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 Part 17 in an ongoing series looking at players who only appeared on certain teams in video games.
Many of the examples of players who only appeared on certain teams in games go back a number of years. There’s a reason for that, and it’s not just my love of retro basketball gaming (though yes, that is a factor!). With decades of basketball video games capturing a snapshot of the NBA when they were released, there have been tons of older examples to cover. On top of that, official roster updates were once uncommon, preserving a number of phantom stints. With active players who are potential examples, I obviously need to wait until their phantom stints are “official”.
However, there are indeed players who only appeared on certain teams in more recent video games too, and are safe examples to cover at this point. To that end, in Part 17 of this ongoing series, there are three players whose phantom stints are preserved in games that were released within the last five years. With that being said, the first two examples are much older, including one that I’ve somehow neglected to mention in this series until now, despite noting it in other features. Once again, I must shout out David L, as his research has been invaluable in compiling examples for this second run of articles about players who only appeared on certain teams in video games!