The Friday Five

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 players whose NBA careers ended abruptly.

Not all NBA players get to ride off into the sunset with the fanfare of a grand farewell tour. In fact, there have been perennial All-Stars and all-time greats who ended their NBA careers in rather unceremonious fashion. Of course, in many cases, age and injuries were still a factor. As such, while they may have deserved a better, more respectful send-off, they’d still enjoyed fairly long careers, and were now at a point where they couldn’t quite go anymore. At the very least, it’s not as puzzling as when a younger, healthier player is seemingly pushed out of the league well before their time.

Obviously, controversy is sometimes a factor. Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf – an outstanding shooter who would thrive in today’s NBA – was effectively blackballed for his socio-political beliefs and demonstrations. Michael Ray Richardson declined to return to the NBA after his lifetime ban for substance abuse was lifted, maintaining that he’d been treated unfairly considering the leniency shown to players such as Chris Mullin. The five players I’m covering in this article may not have seen their NBA careers ended abruptly by controversies such as those, but they nevertheless went from mainstays in the league to outsiders in a blink; even as they remained both healthy and capable.

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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 reasons why Roster Players weren’t an entirely bad thing back in the day, and still have their charm now.

Even if you didn’t grow up playing basketball video games in the 90s, chances are you’ve heard the legend of Roster Players. The moniker – which comes from the naming convention they used in several games – refers to the fictional placeholder players that stood in for anyone who wasn’t licensed to appear. The name “Roster Player” is practically synonymous with Michael Jordan, since he was frequently replaced by such a player in games released during the mid to late 90s. Charles Barkley was another regular Roster Player, at least up until his final few seasons.

Big names and role players alike have been replaced by stand-ins when licensing issues prevent them from appearing. Ironically, while it’s often looked upon as a phenomenon associated with early basketball video games, it’s still happening today with NBA 2K’s classic teams and MyNBA Eras rosters. It’s hardly ideal – then or now – and so given the choice, we’d all rather see the real players in the game. However, while Roster Players may not be the most desirable sight to behold when we fire up a game, they’re not all bad! Here are five reasons why Roster Players weren’t (and still aren’t) a complete abomination, and indeed, can actually be fun in their own way.

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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 another list of five times that basketball video games messed up player appearances.

Considering that there have been several topics that I’ve turned into a multi-part series in The Friday Five in recent years, it’s surprising that I haven’t covered this one since 2018! However, a new batch of examples have presented themselves, so it’s time to talk about five more times that basketball games messed up player appearances. As I noted in the previous article, there are times when we’re a bit harsh in our criticism of video game aesthetics. Modders aren’t under the same restrictions as the developers, from deadlines to properly-licensed assets.

At the same time, there have been some surprisingly sloppy errors and efforts in basketball video games throughout the years, resulting in player appearances being messed up. Whether it’s a poor likeness, mismatched textures, or players having the wrong appearance entirely, they stick out like a sore thumb. Of course, some of these mistakes can fly under the radar if you’re not familiar with the players, or you never played the games in question. To that point, thanks to an expanded collection, an open-minded approach to retro gaming, and a tip on X, these five examples include some that I definitely wouldn’t have thought of in 2018. Let’s tip things off with…

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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 another list of five brief stints that were captured for posterity in video games.

Yes, it’s time for another Five that underscores once again that basketball video games end up being interactive almanacs! Last June, I recalled five brief stints that made it into the official rosters of basketball video games, from Rasheed Wallace’s unlikely appearance as an Atlanta Hawk in NBA Ballers to Anfernee Hardaway’s frequently forgotten comeback with the Miami Heat, as seen in NBA 2K7. A combination of late releases, revised editions, and official roster updates have preserved a number of these odd stints for players that we generally picture in a different uniform.

