Each circle is a pictoral representation of a year of the NBA playoffs. Teams are represented by one of their primary team colors, and each ring is a round of that year’s playoffs, with each section corresponding to a team in that round. The outermost ring is the first round, with teams from the Western Conference being placed on the left-hand side and the teams from the Eastern Conference on the right-hand side. Teams are placed on each side in order of the bracket (from top to bottom on each side: 1st, 8th, 4th, 5th, 3rd, 6th, 2nd, 7th). Teams which played each other in a given round are adjacent to each other and share a section of the inner circle, with the winning team being represented in that inner section. This continues on until the Finals (represented by the second innermost ring with only two sections), and the winner of the Finals for that year is the one team in the center.

The first step is to find out which year’s playoffs are represented by each circle. In order, the playoffs represented are 2008, 2004, 1999, 2010, 1994, 1991, and 2016. Team names associated with each color can be found in the following graphics (team names given are the team names for that year’s playoffs, given team moves and name changes):

2008

2004

1999

2010

1994

1991

2016

Each year one player in the Finals is given the title of MVP. In the given order of the playoff years (left to right, top to bottom), the MVPs for each year are:

• Paul Pierce
• Chauncey Billups
• Tim Duncan
• Kobe Bryant
• Hakeem Olajuwon
• Michael Jordan
• LeBron James

Taking each MVP award recipient’s name and indexing using the numbers below each circle in order gives the phrase CALL IN BROKEN ARM, indicating the solver should submit BROKEN ARM as the solution.