NBA 2K

As you may know, Dee and I are consistently uploading highlights from our basketball gaming sessions to the NLSC YouTube channel, often featuring an assortment of NBA Live and NBA 2K titles. To that end, here’s an opportunity to catch up on what we’ve been playing recently!

Dee and his brother have been fixing up a Kobe Era roster for NBA 2K25, and as you’d expect, they’ve been testing out the teams as they complete them. This resulted in an excellent showdown between the 2003 Celtics and Knicks, which demonstrates what the game is capable of with proper ratings and tendencies for the historical players.

You may have heard us reflecting on our sessions with various NBA Live games in Episodes #566 and #568 of the NLSC Podcast. In case you haven’t caught those highlights yet, you can check out co-op games featuring the 76ers vs. Magic in NBA Live 2005, Bucks vs. Kings in NBA Live 16, and Nuggets vs. Magic in NBA Live 10. Also be sure to catch up on those podcasts if you haven’t tuned in yet!

My solo sessions included a game of NBA Live 95 for Super Nintendo, in which I took control of the young Orlando Magic against a Los Angeles Clippers team featuring a couple of out-of-place (and out-of-patience!) veterans. I’ve also posted a new entry in the NBA 2K14 Retro Series, which flashes back to the 1998 NBA Finals between the Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz. As an aside, I’ve also finally gotten around to posting my video retrospective of NBA Street Homecourt.

Check out all of those NBA Live and NBA 2K highlights (and the NBA Street Homecourt retrospective) below, and make sure that you’re subscribed to the NLSC YouTube channel! As always, Dee and I are open to suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play, so feel free to hit us up. Stay tuned for more basketball gaming content, including video essays, highlight reels, and the weekly Top 10 Plays!

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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 the lines between Triple-A gaming and mobile gaming have well and truly become blurred.

We’re living in the age of hot takes, clickbait, and extreme opinions. With that being said, as much as algorithms may not reward it, I prefer to steer clear of hyperbole and reactionary viewpoints in my content. To that end, if I express a strong and potentially controversial opinion, it’s because I mean it. I don’t want to devalue adjectives, be they positive or negative. If you call every new release the best, or frequently declare games to be garbage without further explanation, then eventually you undermine your credibility. Well, your credibility should be in question, anyway!

Mind you, sometimes harsh, unvarnished criticisms that may seem like hyperbolic insults are in fact fair and accurate. A good example is the assertion that Triple-A games are becoming more and more like mobile titles. There’s plenty of evidence that the suits at major studios have taken notes on mobile gaming’s ability to milk gamers for recurrent revenue, and pushed for those mechanics to be incorporated into console and PC games. As such, it hasn’t gone unnoticed how games like NBA 2K now have features and economies akin to free-to-play titles. Recently, I had an experience that made it clear just how blurred the lines are between Triple-A and mobile gaming.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #567 of the NLSC Podcast!

At the suggestion of one of our listeners, this week we’re breaking out the proverbial crystal ball to gaze into the future, and discuss what we think NBA 2K – and video games in general, for that matter – will be like in five years. This includes our expectations for innovations in gameplay, graphics, and modes, as well as fairness to gamers and the possibility that NBA 2K will finally have competition again at some point, be it NBA Live or another title. We also touch on the idea that consoles will be replaced by a Netflix-like streaming service for games, VR, and some other predictions regarding the future of gaming.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 36:46 — 25.6MB)

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 the ups and downs of the early stages of MyCAREER.

It’s been an interesting, but at times frustrating, journey for career modes in NBA 2K. As popular as franchise modes became after being introduced in the early 2000s, there was undeniable interest in a similar experience from the perspective of a single player. Being an RPG style of mode, as My Player evolved into MyCAREER, it began to incorporate cinematic stories. These days, many gamers see the traditional/NBA side of MyCAREER as a means to an end; a way to grind and level up their MyPLAYER avatar for the online scene. Of course, others still enjoy the NBA career experience.

Something that has remained fairly constant, however, is that it’s a long way to the top. Sure, the grind is worse now, in no small part because it encourages paying for quicker upgrades, and boosting Take-Two’s recurrent revenue. Even if you’re willing to pay to skip the grind, it costs more than before. I’ve talked about that many times, and that isn’t really what this article is about, but it does bear acknowledging. In any case, while there are issues with pushy microtransactions, and occasionally a story that doesn’t match up with our starting ratings, the early stages of MyCAREER are about a raw prospect’s journey to success. As tough as it is, it can also be quite fun.

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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 an attempt at crafting a Next Gen NBA’s Greatest mode in a future NBA 2K.

Although the original Jordan Challenge was the catalyst for a new era of historical content in NBA 2K, NBA’s Greatest was an innovative follow-up. Many of the classic teams that were added as part of NBA’s Greatest are still in the game today, setting a precedent for expanding the roster of retro squads to celebrate a variety of players. It wasn’t the first basketball game to feature throwback presentation – NBA Jam 2004 had utilised the concept almost a decade earlier – but NBA 2K12 did a spectacular job with it, ultimately paving the way for what we now have with MyNBA Eras.