To that point, if we’ve spent a considerable amount of time with a game – especially in the days before official roster updates – we may come to think of these brief stints as lasting much longer than they actually did. That’s definitely the case for me when it comes to at least one of the examples that I’m covering here today. As for the other brief stints, while I do remember them and that they didn’t last long, it’s still thanks to unusual and fortuitous circumstances that they were preserved in the official rosters of video games. Long-time readers will know how much I love trivia like this, so let’s not delay any further; here are five more brief stints that were captured in games!

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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 changes that NBA teams have made to their branding that I’ve found quite baffling.

Look, I’ll put my hand up and admit to being a creature of habit that sometimes needs to be pushed – or indeed, dragged kicking and screaming – through the proverbial door of change. With that being said, I do still believe that change for change’s sake opens the door to bad ideas. To quote a classic pearl of colloquial wisdom, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. That certainly applies to a number of branding changes that NBA teams have made over the years. As a Chicago Bulls fan, I’m rather lucky that they’ve kept their iconic look decades beyond the championship years!

Although I’m not as personally affected by changes that other NBA teams make to their branding, I still have my likes and dislikes when it comes to what I see when they’re on the court. It’s understandable that teams want to freshen up their look, and admittedly, there have been many times when I’ve really liked the new designs that a franchise has introduced. Other times however, an NBA team will make changes to their branding that are simply baffling, either because it feels like such a step down, or the team didn’t seem that committed to the design because they change it again soon afterwards. With that being said, here are five baffling NBA team branding changes!

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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 moments in modding that are extremely satisfying.

Needless to say, modding has long been a major part of what we do here at the NLSC. For nearly thirty years now, talented people in our community have added missing content, fixed and updated content that was in the games by default, made unofficial fixes for bugs and other issues, and created brand new experiences with amazing total conversions. These efforts have not only enhanced the virtual hardwood experience for a lot of people, but also been creatively satisfying for those who enjoy tinkering with video games. Indeed, some people mod the games more than they play them!

Naturally, modding can also be a frustrating and tedious activity. From repetitive data entry to tasks that are complex to complete and all too easy to mess up, certain parts of modding aren’t as enjoyable as others. The fun steps, breakthroughs, and technical triumphs along the way, are what keep modders going until the job is complete. As someone who has both successfully released major projects and unfortunately had others fall through for a variety of reasons, I’m quite familiar with some of the most satisfying moments in modding. To that end, here are five that I’ve experienced while messing around with some of my favourite basketball games throughout the years.

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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 basketball games that you may not be aware that we can mod.

When we were founded as the NBA Live Series Center all the way back in 1996, the focus of our modding community was naturally the NBA Live releases on PC. When NBA Live went console-only and NBA 2K came to PC, we turned our focus to that series. Basically, we’ve primarily focused on the brand leader that’s releasing on PC, but we’ve long been open to supporting mods for other games as well. There haven’t been as many of those releases – at least not around these parts – but modders have branched out into other titles, such as johnz1’s efforts for NBA Jam: On Fire Edition.

To that point though, there have been some other hoops titles over the years that can be modded. A focus on NBA Live and NBA 2K, and the general lack of popularity of these games, are the main reasons we haven’t seen fit to mod them. Nevertheless, they can be tinkered with to some extent, even if it’s simply renaming players. With more and more enthusiasm for retro basketball gaming and modding nowadays, there might be niche interest in furnishing them with a simple mod or two. Even if there isn’t quite enough interest to warrant any major public releases, the knowledge that we can mod these overlooked games could always spice up our retro basketball gaming sessions!

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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 modding projects that I unfortunately had to abandon before they were finished.

When I was reading Felicia Day’s first book several years ago, she offered up the advice to never throw away anything you’ve written. By all means start over or try to re-work what you’ve drafted, but don’t just delete the original file. After all, you may want to return to it as a starting point, or at least salvage a part of it. I’ve kept that in mind when writing articles since then. Whether it’s keeping the first draft while I take another run at a topic, or saving what I’ve written when I remove an example from a Friday Five list so that it can potentially be used elsewhere, I’m hesitant to scrap work.

