A build in Practical Basketball is the plan for one character: a position, a body, and a number for each of 22 attributes. The choices you make on the build screens decide which badges, takeovers and animations that player can have, so it pays to get them right before the character is created. This guide walks through each choice in the order the game asks for it.
1. Position and body
You pick one of five positions, then a height, wingspan, weight, body type and anomaly. Each position has its own range:
- Point Guard: 5'9" to 6'6", 160 to 205 lbs, wingspan up to 5 inches longer than height.
- Shooting Guard: 6'3" to 6'8", 180 to 225 lbs, wingspan up to 5 inches longer than height.
- Small Forward: 6'5" to 6'10", 200 to 260 lbs, wingspan up to 5 inches longer than height.
- Power Forward: 6'7" to 7'0", 230 to 290 lbs, wingspan up to 5 inches longer than height.
- Center: 6'9" to 7'3", 245 to 310 lbs, wingspan up to 5 inches longer than height.
These choices don't give you points. They set the cap of every attribute: the highest that attribute can go for that body. A short, light guard has high caps for speed and shooting and low caps for dunking and rebounding; a tall, heavy center is the opposite. Two builds at the same position can have very different caps, which is why the body is the most important decision. Body types and anomalies are covered in their own guide.
2. Attributes and the build bar
Every attribute starts at 25 and can be raised up to its cap. You can't max everything: raising attributes fills the build bar, and the game only lets you create the character when the bar reads 99, shown as BUILD MAXED OUT. A build that stops short of that can't be finished, and one that is already full can't take another point.
High numbers are expensive. Every point above 89 uses 3 times as much of the bar as a point below it, so pushing one attribute from 90 to 99 costs as much bar as about 27 ordinary points. Most strong builds take a few attributes very high for their badges and leave the ones they don't need at 25.
3. Linked attributes
Some attributes pull others up with them. When you raise the first one, the game raises the second so it never falls too far behind, and that uses bar too:
- Close Shot stays within 30 of Driving Layup.
- Vertical stays within 20 of Driving Dunk.
- Three-Point Shot stays within 30 of Mid-Range Shot.
- Moving Shot stays within 30 of Mid-Range Shot.
- Free Throw stays within 45 of Mid-Range Shot.
- Mid-Range Shot stays within 30 of Three-Point Shot.
- Moving Shot stays within 60 of Three-Point Shot.
- Mid-Range Shot stays within 30 of Moving Shot.
- Three-Point Shot stays within 60 of Moving Shot.
- Stamina stays within 23 of Ball Handle.
- Acceleration stays within 30 of Speed.
- Lateral Speed stays within 30 of Speed.
- Speed stays within 30 of Lateral Speed.
So a build with 96 Ball Handle also has at least 73 Stamina, whether you wanted it or not.
4. What the build unlocks
The finished numbers decide three things. Badges unlock in tiers as the attributes they need go up. Takeovers unlock when a set of attributes is reached together, and some are only offered to certain positions. Animations in the store each need certain attributes or a height. All three come from the build's finished numbers.
5. Leveling up
A new character doesn't start with its finished numbers. It starts at overall 60 and you buy upgrades with coins until it reaches 85, where every attribute is at the value you planned. The upgrades guide covers what that costs and the cheapest order to buy it in.
The builder does all of this arithmetic: pick a body and it shows every cap, the bar, the badges and takeovers you would have and what it would cost.