NLSC Your source for basketball video games.

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game, ahead of its 20th anniversary.

Tomorrow marks 20 years since Kobe Bryant torched the Toronto Raptors with an 81-point outburst, setting a new mark for the second-highest points scored in an NBA game. It always sounds cliché when we talk about how the years seem to fly by after we’ve taken a few more trips around the sun, but it’s absolutely true! Our perception of time undoubtedly changes. When Kobe dropped 81 on January 22nd 2006, I was only 21, so 20 years felt like a long time to me; basically a lifetime, in fact! Things that happened 20 years before that – or 20 years before I was even born – felt ancient.

For example, 20 years before Kobe had his 81-point game, Larry Bird and the Celtics were the 1986 Champions. To me, that felt like something from another time. And yet, because I remember it, Kobe’s 81-point game feels contemporary despite it being as old today as the Celtics’ 1986 title was in 2006! Again, it doesn’t feel like it’s been 20 years; or perhaps more accurately, 20 years doesn’t feel the same. It doesn’t feel like eight years since I last reflected on Kobe’s big game, or indeed, six since his tragic passing. As that game is turning 20 though, let’s take a look back…way back…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #615 of the NLSC Podcast!

On a recent episode of the No Fouls Given Podcast, Paul Pierce and Danny Green opined that Michael Jordan had a “limited bag”; a notion that The Truth’s former teammate Kevin Garnett vehemently disagreed with! We’re with KG when it comes to one of the most commonly used buzzwords in basketball discourse these days, and to that end, this week we join the community in discussing what we think having a bag means and looks like. Is it just dribbling moves and ballhandling flair, or does it comprise a player’s entire offensive arsenal? We also provide examples of the players past and present that we believe boast some of the deepest bags in basketball history.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 48:27 — 33.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some thoughts on how challenging it can be to accurately rate a fading star in basketball video games.

Since they became a visible part of basketball video games, player ratings have been a contentious issue. We’ve rarely been completely happy with the ratings in the official rosters, sometimes for very good reasons; particularly when it comes to the historical players! Developers have also shared stories about players arguing about their ratings when they come in for motion capture or face scans. On a lighter note, when Hassan Whiteside returned to the NBA for the 2015 season and began turning in some good performances for the Heat, he joked about doing it to get his NBA 2K ratings up.

As someone who used to maintain current roster updates for NBA Live on PC, there were certainly ratings in the default rosters that I disagreed with. At the same time, I also sympathised with the producers who were responsible for those official rosters, because it’s impossible to please everyone. We all have different views on how certain players should be rated – with bias often being a factor – as well as how player ratings should be handled across the board. All roster makers end up settling on a system of some kind, me included. Even so, some players have proved particularly challenging to rate over the years, and a fading star will generally be among the most difficult.

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We’ve seen some excellent mod releases for NBA 2K16 from Nba2kfadeaway recently, but this time he’s sharing a handy tool: a Basket Exporter Tool for tinkering with court models. Check it out at the link below!

Nba2kfadeaway
Basket Exporter Tool for 2K16

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and Mod Releases bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

Get ready for more fantastic highlights from the basketball gaming community in the NLSC Top 10 Plays of the Week, curated by Dee! New and old games alike are featured in this celebration of spectacular moments on the virtual hardwood. To submit your clips, post them in this topic, send Dee a message, or hit him up on X.

A wild alley-oop from our NBA 2K9 Association, a re-creation of one of the top dunks of the 1998 season in ESPN NBA 2Night 2002, and a modded-in Anthony Edwards doing his best Spider-Man impression in NBA 2K16. That’s just a small sample of the spectacular moments you’ll find in this week’s NLSC Top 10 Plays! A total of six different basketball video games are providing poster dunks, ankle-breakers, big swats, and more, in another countdown that signals it’s time to hit the virtual hardwood. Let’s get to the action!

What was your favourite highlight this week? Sound off in the comments below, and once again, get in on the fun by sending us your best plays! Remember, as long as it’s a basketball game, it’s eligible for the countdown. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to us on YouTube for more basketball gaming videos.

Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five useful hacks we’ve been able to utilise in basketball video games.

Although “hacks” and “hacking” are terms that have come to be associated with acts that are malicious or unscrupulous uses of technology, they also refer to inelegant yet quick, creative, and effective solutions in programming. Indeed, Al Lowe – the creator of Leisure Suit Larry – described the method of using one background picture and four mostly transparent cells to create the bamboo maze in Leisure Suit Larry 3 as being his favourite hack. Ironically, this means that while many people disdain the term “life hacks”, it’s actually using “hack” in a similar context to software development!

To that point, modding involves hacks; not just the process of breaking into the game files and altering them, but cobbling together solutions utilising functionality that was intended for developer use, or in a way that was otherwise unintended. This list of the most useful hacks in basketball video games is a mixture of values we discovered we could change to mod or unlock content, and hidden or unadvertised functionality that we can make use of. To that end, we could certainly debate as to whether all of them strictly qualify as hacks, but there’s no doubt that they were useful! And so, without any further ado, here are five ways that we’ve been able to cleverly tinker with games.

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Mod releases for NBA 2K25 are certainly still a welcome sight in our community, and we have a new one today from wiscard_rush: namely, a comprehensive Draft Class Teams roster project. Check it out at the link below!

wiscard_rush
NBA Draft Class Years Roster Project (96-25)

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and Mod Releases bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at NBA Jam 99.

After Acclaim snatched the NBA Jam moniker away from Midway, they attempted to continue the series with NBA Jam Extreme. Although losing the iconic brand was naturally a blow, Midway nevertheless released their own superb follow-up to NBA Jam Tournament Edition in NBA Hangtime. To that point, while Acclaim had the name, Midway boasted the superior game. With that in mind, it’s perhaps no surprise that Acclaim sought to change up the formula with NBA Jam 99, moving away from an arcade style and adopting more of a sim or sim-arcade hybrid approach.

Of course, while that differentiated it from previous NBA Jam titles and Midway’s new arcade hoops games, it also placed NBA Jam 99 in direct competition with the NBA Live series. However, Acclaim didn’t completely abandon the series’ roots with NBA Jam 99, as it included an arcade mode. While true sim-arcade hybrid basketball games have their place and I’ve come to appreciate them, NBA Jam 99 wasn’t a good take on the concept. Indeed, it was proof that Midway deserved the name that they coined far more than Acclaim did. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #614 of the NLSC Podcast!

Who are the most dominant players when they’re controlled by the CPU in basketball video games? This week, we join the community in discussing some of the most unguardable players that we’ve encountered on the virtual hardwood over the years, at least when they’re in the hands of the AI. Whether it’s an issue with the engine, or their ratings are slightly overdone or completely inaccurate, these stars and role players alike have given us fits on the sticks. We also reflect on the frustration of not always being able to light it up with those same players ourselves, and mention a few players who haven’t been as dominant in video games they really should be.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:03:25 — 43.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some thoughts on how nostalgia is something special that we’re lucky to have, rather than being sad and pitiable.

Nostalgia has been getting a bad rap for quite a while now. Oh sure, there’s plenty of nostalgic communities and content online, as many of us love to reminisce. However, there has undoubtedly been a noticeable backlash to nostalgia as online demographics have shifted over the past decade or so. Beyond tired arguments about what was better – then or now – the discourse has been polluted by smug armchair psychoanalysis. If you’re nostalgic, or prefer to stick with something older, you must be hung up on the past, miserably chasing a moment in time that you’ll never get back.

Now, I can’t say that that doesn’t hold true for some people, though I’ll say it with far more sympathy and understanding than those who want to dump on the past to prop up the present! For many of us though, continuing to enjoy the classics – or at least looking back on them fondly – is neither depressing, nor preventing us from having new experiences. And so, the idea that nostalgia is a sad, delusional cry for help is infuriatingly condescending. Frankly, if we’ve made fond memories with our interests and passions that we can enthusiastically recall, then we’re extremely fortunate. If those things can still bring us joy, we’re even luckier. There’s nothing sad about that.

