NLSC Your source for basketball video games.

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 community always brings the goods with their submissions for the NLSC Top 10 Plays, but this week’s countdown features some particularly wild highlights! You’ll see some crazy angles and a lot of distance on alley-oops, a putback dunk with flair, an emphatic block, and Steph Curry doing his thing in the clutch. Six different games are featured this week, ranging from NBA Live 95 all the way up to NBA 2K25. It’s the best way to get hyped for another weekend on the virtual hardwood, so 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 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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It’s been a while since we’ve seen new mod releases for NBA Live 2000, but we do have one today, courtesy of boxMAN29. He’s been working on an opening night roster, and the initial version is available to download at the link below. Also shout out to boxMAN29 for starting some fun topics and sharing retro gaming resources for both NBA Live and NBA 2K in the Forum. It’s great to see such passion for revisiting old favourites!

boxMAN29
1999-00 Start of Season Rosters

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 the selection of retro jerseys in NBA Live 10.

Some basketball gamers have declared NBA Live 10 to be the best game in the NBA Live series. While I’ve definitely come to enjoy it a lot more over the years and would agree that it’s the last really good release in the series, I still give the nod to NBA Live 06 PC as the best all-around hoops sim from EA Sports. With that being said, NBA Live 10 is very solid and a lot of fun on the sticks, had some great ideas with adidas LIVE Run and Dynamic Season, and even brought back a standalone Playoffs mode. Unfortunately we lost the All-Star Weekend, but Dynasty mode was still there.

And of course, NBA Live 10 brought back retro jerseys! The lack of historical content during the seventh generation NBA Live titles was undoubtedly a knock on the series, especially since Legends and throwback uniforms were still being featured in the sixth generation versions and their PC ports. However, one of the goals for NBA Live 10 was to celebrate basketball culture; an initiative that not only led to the addition of The Hangar, but also the return of retro jerseys. It’s a part of the game that I really enjoy whenever I’m on an NBA Live 10 kick, so let’s take a look back…way back…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #577 of the NLSC Podcast!

While we’ll never get sick of basketball gaming, we’re taking a quick timeout from the virtual hardwood this week as we join the community in listing and discussing some of the other video games that are currently in our rotations. This includes reflecting on the aspects of those games that are keeping us hooked on them, while also noting some of the similarities to our basketball gaming habits. We also discuss finding new ways to play old favourites including self-imposed challenges and choosing different classes or character builds, and fondly recall the fun we had getting a small taste of some classic games thanks to shareware and demo discs back in the day.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:22:30 — 57.0MB)

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 advice to retro gamers, namely to always follow your nostalgia.

One of the best decisions that I’ve made for my basketball gaming habits in recent years – with a considerable assist from Dee, of course – is to break the monotonous cycle of grinding up a MyPLAYER every year in the latest game. Clearly, I’m not sick of the MyCAREER experience, as my ongoing game in NBA 2K14 proves. What I am tired of is being hurtled back to square one on an annual basis, in games that I’m just not enjoying as much as many of their predecessors. Realising that, and revisiting some old favourites both solo and co-op, has reignited my passion for retro gaming.

What’s interesting, however, is that I’m not only playing my all-time favourites. In fact, in tandem with expanding my collection of basketball video games, I’ve been seeking out titles that I haven’t played before, or didn’t have the best first impression of, to see if they find a place in my rotation. There are many factors that drive me to give a particular game a shot. Perhaps Dee and I played it, and I decided that I’d like to spend some more time with it solo. It might have a rare appearance of a Legend, or a unique mode. Beyond that though, my nostalgia for a particular style of gameplay, or a specific era in NBA history, is often what steers me towards my latest retro kick.

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V3.0 of Shamgod’s 2016 roster for NBA 2K14 PC is now available! The new release features updates to records, a new global, fixed shoe assignments, jersey corrections, and other enhancements. The key features of V3.0 are as follows:

• All player Career Highs have been updated
• Awards have been updated
• Gamedata updated; Referee uniforms updated to look accurate
• Retroswald13’s cheerleader pack updates the outfits that they wear
• John Holland and Willie Reed’s cyberfaces have been updated

Download the new version of the 2016 roster for NBA 2K14 here in the Forum! Shamgod has also provided a comprehensive changelog for V3.0, which you can find in this post. Shout out once again to Shamgod for all the great work on this project, as well as lending a hand with some logo updates for Paxson-for-3’s 1998 roster for NBA 2K11! It’s great to see the community collaborating and releasing fantastic retro roster projects free of charge in 2025.

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.

