Basketball Prospect

You are not the coach. You are one kid with a basketball, and you get about fifty-six decisions between fifth grade and the end of your career.

Basketball Prospect is a career simulator. It doesn't ask you to play basketball — it asks you what a young athlete's life should be spent on. Four turns a year: the offseason, the summer circuit, preseason, and the season itself. Each turn you split a hundred focus points across seven kinds of training, plus schoolwork, rest, and having a life outside the gym. They all come out of the same hundred. That is the whole game.

WHAT YOU DECIDE

• Which middle school, and then which high school — the zoned public school, the private one you'd have to find tuition for, the powerhouse where you might not play, the small school where you'd be the whole offense
• Which summer circuit team, and whether the family can afford the season
• Whether to train through a tired week or rest, knowing an injury is a real possibility either way
• Whether to keep your grades up, because an ineligible season costs you a year of being seen
• Which scholarship offer to take, when to transfer, when to declare

WHAT YOU DON'T CONTROL

Height is inherited from your parents and arrives on its own schedule — you might be the tallest kid in seventh grade and done growing, or spend high school waiting and add four inches as a senior. Your ceiling in every skill is set before you start and is never shown to you as a number. Working out what kind of player you actually are is part of playing.

Position isn't a choice either. It's recalculated from your height and your skills every year, so growing five inches can move you from the point to the four and change what the rest of your career looks like.

HOW IT ENDS