September 16, 2026

Everything that shipped on Hardcourt during the FIBA break

There were no live basketball games between August 30 and September 17. That window went into building. The WNBA is back on Thursday, and here is what you can do on Hardcourt now that you could not do two weeks ago.

The short version: if you own Top Shot moments, they can do more tonight, and Pro can plan a whole run for them. If you do not own any, you can play anyway — so you can get your friends into the game, and maybe eventually into Top Shot.

With this many changes, some things could be off. If something looks wrong, post it in the Discord #bug-reports channel and it gets fixed.

Run Optimizer: plan the whole run, not one night

A Top Shot Fast Break run asks the same question every night for two weeks: which of your moments do you spend tonight, knowing the fatigue rule means you cannot spend them again tomorrow? Most people answer it one night at a time and run out of the right players by night eight.

Run Optimizer, new in Hardcourt Pro, answers it for the whole run at once.

• It reads the run's real targets, night by night, and reads your collection.
• It applies the fatigue rule for you — ASP bands for NBA, tiers for WNBA — and gives every player the uses they actually have.
• It lays out which moments to play on which night so you clear as many nights as possible, with the nightly total as the tiebreak. Every planned player carries their headshot and their injury status, and a player who is out never gets planned.
• Do not like a call? Drop a player from a night, or pin one in, and it re-plans the rest of the run around your change in under a second.
• It plans Hardcourt Open Gym runs too, and for those it can submit the lineups it planned straight to the run.

Open Gym runs are live in it today. The next Fast Break run appears the day Top Shot opens it.

The daily contest stays free. Hardcourt Pro is $4.99 a month for the first 50 subscribers, and it pays for the prizes. See it at hardcourt.io/pro.

Hardcourt Shootaround: play free, no collection required

Hardcourt has always needed a Top Shot collection to build a lineup. Hardcourt Shootaround removes that requirement, so the friend who never bought in can play the same nights you do.

• Sign up with an email. Pick one of three 20-card packs, curated from the league's top 60 players by projected score. Each card rolls a tier when the pack opens — Common, Rare, or Legendary.
• Every game night, six free agents post in the morning. Rent one for the night and slot them beside your pack.
• Build the same lineup the owned game uses — 5 starters and 1 bench — and score on the same five-layer engine. Real box scores, play-type boosts, tier multipliers.
• Free lineups compete only against other free lineups. Verified collections compete in their own pool. Nobody plays across the line.
• Your streak carries over when you verify a real collection, so the nights you play now count later.
• Participation milestones will earn you real Top Shot moments, delivered to a Top Shot account so you can play the full game with them.
• The builder opens on the next game day, not tonight only. You can set Thursday's lineup right now.

WNBA cards are live today. NBA packs arrive ahead of opening night.

Know a Top Shot-curious friend? This is the link to send them: hardcourt.io

Pickup: call the number

Pickup is the 30-second game. Up to three featured player numbers post each game night — a player, a stat, and a line, like Sabrina Ionescu · Points · 22.5. You call over or under on each, and then you watch it happen.

• Every featured call is free. Make one on a game night and your Pickup streak counts that night, right or wrong. Miss a night and it starts over.
• Call every featured line right and there is a 25 BC perfect-night bonus.
• The line can move until tip-off. The number you called is the number you are graded on.
• Each call locks when that player's game tips, not when the first game of the night does. If a player does not play, the line is waved off and the call does not count either way.

New with this release:

• Live call tracking. Once a game tips, each of your calls shows the live stat against your line, with a progress bar that fills as the stat climbs and shifts from red to green as it closes in on your number.
• The board. Beside the featured three sits every other player number on the slate, with team crests and headshots, filterable by game, player, and stat. The board is open to verified collections.
• The preview. When there is no slate tonight, Pickup shows the next one instead of an empty page. The hub was also redesigned front to back.

Signed out, you can see the first featured line. Sign up to see the rest.

Pickup opens with Thursday's WNBA slate at hardcourt.io/pickup.

Team Hubs: rep your team

Every NBA and WNBA team now has a hub on Hardcourt — 45 in all — and the team you rep changes what you can play.

• Rep one team per league. Your daily lineup feeds your hub's team-of-the-night standing, ranked across every hub each game day.
• Captains run the hub. Captains host Blacktop challenges locked to the team's players, host team Open Gym runs with lighter terms (rosters down to 2, runs down to a single night), post announcements to every member, and pin one thing to the hub page. Captains are assigned, not elected. If you want your team's hub, say so in Discord.
• Team challenges wear team colours. A captain-hosted challenge is themed from the team's palette automatically.
• Team leagues. Thirty NBA season leagues run October 20 through April 11, 2027. Rep the team and you are in. Leave the team and your entry goes with you.
• Team contests. Contests only that hub's reppers can enter, some with a rule that a minimum number of the team's own players start in your lineup.
• The schedule card. Each hub page shows tonight's game with a live score, the next game, and the last five results with a W/L streak.

Find your team at hardcourt.io/blacktop/teams.

Top Shot badges count now

Hardcourt reads the badges off each moment's Top Shot page and stores them per edition. That makes a badge a rule, and a badged moment a moment with more places to play:

• A Blacktop slot can require one.
• An Open Gym night can require one.
• A contest lineup rule can require one.

Game pages and live game threads

Every game now has a page, so the box score, your score, and the room to talk about it are in one place.

• A score header with period, clock, and final, plus both box scores.
• Every row carries that player's Hardcourt score for the game and how many lineups they are in tonight.
• Live during the game, fed each scoring cycle. Final from the official box score.
• A thread per game. It opens 30 minutes before tip and locks 60 minutes after the final. Post up to 280 characters, a GIF, or both. Verified players post; captains moderate.

One thread per game, not per team — two fanbases in one room has a better chance of being alive than two half-empty ones. Reach a game page from Scores, from an Open Gym run, or from a team hub's schedule.

Share cards

Finish a Blacktop challenge or a daily contest and Hardcourt renders a 1200 × 675 card with the moments you ran, your score, and your finish. Win, and the card says so. You can share it either way: save it, send it through your phone's share sheet, or open it straight into the X composer.

Roadmap for what is next

• September 27. The WNBA playoffs begin. Series calls arrive in Pickup — call a series winner or whether it goes the distance, round by round.
• NBA packs for Hardcourt Shootaround, and moment prizes for free players, both planned before opening night.
• October 20. NBA opening night.

Play your collection. Or play without one.

hardcourt.io · Discord · @HardcourtIO