Quiz for NBA - Hoops Trivia

March 2, 1962. Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a single game, an NBA record that still stands. Yet not one second of video from that game survives. There was no TV broadcast; all that remains is the radio call of the fourth quarter. And the game wasn't even played in Philadelphia, the team's home, but in an arena in Hershey, the chocolate town.

Basketball is full of things like this. The very first goal was a peach basket nailed to a gym railing. The "24" in the 24-second shot clock came from dividing the length of a game by the average number of shots. And the Los Angeles Lakers, "people of the lakes," got their name in Minnesota, the "Land of 10,000 Lakes," and kept it when they moved.

This app turns stories like those into three-choice questions. The only ones that made the cut are the ones that make you say it out loud the moment the answer lands.

A quarter fits in a coffee break

Five questions to a quarter, about thirty seconds each. No background required. Read, be surprised, move on. Every right answer pushes your fast break up the court; get all five and you finish with a dunk. On the train or in the last few minutes before bed, you always stop at a clean break.

The answer is not the end of it

Every question comes with an explanation, and it has a surprise of its own. Right or wrong, you find out why it happened. The 100-point game, the peach basket: the best part of each story comes after you answer.

New to basketball or a lifelong fan

Three levels: Rookie, All-Star and Hall of Fame. Basketball terms come with a one-line explanation, so you can follow along even if you have never watched a game. If you know the sport, start at Hall of Fame.

Records, oddities, rules, people, fans and arenas

The bat that swooped onto the court on Halloween night. The night Michael Jordan's No. 23 jersey was stolen and he played in a nameless No. 12. The player, about 5 feet 7, who won the Slam Dunk Contest. The game postponed because there was an ice hockey rink under the floor. The topics are deliberately mixed, so no single kind of story takes over.

Now you know why

"Alley-oop," catching a pass in midair and finishing before you land, comes from the cry circus acrobats gave before a leap. The area under the basket is called "the key" because it used to be shaped like a keyhole. And the Seattle SuperSonics were named after the supersonic airliner that Boeing, a local company, was developing. What you see in every game has a reason behind it.

No connection needed

Every question is stored in the app. On the subway or on a plane, open it and play without worrying about signal.

Read it in another language

English, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Chinese and more. The same question can feel different in another language.

Checked against the sources

Everything here really happened. The questions draw on NBA records and official rules, Basketball Hall of Fame material and reporting from the time. Where a story is disputed, the explanation says so. Nothing unverified is ever the right answer.

Made for you if

- You watch the NBA but rarely hear the stories behind it
- You have wondered where basketball's rules and words come from
- You like collecting stories worth retelling
- You want something you can pick up and put down at any moment

Arenas have been collecting stories for more than a century, and plenty of them are still untold. From the very first question, you will want to tell someone.

This is an unofficial quiz app made by an independent developer. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the NBA or any of its teams. Team and player names are used only to describe facts.