The same goes for modding projects. Even an abandoned roster potentially has some data or art assets that can be recycled in another mod, so there’s value in holding onto both. Furthermore, while projects can hit a brick wall, there’s always a chance that you can persevere, perhaps by changing direction or scaling down the project. With that being said, there comes a time where you need to cut your losses rather than falling victim to the sunk cost fallacy. I’ve certainly done that with a few modding projects over the years! It’s never a good feeling, but it’s far wiser than wasting time on an ultimately doomed idea. Here are five of my modding projects that fell through.

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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 basketball video games that I wish we could mod.

It’s important that we don’t dismiss modding ideas too readily, such as the possibility of tinkering with specific games. We wouldn’t have all of the amazing projects that our community has created if we gave up too easily! At the same time, we do need to be realistic. If nothing else, it’s fine to acknowledge that something isn’t possible by any means that we currently know of, and that figuring out how to mod a particular game is proving to be exceptionally difficult. Some ideas are pipe dreams, and it’s far less likely that we’ll be able to mod certain games.

Of course, as unlikely as it may be, we can still dream! Whether it’s a great game that could be made even better with mods, or a mediocre release that might be a bit more fun with some custom content, there are titles that I wish we could mess around with. Indeed, there’s a part of me holding out hope that someone might develop ways to mod the games that I’ll be discussing here today; especially the ones that are all-time favourites. Considering what johnz1 has done with the PlayStation 3 version of NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, we shouldn’t completely rule out mods for a couple of these games. For now though, I wish we could mod these games more in-depth, or at all.

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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 pet peeves I have when it comes to NBA branding.

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from changing up the design and layout of the NLSC from time to time in the twenty three years that I’ve been running the site, it’s that you can’t please everyone. No matter what improvements there might be, there’ll always be a couple of comments demanding that we change it back. As frustrating as that is to read, I get it. After all, aversion to change is common, and I’m as guilty of it as anyone else! New aesthetics can be jarring and may take time to get used to, no matter how nice they are, or how much a fresh look was needed.

This is something to keep in mind whenever NBA teams introduce new branding. Of course, sometimes those new designs leave us wondering what the people responsible were thinking! We also tend to get attached to certain logos and jerseys – especially the ones that were in use when we first got into the NBA – so personal preference will lead us to balk at certain branding. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re right or wrong, but we are all entitled to our opinions on the looks that teams sport. To that point, I definitely have some pet peeves when it comes to NBA branding past and present. These are the five that spring to mind as the ones that I find the most irritating.

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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 real events that I wish had happened during the course of my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER.

My offline MyCAREER in NBA 2K14 continues to be a blast. I’m sure that much is obvious from the fact that I’m in my sixth season, to say nothing of how often I’ve talked about it in articles and on our podcast! In any case, it’s been a fun ride so far, and I’m eager to continue the journey. For the most part, there isn’t much that I’d change. Sure, it’s unfortunate that my bid to go 82-0 was thwarted once again in Year 6, but the elusiveness of that goal is now part of the story. As much as I like realism, the unlikely results and fictional moves have made my virtual career enjoyable.

Of course, it’s also been entertaining to see my game mimic real life in unexpected ways, such as LeBron James joining the Los Angeles Lakers (albeit much earlier in this case). This combination of real life and fiction forms the alternate realities that make multi-season play in career and franchise modes so fun and rewarding. All the same, I’d be lying if I said there weren’t any real events that I would’ve liked to have seen come to pass in my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER. Again, I do enjoy the fictional and unusual outcomes as well, but both the on-court experience and the narrative of my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER would’ve benefitted from reflecting a handful of real events.

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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 comments that annoy content creators.

