Do you know ball? Inside the internets most obsessive basketball debate.

There's a moment, familiar to anyone who has spent time in basketball corners of the internet, where someone drops a name into the chat — Kosta Koufos, Sundiata Gaines, Jamario Moon — and the room either goes electric or shakes its head in disappointment. On social media, this is called "ball knowledge."

The term has evolved from casual sports-bar shorthand into something closer to a culture and a game of one-upmanship. However, in the hands of a growing class of basketball content creators...