Monday Tip-Off: Tinkering With Rosters

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 talking about how I enjoy tinkering with rosters.

I know I’ve said it many times before, but it’s been an absolute joy to change up my basketball gaming habits in recent years. Because I’m no longer forcing myself to play the newest game even if I don’t enjoy it, I’ve also broken the habit of grinding away in MyCAREER year after year. I’m also not beholden to any MyTEAM Agendas, and I’m avoiding the online scene. Stepping away from those modes and leaning towards retro gaming has created time for other activities on the virtual hardwood, and that’s made basketball gaming as fun as it’s ever been for me.

Obviously, this includes playing into my seventh year of an NBA 2K14 MyCAREER, and at long last returning to franchise gaming; solo in NBA Live 16, and co-op with Dee in NBA 2K9. I’ve also played through 24/7 mode in NBA 2K6 and NBA 2K7, and hit The Streets in NBA Live 18 and NBA Live 19. Something that I’ve really had fun with however is just playing an assortment of exhibition games in titles that I’ve been drawn to. That in turn has led to me tinkering with the rosters of various games. Although that can lead to more in-depth projects that I’ll release publicly – such as my minimalist 2005 roster for NBA 2K6 – I’ve had a blast just casually editing rosters.

Retro basketball gaming has allowed me to indulge the “interactive almanac” aspect of old titles. These walks down memory lane have not only led me to discover some new old favourites, but also develop a greater appreciation for certain teams in bygone eras. For example, between the Chicago Bulls signing Ben Wallace and NBA Live 07 being a disappointment, 2007 wasn’t my favourite campaign. Thanks to NBA 2K7, I’ve had a much better on-court experience with a handful of fun teams from that year, inspiring nostalgia that I didn’t know I had! Similarly, while I love NBA Live 06 and enjoyed the 2006 season a lot more, NBA 2K6 was a fresh way to revisit that season.

Dusting off those games and playing with the original lineups has been awesome, but sometimes you feel like mixing it up. It’s why we’ve seen so many comprehensive retro season rosters, current season updates, and other roster projects for games that the community has really enjoyed. Those mods do take a while to create though, and although they’re worth the time and effort, that’s not conducive to quickly jumping into a game with custom rosters. This is where minimalist modding comes in. By making use of the players that are available by default, as well as any retro jerseys at our disposal, it needn’t take too long to set up and play some historical showdowns.

This became a part of my retro basketball gaming during my kick with NBA Live 06 for Xbox 360. Quite randomly, I was struck by the urge to tinker with the rosters and capture screenshots of players in their old jerseys. This led to an attempt to create a makeshift minimalist classic team roster; an idea that unfortunately fell through due to a weird bug corrupting a few of the players. I didn’t abandon the idea entirely though, so when I moved on to NBA 2K6, I gave it another shot. Thanks to the inclusion of historical players and classic jerseys, I was able to set up even more scenarios that had some measure of authenticity when I put those retro teams on the virtual hardwood.

It became a challenge to discover how many retro teams I could assemble without creating any players, and place in an appropriate throwback uniform. The result was several fun matchups, and a greater appreciation for exhibition play. On top of that, it scratched the itch to mod without having to commit to a huge project with tons to do and the expectation of a public release. In other words, the fun parts of roster modding without any of the pressure! Once again, these efforts did actually lead to some more in-depth roster projects for NBA 2K6, but even when I moved on to other games, the idea of creating minimalist classic teams – and current lineups – stuck in my mind.

Indeed, as NBA Live 10 became my new retro kick, tinkering with the rosters became a key part of Parsec sessions with Dee, and playing the game solo. I became hooked on the idea of finding ways to put the recently-retired players in the Free Agents back in uniform, from makeshift classic teams to using NBA Live 10 to portray historical scenarios and trivia. The fun I had with both of these activities solidified them as part of my retro basketball gaming routine. Whenever I’m able to tinker with the rosters to create a playable scenario in an older title, those teams are going on the floor. If I can’t assemble viable lineups, I’m at least getting screenshots of players back in uniform!

It’s become a fun way to get the most out of a game I’m revisiting, not to mention an interesting challenge to push the limits of what can be done as far as customising its content. The Next Gen version of NBA 2K14 is a landmark release that has become an all-time favourite, but its extremely limited roster editing functionality was a major step back from the prior gen release. Adding content is impossible, and with only one custom roster slot and no in-game method of resetting the rosters, it’s not the easiest game to tinker with. Nevertheless, there’s enough content to change up the classic teams, facilitating additional historical matchups for my NBA 2K14 Retro Series.

Meanwhile, my Wayback Wednesday articles that used NBA 2K9 to portray strange and iconic stints are a great example of just having fun tinkering with the rosters to snap some historical screenshots. Granted, it ended up being content, but the funny thing is that I didn’t plan on either of those features until after I’d captured those shots of Legends in their famous and not-so-famous jerseys! I was just interested to see how many scenarios I could set up using the historical content in NBA 2K9. Sure, I figured that I’d use those screenshots for content in some way at some point, but the original reason they came about is because I just felt like tinkering with NBA 2K9’s rosters!

