ABSTRACT Since Yao Ming jointed NBA (National Basketball Association) in 2002, more and more Chinese people keep a watchful eye on the NBA games. To meet the Chinese NBA fans' demands, a considerable amount of English NBA news reports needs to be translated into Chinese. Currently, there are plenty of studies about the Sports News headlines translation, but the research on the NBA News headlines translation is hardly seen, especially the majority of sports news research conducted is under the guidance skopostheorie. This thesis is mainly a descriptive study. More than 100 pairs of English NBA news headlines and their translations have been collected and the frequency of occurrence of each translation method has been calculated. According to the statistics, five most frequently used translation methods are presented in detail. We also investigate what translation methods tend to deal with what kind of translation problems. After having analysed the use of the five translation methods, the author summarises the use of each translation method in relation to the skopos that it tends to achieve. According to the above analysis, this thesis arrives at the conclusion that, as a kind of applied translation, NBA news headlines translation is a complex process and involves encyclopaedic knowledge. Translators cannot use only one translation method to deal with a certain problem. They tend to combine translation methods in the translation of one headline. So this thesis aims at providing a macroscopical type of situation of use of the translation methods. The translators tend to deliberate how to use translation methods according to practical situations. Keywords: NBA news headlines, skopostheorie, translation method, translation problem.