As a game released in 2011, NBA’s Greatest celebrated fifteen of the most prominent players in league history to that point: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Julius Erving, Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Oscar Robertson, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Scottie Pippen, and Isiah Thomas. Needless to say, those players still deserve to be celebrated today, but after all these years, there’s a new class of all-time greats that a future NBA 2K could build a Next Gen NBA’s Greatest around. With that in mind, here are fifteen players that should be celebrated in such a mode, as well as my picks for their games.

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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 a few thoughts on what it would take to get me to play online again.

From NBA 2K16 through to NBA 2K20, I was invested in playing the connected experiences in MyCAREER. I wasn’t exclusively an online gamer of course, as I got great enjoyment out of playing the NBA side of MyCAREER too, including making it to the Hall of Fame in NBA 2K19. However, one of the reasons that I kept returning to the mode every year was to level up a MyPLAYER so that I could join the rest of NLSC THRILLHO for some online games. As the grind became more of a chore and the rest of the crew’s enthusiasm waned, I too lost interest in MyCAREER.

Long gone are the days when I’d consider jumping into The Rec every night of the week, just to see what it was like! Indeed, outside of playing through the story in NBA 2K21 and occasionally jumping online, and a very brief return in NBA 2K23, I’ve stuck to the offline MyCAREER experience in NBA 2K14. Of course, it’s not just disinterest in the online scene that’s turned me off MyCAREER in recent years. From gameplay gripes to frustration with grinding and quests, I’m weary of the NBA side of the mode as well. Considering my willingness to change up my basketball gaming habits though, as we enter 2025, could anything persuade me to play online again?

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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 by envisioning a return to modding.

I’ve said it before, but even though I haven’t been regularly maintaining a roster update for over a decade and my modding output in general has been sporadic, the interest – indeed, the itch and the urge to mod – is still there. Lingering memories of burnout and the more finicky and frustrating aspects of modding don’t exactly help me to get motivated, but I also fondly recall the creative satisfaction of the hobby. It’s why I’ve dabbled here and there, without committing to any larger projects.

To that end, this isn’t some grand announcement of a huge return. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from other attempts at returning to modding over the past decade or so, it’s to avoid jumping the gun and announcing a big project that I can’t guarantee I’ll deliver on! At the same time, my casual dabbling with minimalist modding and other ideas has encouraged me to get more involved again, and even consider tinkering with NBA 2K25. I touched on this when I shared some of my roster mod philosophies, but as I envision a possible return to modding, it’s essential that I choose projects that appeal to my interests, not to mention suit my current habits on the virtual hardwood.

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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 the annual honeymoon phase that accompanies the release of every NBA 2K game.

NBA 2K25 will be out this Friday – or Wednesday, if you’ve pre-ordered for the Early Tip-Off – which means it won’t be long before we get our hands on this year’s release. It’s always an exciting time, as the community prepares for another year of basketball gaming. All of those offseason moves that created intriguing new lineups? We’ll get to see how they fare on the virtual hardwood! Although they’re the cause of the New Game Blues, the fresh start and clean slate in MyTEAM and MyCAREER can also be enticing, especially with the prospect of more content to come.

And of course, we’re eager to see whether all of the improvements that were hyped up during the preview season are as good as advertised. We shouldn’t expect perfection; beyond being an impossible standard in general, any Triple-A game that’s developed in the space of a year is going to have a bug or two. Even with all the pre-release QA testing, there are going to be glitches or gameplay quirks that aren’t discovered until a game is in the hands of the masses. It’s important to remember that, but at the same time, we shouldn’t ever pretend that everything’s perfect, and refuse to criticise a new game. Too many people forget this during the annual honeymoon phase for NBA 2K.

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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 taking a look back at the various iterations of 24/7 mode in NBA 2K.

There are many features, modes, and concepts in basketball video games that are older than we may recall. To that point, MyCAREER has been a staple of NBA 2K since its debut as My Player way back in NBA 2K10; a game released in 2009. For that matter, the story-driven approach to MyCAREER has been the standard for over ten years now, debuting in NBA 2K14 Next Gen and appearing in almost three times as many games as the original version of the mode. In short, a single player career mode is nothing new at this point.

However, the concept is even older than that! While we didn’t get a fully-fledged NBA-oriented career experience until 2009, earlier games did experiment with single player campaign modes. Indeed, NBA 2K branched out into this area very early on in the series, introducing 24/7 mode in ESPN NBA Basketball (aka NBA 2K4). It was relatively short-lived as it was phased out after NBA 2K7, but it stands as a creative concept that undoubtedly paved the way for modern career modes. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 a few thoughts on the lure of online team play.

I haven’t bothered putting any serious effort into levelling up a MyPLAYER since NBA 2K21 on PlayStation 5. As I’ve explained in detail before, I was fed up with the grind, and weary of the toxicity in The Rec and NBA 2K’s online scene in general. After revisiting some old favourites and giving other older releases a second chance, I realised just how much fun I was missing out on, and quit the grind. Changing my basketball gaming habits has been so refreshing, and it’s obviously given me new topics to discuss as well. I left online team play behind, and I haven’t looked back.

