Data Sources
Where the numbers come from, and what is done to them.
One source
Every statistic behind a PEAK3 rating comes from Basketball Reference. There is no second statistical provider, no vendor feed, and no hand-entered season totals.
Collected offline, never during a request
Source pages are scraped offline, into a cache that is committed to the repository. The model is then run over that cache to produce the ranking files the site reads.
Nothing on this site scrapes Basketball Reference while you are using it. Loading a page, playing a game, or opening a player never triggers a request to any data provider — the answer was computed before the page existed. This is enforced in the build, not merely a convention.
A small number of optional manual override files sit alongside the scrape, used to correct specific values the source does not expose cleanly: season context, external impact metrics, and statistical titles. They override named player-seasons only; they never invent a player, a season, or a rating.
Seasons covered
The dataset covers 1979-80 through 2025-26. Seasons before 1979-80 are excluded because consistent advanced metrics are not available for them. Excluding those seasons is an admission about the data, not a judgement about the players.
What is computed from it
PEAK3 is a Five-Component Open Weighted Index. It scores a player's best consecutive peak window using published, fixed weights:
- Statistical Impact0.38
- Traditional Production0.21
- Individual Recognition0.20
- Playoff Rate Impact0.18
- Team Result0.03
A teammate adjustment of at most ±0.5 accounts for surrounding talent. The weights are the same for every player; there are no exceptions, no hand-picked winners, and no per-player tuning.
PEAK3 rates. It does not claim objective historical truth — a different set of weights produces a different ranking, which is exactly why the weights are published.
Regenerated, not edited
Rankings are regenerated by running the model over the cached data. They are not edited by hand after the fact, and a rating cannot be changed without changing the code or the inputs that produced it — both of which are visible in the repository and covered by tests.
What is not shown
PEAK3 Arena displays no player photographs and no NBA or team logos; external asset URLs are disabled by default. Team names and publicly documented team colours appear as text and colour only, to identify a team. Team marks belong to their respective owners.