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It’s always nice to see new mod releases for NBA 2K17 after all these years, and we have one to share today. BattlePhenom has recently released a Nike KD4 All Star Galaxy shoe update for Kevin Durant, and you can find it at the link below.

BattlePhenom
Nike KD4 All Star Galaxy

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and Mod Releases bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

Get ready for more fantastic highlights from the basketball gaming community in the NLSC Top 10 Plays of the Week, curated by Dee! New and old games alike are featured in this celebration of spectacular moments on the virtual hardwood. To submit your clips, post them in this topic, send Dee a message, or hit him up on X.

The NLSC Top 10 Plays is back to its regular timeslot this week, ready to fire you up for a weekend on the virtual hardwood! I’d suggest it’ll be impossible not to jump on the sticks after watching this jaw-dropping array of aerial wizardry, slick passes, incredible ankle-breakers, and another wild game-winning shot. Three different basketball games are featured in the countdown, namely NBA 2K14, NBA Live 19, and NBA 2K26. While the rotation may be shorter this week, everyone is clearly having a blast with their game of choice. Let’s get to the action!

What was your favourite highlight this week? Sound off in the comments below, and once again, get in on the fun by sending us your best plays! Remember, as long as it’s a basketball game, it’s eligible for the countdown. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to us on YouTube for more basketball gaming videos.

Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five interactive areas that were featured in basketball video games before The Neighborhood (and The City).

I don’t enjoy feeling cynical about basketball video games, or any of my hobbies and interests for that matter. Some might argue that cynicism and experience go hand-in-hand – there’s a scene from the old Dilbert animated series that suggests as such – but I’d like to think that we’re not doomed to become Debbie Downers about our favourite things! With that being said, it’s impossible not to notice when game design is lacking in goodwill and incorporating greedy recurrent revenue mechanics, or is frustrating and problematic in some other way.

It’s why I’ve always had my reservations about The Neighborhood (and subsequently The City) in MyCAREER. In some ways it’s interesting and immersive to have an open world to explore, but as I’ve explained, it’s not necessarily a good fit for the genre. More to the point, once you look beyond the creativity of the concept, you can see how it pushes advertising and recurrent revenue mechanics on gamers, while also padding out playtime. It’s a shame that it’s so cynically corporate, because there was a time when interactive areas in basketball games were a fun idea. To that end, here are five interactive areas that preceded The Neighborhood that were definitely cool to see.

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Patch 4.0 is out now for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S version of NBA 2K26, with the PC patch set to be released this Friday in time for Season 4. As always, it should come through automatically as long as you’re online. If it doesn’t, try restarting your console or Steam client, or checking for updates manually.

Unlike the mysterious update back in December, we do actually have patch notes this time around. In addition to preparing NBA 2K26 for Season 4 in MyTEAM and MyCAREER, Patch 4.0 includes new RealVoice player interviews, likeness updates, and corrections to classic jerseys. There are also technical fixes for issues throughout the game modes, and a couple of PC-specific updates to improve performance.

You can find the full notes for Patch 4.0 below, as well as in the NBA 2K26 update history in our Wiki. Feel free to share any impressions in the comments, as well as join in the discussion here in the Forum!

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m going back to NBA Live 95 to trade players and create jersey swaps that represent future stints.

If you played either of the 16-bit versions of NBA Live 95 back in the day, you’ll know that roster customisation is extremely limited. We can only trade players in Season mode, and even then, only the five starters for each team are available to swap. This is because the game only includes portraits for the starters, so any trade that placed a bench player in the starting lineup would result in an inconsistency in the presentation. For the same reason, we can’t change our starters prior to the pre-game introductions, though we can actually pause and substitute them just before tip-off.

On the bright side, whenever we make trades involving the starters, their jerseys will be changed to reflect their new team. Whereas the PC version used (for the time) high resolution Media Day headshots and thus had static portraits, the 16-bit versions of NBA Live 95 placed player heads on an assortment of matching shoulders. Not only did this save space on the cartridge, but it facilitates jersey swaps whenever a trade is made. To that point, I’ve made jersey swaps in NBA Live 95 for the Super Nintendo to represent several notable future stints. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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