Well…sort of. Kenny, Leo, and I gave 3-v-3 Pro-Am and The Rec another try in NBA 2K23 on PlayStation 5, and for the first month, we actually had some fun sessions! Of course, by Season 2, the community had figured out the meta and the hardcore online gamers had levelled up their MyPLAYERs, at which point the lack of matchmaking kept throwing us in there with super serious, souped-up opponents. It wasn’t a tough decision to leave it all behind again, and honestly, NBA 2K23 dropped out of my rotation entirely not long afterwards. However, that brief return and fond memories of NBA 2K16 and NBA 2K17 demonstrate that there’s still a lure to online team play.

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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 things that should never cost VC to equip or use.

When we talk about what basketball video games should and shouldn’t do, it does pay to think about the business side of things. Granted, that shouldn’t be our concern as consumers, but as far as feasibility or the likelihood of certain ideas, it’s something we have to keep in mind. After all, “get rid of all microtransactions” would be a fantastic suggestion in my book, but it’s just not going to happen! Sadly, including freemium mechanics in Triple-A games has proven to be too profitable for companies to not do so if they can get away with it, so it’s not a realistic request or expectation.

With that being said, I’m ultimately always going to advocate for value for money, fairness to consumers, and a quality experience when it comes to basketball video games. Again, I’m going to tailor any suggestions based on what we know is highly unlikely or unrealistic, but I’m on the side of gamers, not the suits and billion dollar corporations. Unfortunately, there are too many people who excuse or even outright shill for recurrent revenue mechanics, which has emboldened NBA 2K to place more and more content behind VC paywalls. It’s done nothing to enhance the experience for us, so to that end, here are five things that we should never have to spend VC on.

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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 things that really should carry over year-to-year in NBA 2K.

Many years ago, I reflected on what I described as the New Game Blues. In short, when you’ve come to really enjoy a particular release in an annual basketball video game series, it can be tough to move on. The new game doesn’t feel as familiar and welcoming as the one you’ve been playing religiously for the past year. On top of that, all your progress is effectively gone, since it doesn’t carry over. Whether it’s a career mode game with a maxed-out avatar, an awesome squad in a card collecting mode, or a franchise mode game that’s five years in, it’s in the past now. Starting over is a pain!

Naturally, this has only gotten worse as the games have become greedier and pushier about microtransactions. That annual loss of progress is even harsher now that we’re confronted with the pressure to spend above and beyond the cost of purchasing the games in order to really enjoy them to the fullest. Also, as the online scene in NBA 2K has becoming increasingly toxic and elitist, being mistaken for a newcomer is just as miserable as actually being one. It’s a long shot given the greed that permeates the Triple-A gaming scene nowadays, but if these five things carried over year-to-year in NBA 2K, it would generate a ton of goodwill, and greatly improve the experience.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #539 of the NLSC Podcast!

Several former EA developers are working on The Run: Got Next; a 3-on-3 basketball game that’s being described as a spiritual successor to NBA Street. This week, we join the community in sharing our thoughts on IGN’s early preview of the game, which suggests a direction that many basketball gamers who remember NBA Street fondly may not actually enjoy. To that end, we also discuss whether it sounds like the game is truly carrying on the legacy of the iconic series, especially after revisiting NBA Street Vol. 2 over Parsec. We also react to a New York Times article that called out the predatory practices in 2K Sports and EA Sports titles, an issue that we’re certainly passionate about.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:06:51 — 46.3MB)

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!

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #538 of the NLSC Podcast!

As we wait for the NBA 2K25 preview season to kick into high gear, we have another PC basketball game to keep an eye on: Full Court Heroes, a retro-style 5-on-5 game in the vein of Basketball Classics. Since the demo is already available on Steam, we share a few thoughts on its gameplay, fictional teams, and planned modding capabilities, as well as what we want to see from the full version. We also recap a session in which we played NBA Live 2000 PC and NBA 2K for the Dreamcast back-to-back, leading us to compare the two games and reflect on the intertwined history of NBA Live and NBA 2K. Finally, in this week’s mailbag, we ask the community about double-dipping with NBA 2K25 on PC and console.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 55:05 — 38.2MB)

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 a look at how Terry Hanson is beginning to spawn a multiverse.

When you think about it, basketball video games create a multitude of realities; a multiverse, if you will. For example, from my gaming alone, the Chicago Bulls have won their seventh championship – and sometimes an eighth title as well – on several occasions and in different seasons. In my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER, I’m working on an alternate timeline spanning from the 2014 season through to today. With millions of people playing basketball video games, all manner of scenarios are happening on the virtual hardwood, repeating as new games come out and wipe the slate clean.

Technically speaking, Terry Hanson doesn’t have any “official” appearances in video games. After all, as a generated and thus fictional player, he’s not official to begin with! With that being said, he is functionally a part of the reality that has been created by my aforementioned NBA 2K14 MyCAREER, so that’s “officially” where he’s from. However, that’s not the only place that he shows up these days. My enthusiasm for this generated player – truly a Virtual Hardwood Legend – has ensured that from here on out, I’ll be doing my part in creating a Terry Hanson Multiverse. And so, I’d like to share with you how Top Floor Terry has leapt beyond his original game!

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