Practical Basketball has 44 badges: 8 Finishing, 9 Shooting, 13 Playmaking and 13 Defense. A badge isn't bought. It unlocks by itself when the attributes it depends on reach a tier's numbers, and it moves up a tier each time they reach the next set.
The five tiers
Most badges have five tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond and Amethyst. Each tier asks for higher attributes than the one before. The steps aren't even: the first tiers are usually far apart and the last ones close together, but those last points sit above 89, where every point costs 3 times as much of the build bar. Amethyst is always the most expensive tier to reach.
The easiest badges to start are Rebound Chaser (Bronze at 59), Relentless Lockdown (Bronze at 61), Trampoline (Bronze at 61) and Thief (Bronze at 61). Each badge page lists the exact numbers for every tier, for example Aerial Assault.
More than one way in
Some badges accept different attributes for the same tier, and meeting any one line is enough. Perfect Lays, Traffic Finisher, Putback Finisher, Alley-Oop Finisher and Glove work like that. It lets a dunker and a strong inside player, say, reach the same badge by different routes, so check both lines before deciding a badge is out of reach.
Badge points
The game adds your badges up into one number, shown as Points Needed to Max. Each badge is worth more the higher its tier:
- Bronze: 1
- Silver: 3
- Gold: 6
- Diamond: 10
- Amethyst: 15
The total is then scaled by position: Point Guard ×0.5, Shooting Guard ×0.5, Small Forward ×0.5, Power Forward ×0.55 and Center ×0.7. That is why a Center's number looks much bigger than a guard's with a similar set of badges, and why badge points only compare fairly between builds at the same position.
One Amethyst badge (15) is worth as much as 5 Silver badges, so a few badges taken to the top usually beat many left at Bronze. The catch is the build bar: it runs out before you can take everything to Amethyst.
Which badges a body can reach
Caps limit badges. If a body's cap for Three-Point Shot is 91, no spread of points will reach a badge tier that needs 93. Every badge page says which positions can reach each tier, and the builder shows the tiers your own body can reach and how many points you are short of the next one.