NBA Connections
Find four groups of four connected NBA players — teams, honours, eras, and one sneaky twist.
How to play NBA Connections
NBA Connections gives you a grid of sixteen NBA players hiding four secret groups of four. Your job is to work out which players belong together and submit each group. It is a game about resisting the obvious: the grid is built so that several players look like they fit two different groups at once, and only one arrangement of all sixteen actually works.
The rules
Select four players you believe share a connection and submit them. A correct group locks in and reveals the category that tied it together. A wrong group costs you one mistake, and you are allowed four before the puzzle ends. Solve all four groups within that budget and your streak grows. A new grid appears daily at midnight US Eastern.
What the groups are made of
Categories are drawn from four broad families. There is usually a franchise group — four players who all suited up for the same team. There is an honours group built on an award such as MVP, Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year or Finals MVP. There is an era or draft group tying together a specific class or decade. And there is a fourth, sneakier group, often a play on the names themselves rather than anything that happened on the court.
Red herrings
The puzzle is deliberately seeded with overlap. A player in the Lakers group may also have been an MVP; a member of the 2003 draft class may also have played for the team in the franchise group. This is the whole difficulty of the game. The correct solution is the only one where all sixteen players are used exactly once, so a group that feels right but leaves an impossible remainder is wrong no matter how good it looks.
Strategy
Start by finding the group you are most certain about and, crucially, do not submit it yet. Instead check whether any of its four members are needed by another group you can also see. Solving from the outside in — identifying the two players who could only belong to one group each — is far more reliable than chasing the connection that jumps out first. If you have three players you are sure about and several candidates for the fourth, that is exactly the position the puzzle was designed to put you in, so slow down and eliminate rather than guess.
Tips
- Find your certain group, then check whether its members are needed elsewhere before submitting.
- Work from the players that fit only one possible category — they anchor everything else.
- The name-based group is usually the last one you see. If three groups are clean and the remainder looks random, look at spelling.
- Four mistakes is a real budget, not a safety net. Spend the first one only after you have exhausted deduction.
- If a group leaves the other twelve players impossible to split, it is the wrong group.
Frequently asked questions
- How many mistakes am I allowed?
- Four. The fifth incorrect group ends the puzzle and reveals the remaining answers.
- Are the categories always the same four types?
- They are drawn from the same families — franchise, honour, era or draft class, and a name-based twist — but the specific category changes daily.
- Does everyone get the same grid?
- Yes. The puzzle is identical worldwide and resets at midnight US Eastern, so your result is directly comparable with your friends'.
- Can I rearrange a group after selecting it?
- Yes — deselect any player before you submit. Nothing is locked in until you confirm the group.
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 · 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