That underscores the approach I’m taking with my basketball gaming nowadays. No matter if it’s a franchise or career mode save, an exhibition game, or modding, I’m sticking with what’s fun. If it’s not enjoyable, I’m not going to force myself to do it out of an obligation to create content, or because of anyone else’s opinion of which games I should or shouldn’t be playing. I enjoy revisiting basketball games, both good and bad, and finding new ways to have fun with them. Whether it’s making them a part of my rotation (either briefly or more permanently), playing a couple of quick games, completing unfinished business, or yes, tinkering with the rosters, it’s been rewarding.

Needless to say, when it comes to creating interesting scenarios, I tend to be drawn to the games that are both fun to play and provide sufficient content and customisation options. With that being said, there is a tantalising challenge when it comes to games that aren’t as flexible. The only way to customise the rosters in NBA Live 14, 15, and 16 is to use Dynasty mode, and since you can only control one team, there’s not much that you can do in a single save file before you need to start over fresh. There’s also no way to edit jersey numbers, severely limiting the scenarios that you can accurately portray. In short, they’re not ideal games for screenshots that require custom rosters.

For that very reason though, I’ve been inspired to do my best to set up historical and fictional scenarios in those games; sometimes for the sake of an article, but also for my own amusement. To that point, not everything we do with basketball games needs to have a greater purpose, whether it’s on the court or tinkering with the rosters. Don’t get me wrong. I love getting hooked on modes and vying for virtual championships, and I’ve also enjoyed roster modding over the years. I wouldn’t want to lose the depth we now have. At the same time, between modes and live service content, just messing around and doing fun, silly things in basketball video games has become a lost art.

Some of the other tinkering I do with rosters while retro basketball gaming isn’t as creative, but it still enhances the experience for me. I’ve updated the rosters accurate as of the end of the season in a handful of titles that have made their way into my rotation. They’re minimalist updates with no missing players added, and in most cases, no changes to the ratings. They’re not meant to be comprehensive updates intended for public release, though as with my 2005 rosters for NBA 2K6, that may sometimes happen. For the most part though, they’re just for personal use; a quick update that allows me to play an old game with some of the moves from that year.

There’s so much nostalgia in that for me! On top of revisiting an old game and seeing those rosters from bygone seasons, I’m consulting Basketball Reference to spruce up an interactive almanac in lieu of an official update that’s either long gone, or never existed. Not only that, but updating a game for my own use with only the in-game customisation features to work with takes me back to what I was doing with NBA Live 96 PC in 1996, before I discovered the NLSC and the modding scene. I’d say that most of us had the same idea before we knew about mods: update our favourite game as best we could for the current season and beyond, so that it felt less outdated.

Diving into a game’s customisation features is also a vital part of producing detailed retrospectives. It’s been interesting to discover how various games have handled roster editing – if indeed they provide it – and how they’ve differed from the NBA Live titles I grew up with. Some games have surprised me with options that NBA Live lacked, though others have badly erred by trying to put their own spin on some of the basic functions. I’ll admit to some bias here, as growing up with those classic NBA Live games naturally shaped my preferences. Mind you, NBA Live did get a lot of things right at its peak, so other games would fall short when they didn’t follow its example.

Still, it’s fascinating to see what other series provided as far as roster customisation, and what can and can’t be done with it. For the most part, it’s given me a much greater appreciation for the depth and ease-of-use of NBA Live’s roster editing features over the years, though occasionally I’ll stumble across a cool idea that I wish NBA Live had. Also, even if those other games would’ve been better served taking cues from NBA Live, there have been some creative ideas that looked cool in the menus or tried to be more efficient. Sometimes it’s a case of poor execution rather than the concept being bad, but in any case, I’m tinkering with the rosters in those games as best I can!

As I said though, it’s not just about research and content creation. That’s certainly one of the main reasons I’ll mess around with rosters, and sometimes ideas for content will serendipitously come to mind while I’m doing so. However, even after I’ve finished a retrospective or another feature that involves customising a game’s roster, as long as that game remains in my rotation, I’m going to tinker with it! I realise it may seem strange to settle for makeshift scenarios when mods and even the default content can provide more authentic experiences. There’s great satisfaction in minimalist modding though, and quickly setting up those scenarios in a game you’re currently hooked on.

Again, there are times when casual tinkering turns into a bigger project. Scratching an itch can end up being a warm-up to tackling a more ambitious idea, exploring whether a certain mod would be viable and doing some preliminary work in the event that it is. If nothing else though, tinkering with rosters has injected more fun into my basketball gaming. Whether that customisation sets up some actual games or I’m just capturing screenshots, I’ve enjoyed the creativity and the multiple layers of nostalgia. And so, if a game captures my interest and it has roster editing, you can be sure that I’ll exhaust every possibility to set up some classic showdowns and depictions of NBA history.