that genuinely joins up, and a shorter chain than par is impossible rather than impressive. Only your first finish of the day is ranked. Asking to be shown a chain ends the day without a board score, since the route you would be posting is not yours. Streaks and the count of days finished in par are kept in your browser rather than on the board.
Tips
- Work from both ends at once. Think who the target played with late in his career, then aim at those names from the start.
- Journeymen are the bridges. A player with eight franchises touches far more of the league than a one-club legend.
- Long careers beat great careers. Somebody who played twenty seasons overlaps eras that no star does.
- When the two players are from different decades, look for the player who was a rookie at the end of one career and a veteran at the start of the other.
- If a route stalls, use Step Back rather than starting over — the first link is usually fine, it is the second that was wrong.
- A five-link chain you are certain of still finishes the day. Hunting for par is worth it only if you want the leaderboard.
Frequently asked questions
- Does a shared season count if they barely played together?
- Yes. Being on the same roster in the same season is the whole test, so a ten-day contract counts the same as a decade.
- Can I use more than three links?
- As many as you like. Three is par, and anything longer is scored as over par, but reaching the other end still finishes the day and keeps your streak.
- Why was my answer rejected when I know he played there?
- The check is a shared season with the LAST player in your chain, not with the starting player. If the name was ambiguous — several players share a surname — the game asks which one you meant instead of picking for you.
- Why does a real NBA player sometimes not work at all?
- A small number of very short careers have no team-season row in the roster data, so there is nothing to link them through. The game says so rather than pretending he had no teammates.
More NBA daily games
Own the Court — Name players. Claim hexes · NBA Wordle — Guess today's NBA star · Mystery Player — Guess the hidden star from clues · NBA Connections — Find four groups of four · Higher or Lower — Call the stat. Ride the streak · NBA Bingo — Fill the card in 50 players · Franchise Tour — Name every team he played for · Draft Class — Name the top ten picks, in order · Drafted By — Which team actually took him? · Teammate Chain — Join two players through teammates · Shot Clock — Name them all before time runs out