Guide
How to Play
Tetherball is the head-to-head NBA roster duel where you test your ball knowledge against a real opponent or a simulated one, naming real teammates* one after another to outsmart them before they trip you up. Every pick is a tug-of-war: steer the chain toward the players and teams you know best, and hope they can't keep up.
The chain: same team, same season
- 1The game starts on a seed - one team, one season (e.g. 2012-13 Miami Heat)
- 2Player One names a player from that team (e.g. Dwyane Wade)
- 3Player Two fires back with a player - anybody who ever played on the same team in the same season as that player (e.g. LeBron James)
- 4Trade picks back and forth, chaining forward as every named player is eliminated from the valid pool - try to eliminate your opponent before they eliminate you
* Even a mid-season trade counts as a tether: if two players were both on the same roster in the same season, it's valid - even if they were literally traded for each other and never shared the floor.
Example chain
Rules
- Start with 3 lives (adjustable in Practice and private lobbies) - a wrong guess costs one, but you keep your turn and can retry until the clock runs out
- 30-second shot clock per turn (adjustable in Practice mode) - let it run out and you lose the match instantly
- Objectives - an optional side goal: each side has a target team and season - land 4 picks who played for it. Every pick in the chain counts toward both targets, so naming a player from your opponent's target advances theirs too. Watch what you name, and what they name
- Team-blind - on by default after round 15; hides the connecting team name so you're reading off memory, not the label; set it stricter or off in the pregame rules
The three lifelines
- Save your lifelines for when you really need them - your opponent could be waiting for you to use them
- Overtime starts off in King of the Court - Practice and private-lobby hosts can turn it on, and it extends the round clock for every player
The game modes
- Practice - a solo match against a bot; 5 difficulty tiers, Rookie to GOAT
- Online H2H - a live 1v1 match against a real matched opponent
- King of the Court - up to 8 players, free-for-all, last one standing wins
- Private Lobby - H2H or King of the Court with friends, no matchmaking, just a room code
- Daily Tether - a separate, once-a-day puzzle with its own streak, over at tetherballgame.com/daily
Click these for more details on each mode: