APBA Pro Basketball 1989 Simulator

Overview

A statistical simulation engine for the 1988-89 NBA season inspired by classic APBA-style pro basketball games. The simulator uses real historical player data from stats.csv and now includes a more realistic gameplay model, position-aware rotations, season records, and a retro-modern presentation preview inspired by old DOS basketball sims.

This is a standard-library Python project: no pip install required.

Major Features

Gameplay Realism

• 1988-89 benchmark tuning for points, FG%, 3PA, FT%, rebounds, assists, turnovers, and fouls.
• Real player 3-point tendency from 3PA/FGA instead of a simple yes/no shooter flag.
• Separate 2P% and 3P% shot resolution when data exists.
• Improved turnover model tuned toward late-80s basketball.
• Team foul tracking and bonus free throws.
• Shooting fouls, 3-shot fouls, and and-one chances.
• Offensive rebounds can retain possession.
• Offensive and defensive strategies influence tempo, turnovers, fouls, shot quality, and rebounding.

Substitutions and Minutes

• Position-aware starting lineups using PG/SG/SF/PF/C slots.
• Position-compatible substitutions so lineups stay basketball-plausible.
• Target minutes derived from real player MPG.
• Fatigue/stint handling.
• Foul-trouble substitutions.
• Crunch-time star return logic.
• Garbage-time bench usage.

Retro-Modern Presentation

• DOS-style black-background layout inspired by classic PC basketball sims.
• Left/right roster panels with player points, fouls, and minutes.
• Top-center scoreboard with team names, score, quarter, clock, and shot clock.
• Timeout and team-foul side panels.
• Modernized terminal court with paint, arcs, center-court marker, and bottom play-by-play feed.

Use menu option 6. Retro-Modern Play Mode to play possession-by-possession inside the presentation shell.

Season Stats and Records

• SQLite season database via Python's built-in sqlite3 module.
• Game result persistence to season.sqlite3.
• Team standings.
• Player stat leaders.
• Standings export to CSV.

Use menu option 5. Season Records / Standings to view or export records.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/clhforensics/apba-1989-sim.git
cd apba-1989-sim

Usage

python3 main.py

Make sure stats.csv is in the same directory as main.py.

Menu Options

1. Play-by-Play — manually advance each possession.
2. Quarter-by-Quarter — classic coaching mode with quarter breaks.
3. Fast Sim — instant game result.
4. DevTools / League Benchmark — simulate many games and compare to 1988-89 NBA averages.
5. Season Records / Standings — view standings, scoring leaders, or export standings CSV.
6. Retro-Modern Play Mode — play possession-by-possession in the screenshot-inspired court/shell layout.

Controls

Key	Action
ENTER	Advance play in PBP mode
S	Change coaching strategy on the fly
Q	Quit to main menu

Validation Targets

The benchmark suite compares simulated team/game averages against real 1988-89 NBA baselines:

Stat	1988-89 NBA Target
PTS	109.2
FG%	.477
3PA	6.6
3P%	.323
FT%	.768
TRB	43.9
AST	25.9
STL	9.1
TOV	16.6
PF	22.7

Recent validation on the gameplay-realism branch produced:

Stat	Sim Result
PTS	110.9
FG%	.478
3PA	5.4
3P%	.341
FT%	.773
REB	45.5
AST	25.9
TOV	17.2
PF	21.7

Running Tests

python3 -m unittest tests.test_gameplay_realism tests.test_presentation_and_season -v

Tech Stack

• Python 3
• Standard library only:
  • random
  • time
  • csv
  • copy
  • sqlite3
  • datetime
  • unittest for tests

Note

This is a fan project created for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the APBA Game Company.