Guides / Strategy

How to read a roster

By the 99OVR editorial team at Sameer Studios

Every round is a guess about one hidden number, made from a name, a box line and a short note. Here is how to turn those clues into the right pick, and when to stop reading and re-spin.

What the card actually shows

In Normal, every row has a name and a box line, and on screens wider than a phone a one-line note sits at the right edge. Ball Knowledge hides both the box line and the note, so every screen shows names only and everything else comes from what you know. Budget adds a price for the current skill — the strongest clue in the game, covered in the Budget guide.

The landing badge differs by wheel. On the franchise wheel it rates the franchise’s decade as a whole; on the positional wheel it rates the dealt twelve at this round’s skill, so ROUGH there means weak at exactly what you need. List order is not a ranking: positional deals are shuffled, and franchise rosters show hand-written headliners first, then the rest of the decade, most minutes first.

Reading the line, skill by skill

The game’s own hint under every Normal roster is the right default: points don’t measure handles. Each part of a box line speaks to one or two skills and is noise for the rest.

Jumpshot: Free-throw and three-point percentages are the best tells when a line shows them. Field-goal percentage on a big usually measures dunks.
Handles: Weakly signalled. Assists help a little, guard size more, scoring volume barely at all. A note about a crossover, or a guard listed under six feet, outweighs any number.
Finishing: Points from a big or a slasher, a high field-goal percentage, free-throw volume. Points from a shooter say nothing.
Playmaking: Assists are the most honest number on the card, and centers can lead this column too.
Defense: The hardest skill to see. Steals, blocks, All-Defense and Defensive Player of the Year mentions are real signals; rebounds are not. A low-scoring line with a defensive note is the classic hidden gem.
Athleticism: Rebounds, blocks and dunk-contest notes point toward it; notes about age, knees or a last stop point away.

Read the note like a scouting report

On hand-written cards the note is an editor’s one-liner, and it often names the skill outright: “Never guarded a soul doing it.” The pools are deliberately stocked with trap picks — famous names who are wrong for the round — and connoisseur picks, role players hiding one elite skill. A note that brags about some other skill usually marks a trap.

Franchise rosters also carry deep-bench cards with a pure tenure note — “562 games with BLAZERS in the decade” — and a line averaged across that stint. They were generated from historical box scores, so their assists track playmaking closely, but short stints are noisy and the note says nothing about skill. On those cards the name does the work: a famous specialist can be hiding at the bottom of the list.

Adjust for the decade

Lines don’t travel across eras. The 1960s and 1970s ran at a pace that inflated points and rebounds: Walt Bellamy’s “31.6 PPG · 19.0 RPG” comes with a note calling it rookie numbers from a video game, and his jumpshot is still a punchline.

The older pools treat a big man’s jumper as the exception, so a jumpshot round in a pre-2010s center deal is a hunt for it; Bob McAdoo’s 1970s note files his under witchcraft. The 2020s flip that: most bigs shoot, the question becomes one of degree, and the rim-runner without a jumper is the obvious trap.

One person can also carry several cards, each rated for that decade and stint. Michael Jordan’s 2000s Wizards card (“Thirty-eight years old. Still your problem.”) is not his 1990s Bulls card.

Positional cues

On the franchise wheel the roster mixes positions and the defaults usually hold: guards for handles and playmaking, bigs for finishing and defense. The exceptions — the passing center, the stopper at shooting guard — are where the grades are. On a positional run everyone shares a position, so what changes is each round’s depth: a center deal is deep at Finishing and Defense and thin at Jumpshot and Handles, a point-guard deal the reverse. In the thin rounds, hunt for the one exception.

The grade only cares about this roster

A pick’s grade counts how many players on the landed roster are strictly better at this skill, including players you have already used, who stay on the card crossed out. So the question is never “who is a great shooter?” but “who is the best shooter here that I can still take?”

Roster size sets the margin for error. A positional deal has twelve names, so only the single best earns an A+; if he is crossed out, the A+ is gone unless someone ties him, and second place is an A. Franchise rosters run from 49 to 143 names, so at least the top three at a skill grade A+, and the deep bench pads the bottom: a near miss still grades well, and only a genuinely bad pick costs letters.

An A+ on a weak roster is a perfect read of a bad hand. The OVR still pays for the hand.

Plan around the one-use rule

The one-use rule follows the person, not the card: take Shaquille O’Neal’s finishing and every Shaq card on every later roster is crossed out. Because the rounds always run in the same order, a player’s future value is only his ratings in the skills still to come; a great shooter is worth nothing after round one.