Oh, a topic like this always feels risky! It’s impossible not to sound arrogant or ungrateful, blaming the audience instead of looking inwards. Indeed, that’s the kind of attitude that I’ve readily pushed back against when developers have tried to lay blame at the feet of gamers, rather than acknowledge issues in their titles. When it comes to encouraging engagement, there are many ways that content creators can err, from subpar work to how they speak of and to their readers, viewers, and listeners. If you put creative work out into the world, you’re going to run the gamut of responses to it.

Mind you, just as some content creators have a disgracefully disdainful view of their audience – particularly anyone who dares question their opinions – people jumping in the comments can forget that there’s a human being behind what they consume (well, unless it’s AI-generated, but that’s a gripe for another time). While it’s great to receive comments and know that your work is being seen and appreciated, there are definitely some discouraging responses and needlessly unpleasant interactions. You might say that that’s just the risk we take with any creative endeavour, but if I can be frank here today, there are some comments that content creators like me would prefer not to see.

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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 erroneous ratings that were based on reputation and narratives, rather than accurate analysis.

Creating roster updates for PC releases of NBA Live for so many years has made me critical of, but also sympathetic to, the producers who maintain official rosters. On one hand, I know the importance of accurately rating players and always strived to do my best in that regard, while also relying on the watchful eyes of the community to provide helpful feedback. To that end, I also understand how easy it is to overlook certain ratings when there are over 400 active players to keep track of. Mistakes will slip through, or a much-needed update will be forgotten.

With that being said, there are times when erroneous ratings aren’t actually a matter of oversight, but rather by design. There are a few reasons for this. As Dee has pointed out, a lack of care with copy and paste jobs, and myopic reliance on spreadsheets and formulas, has led to laughable ratings and tendencies. Other times, these erroneous ratings are reputation-based, as an unsubstantiated narrative about a player is accepted as common knowledge. However, it’s not always a bad thing, as a player’s skill may demand ratings that their stats may not, justifying some padding. These five examples represent the good, the bad, and the lazy, of erroneous reputation-based ratings!

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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 times that we were able to alter the frontend in basketball video games without modding them.

You know, sometimes we focus so much on searching for the video game secrets that we wish were real, that we forget to enjoy the fun things we can actually do. Take Super Mario 64, for example. So many people have painstakingly collected every coin in every level, and done everything else they can to unlock Luigi; an endeavour that’s doomed to fail, because it’s been proven that he’s not in the game. Something that is in the game however is the ability to stretch Mario’s face on the title screen into goofy poses and expressions. Silly as it may be, I’ve laughed uproariously while doing that!

After all, there’s something satisfying about being able to mess around with a game’s presentation or frontend, without actually having to externally mod any files. It may not have a practical use, but it doesn’t need one. It’s still a novelty, something fun to do as you’re preparing to jump into gameplay, or you’ve just finished up a session. I realise that doesn’t gel with the idea of competitive play, grinding for rewards, and taking video games super seriously, but that’s not all that gaming is about. Whether it’s a prominent option that you can select, or a minor detail that you can manipulate, there’s joy in having the ability to alter the frontend in various basketball video games.

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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 another list of five stints that never officially appeared in basketball video games.

We’ve reached Part 4 in what has become a series about players who had stints that never had any official representation on the virtual hardwood. In other words, while those stints were tangible in real life and may have been included in some unofficial, community-made roster updates, they were never captured in the default rosters of any video games, or in any official roster updates they may have received. Needless to say, this was far more common in the days before developers actually released official roster updates, even for games that came out on PC!

For Part 4, I’m changing things up a little with the theme. Specifically, not only do these players have stints that don’t appear in any games, but the players themselves are also completely absent from games set in those seasons. Therefore, if we want to update the rosters and represent those stints – wherever possible – we need to create those players. That’s what I’ve done in order to provide screenshots for all of the players, with the exception of…well, I’ll get to that! There’s no mystery as to why these players are missing – none of them were signed when the rosters were being finalised – but nevertheless, it’s a shame that these stints never appeared in any games.

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