Dunks have taken a backseat the past couple of weeks, but the slam is definitely in vogue in the latest NLSC Top 10 Plays! As in real life, there are many spectacular ways to throw it down on the virtual hardwood, and the community has clearly been having a ton of fun taking it to the rim as of late. With that being said, you’ll also find another great clutch moment from the NBA Live 2001 Legends, whose competitive showdowns continue to be inspiring. Eight different games are featured this week, including an overlooked Genesis release, so 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 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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Today’s NBA 2K14 mod releases feature a new jersey update from Pep, specifically the 2025 Rising Stars uniforms. Pick it up at the link below!

Pep
NBA Nike Rising Stars 2025 Uniforms

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 the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 version of NBA 2K9.

I had to double-check that I hadn’t already covered NBA 2K9 in a previous Wayback Wednesday retrospective. It’s not that I won’t revisit games that I’ve already profiled if I have new thoughts to share, but if it is my second opinion, I want to acknowledge my previous take. As it happens, I specifically reflected on NBA 2K9 coming to PC, but it wasn’t a detailed retrospective. My only real commentary on the game itself was to say that it doesn’t hold up as well as its successors. Irrespective of how accurate or inaccurate that critique of NBA 2K9 is, it’s hardly an in-depth retrospective or review!

Since then, I’ve developed a greater appreciation for the games that came before NBA 2K13. NBA 2K6 and NBA 2K7 have even retroactively become a couple of my all-time favourite basketball games! However, as I’ve previously explained, I wasn’t as impressed with NBA 2K8. It felt like a misstep, a sentiment reflected in many of the contemporary reviews. In any case, I was due to revisit NBA 2K9 next, so it’s been in my rotation in anticipation of this retrospective. With that being said, does it hold up, and has it also become a retroactive favourite? Let’s take a look back…way back…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #576 of the NLSC Podcast!

Although we mostly play and primarily cover NBA and NCAA licensed basketball video games, there have certainly been some classic releases that lack their high profile branding, as well as real teams and players. This week, we join the community in recalling some of our all-time favourite unlicensed basketball video games. We also name a handful of favourites that only licensed one or two real players, starred fictional characters, or otherwise didn’t have anything to do with the NBA or NCAA. As we discuss, these games inspired us to use our imaginations, created many Virtual Hardwood Legends, and sometimes included impressive features and gameplay mechanics.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 53:42 — 37.2MB)

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 some reflections on developing more of an appreciation for MyCAREER stories over the years.

I’ll admit that as a creature of habit, I can be resistant to change. I’d like to think that I’ve grown in that regard. For example, I’m no longer the really picky eater I was as a kid! When it comes to basketball video games, I’ve come to enjoy a number of titles that left a poor first impression, and modes that I never thought I’d be interested in. What still bothers me though is change for change’s sake, or any changes where the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. I think we can all relate to the frustration of having something we really like being drastically changed in a way we didn’t want or ask for.

That brings me to MyCAREER, and the stories that the mode has featured since 2013. Originally, I had no interest in the mode. I was a franchise gamer, after all! However, just as I overcame picky eating habits by deciding to try new cuisine, I came to enjoy MyCAREER after giving it a proper shot in NBA 2K13. A year and a new generation of consoles later, the mode introduced a narrative-driven approach, and I felt that it took away from an experience that I was now enthusiastic about. As such, I’ve been critical of MyCAREER stories, yet also fascinated by them. Now that I’ve finished all of the stories up to NBA 2K20, I now appreciate what they’ve meant for the mode.

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Paxson-for-3’s 1998 roster for NBA 2K11 has been updated, and the new version is now available to download!

As previously noted, the mod was in need of some additional logo updates. Thanks to Shamgod and clutchcity1994-1995, those logos have now been properly updated for the 1998 season. A few jersey assignments have also been fixed, with all of the teams now using the appropriate 1998 uniforms by default.

You can download the 1998 roster for NBA 2K11 from this topic in the Forum. That’s also where you’ll find some previews of the project, as well as details on any future releases. In case you missed it, Paxson-for-3 has also released a 1997 roster; more information on that here.

Once again, shout out to Paxson-for-3 for spearheading these awesome retro roster projects, as well as Shamgod and clutchcity1994-1995 for their contributions to the latest version of the 1998 season mod! As I’ve said in previous bulletins, it’s great to see the classics still receiving love through some excellent mod releases. While we’ll always be committed to housing mods and providing other resources for new releases, we’re all about promoting retro gaming and modding as well. To that end, a reminder that we welcome discussion and mod releases for all basketball video games, new and old. In the meantime, be sure to check out these awesome rosters for NBA 2K11!

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 community continues to have a blast producing wild moments on the virtual hardwood, as this week’s NLSC Top 10 Plays demonstrates! A block party that turns into a bucket, a crazy shootout to end regulation, ridiculous buzzer beaters, perfectly-timed alley-oops, and devastating poster dunks, are all part of another spectacular countdown. As always, the variety extends beyond the array of highlights as eight different games are featured, from NBA Streel Vol. 2 all the way up to NBA 2K25. Without any further ado, 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.