So before spending a versatile star, ask whether he is elite at a later skill and whether someone else here covers this one. If a specialist ties him, or both sit in the A+ band of a big franchise roster, take the specialist and keep the star eligible. If the star is clearly better now, take him: future rosters are random, and a player who may never reappear is not worth a certain grade today.

Re-spin or read?

The franchise wheel gives one team re-spin and one decade re-spin per run; the positional wheel gives one decade re-spin, which deals a fresh twelve. Never spend one for the grade — the best name on any roster earns an A+. Spend it for the OVR, when the best available is weak in absolute terms at a skill your target cares about.

Defense is the usual candidate: one steal supplies your whole defensive score, and it comes fifth, so a token burned in round one is gone when a rough defense landing arrives. Playmaking matters more for point guards, Jumpshot for shooting guards, Finishing for centers; Handles, which moves OVR least, is the weakest reason to spin. On the franchise wheel, pick the re-spin that removes the actual problem: a team re-spin keeps the decade, a decade re-spin keeps the franchise.

Four worked examples

1. Jumpshot on the 1990s Magic

Shaquille O'Neal: 29.3 PPG · 11.4 RPG · 2.7 APGScoring champ. Bent the rim and the rules.
Dennis Scott: 12.0 PPG · 2.6 RPG · 1.5 APG3D. 267 threes in a season, in 1996 money.
Mark Price: 9.5 PPG · 2.0 RPG · 4.7 APG73 games with MAGIC in the decade
Steve Kerr: 2.6 PPG · 0.8 RPG · 1.3 APG47 games with MAGIC in the decade

Round one, Best Player, 90 names. Shaq’s line is the loudest on the card, and his jumpshot sits near the very bottom of the roster. Dennis Scott is the safe read: his note is a jumpshot note. The sharper read is further down, where Mark Price and Steve Kerr, two of the best shooters of their era, sit on tenure cards that say nothing about shooting. All three grade A+ here, but the names beat the lines.

2. Defense on the 2010s Rockets

James Harden: 30.4 PPG · 5.4 RPG · 8.8 APGMVP. The step-back became an unguardable industry.
Clint Capela: 13.9 PPG · 10.8 RPG · 0.9 APGCaught every lob and blocked everything else
Trevor Ariza: 11.7 PPG · 4.4 RPG · 1.6 APG3-and-D as an entire job description
P.J. Tucker: 6.2 PPG · 5.6 RPG · 1.1 APG6'5" and guarded centers. The corner three came free.

Round five, 120 names. Harden’s MVP line is the trap; his defense lands in the middle of the roster. Capela’s lobs-and-blocks note makes him a respectable answer. The wings whose notes are about nothing but defense are better — Ariza, and best of all Tucker, a 6-foot-5 forward who guarded centers.

3. Handles in a 1990s point-guard deal

John Stockton: 15.2 PPG · 12.4 APG · 2.2 SPGNever missed the right pass. Rarely missed a game.
Mark Jackson: 12.1 PPG · 8.6 APGBacked you down for 20 seconds, then found the shooter.
Kenny Anderson: 16.9 PPG · 7.7 APGLeft hand from another planet.
Tim Hardaway: 20.3 PPG · 9.3 APGThe killer crossover before the killer crossover.

Round two, positional; say these four are among the twelve. The assist column points at Stockton and Mark Jackson, and that is the misread: both are better passers than ball-handlers. Anderson’s left hand is a real clue, but Hardaway’s note names the move, and he is the read. If Allen Iverson is among the other eight, he is better still.

4. Finishing in a 2000s center deal

Shaquille O'Neal: 29.7 PPG · 13.6 RPG · three-peatThe most physically unfair player who ever lived. Free throws excepted.
Amar'e Stoudemire: 26.0 PPG · lob prototypeBest pick-and-roll finisher alive. Rotated on defense by rumor.
Tim Duncan: 23.2 PPG · 12.4 RPG · 2.5 BPGThe most boring dynasty in history and the most complete big man.
Dwight Howard: 20.6 PPG · 14.2 RPG · 3x DPOYSuperman took Orlando to the Finals on defense and dunks alone.

Round three, positional. Shaq is the best finisher here, and the one-use rule agrees: Duncan and Howard are the players you would most want back for Defense, Howard and Amar’e for Athleticism, and Shaq’s later skills are good rather than great. Taking him keeps all three eligible if the wheel brings any of them back.