Tag Archives: 1997

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 rosters that I’d like to make for NBA Live 06 PC.

Even though I haven’t been as active in the modding community as I was during the heyday of NBA Live on PC, the lure to tinker with the games I’m playing has always been there. Admittedly I haven’t been moved to mod recent NBA 2K games any more than I have been to play them, but should a future release capture my interest, I won’t rule out the possibility. For now though, just as I’ve gravitated towards retro gaming, I’m far more interested in creating mods for old favourites that find their way back into my rotation…or new old favourites, as the case may be.

One old favourite that I’d like to play more often and mod once again is NBA Live 06 PC. Although it was generally well-received in its day – and in my view, is the last great all-around release in the NBA Live series – that may sound like a strange choice. Compared to games such as NBA 2K13 and NBA 2K14, it doesn’t have the same significant following several years after its release. To that end, I accept that any rosters that I create for NBA Live 06 will be niche projects, and indeed likely largely for my own use. That doesn’t mean I can’t and shouldn’t create them, though! They’re worth considering at least, and to that point, here are five ideas that I have in mind.

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As you may have seen from a couple of previous bulletins, Paxson-for-3 has released 1997 and 1998 rosters for NBA 2K11 PC. He has continued to work on updates for both of those projects, and to that end, new versions of each are now available!

The 1997 roster now includes 57 additional faces, while 61 faces have been added to the 1998 roster for NBA 2K11. These updates come courtesy of clutchcity1994-1995, so shout out to him as well! A few updates and fixes have also been made to players in the 1997 mod.

For those who may be unaware, both rosters include season-accurate team branding. The appropriate jerseys have been assigned as the default home and away uniforms, so there’s no need to manually select them before games. In short, both mods are extremely detailed retro rosters, perfect for anyone who’d like to throw it back to a couple of iconic seasons in one of the best basketball video games of all-time.

Download the 1997 roster here, and pick up the 1998 mod here! Thanks go out once again to Paxson-for-3 for providing these classic season rosters for NBA 2K11. He’s indicated that he’s working on some other retro roster projects for the game, so be sure to stay tuned for further previews and releases!

At the beginning of this month, I posted a Monday Tip-Off mulling over the possibility of creating a 1996, 1997, or 1998 mod for one of my favourite games. As it turns out, Paxson-for-3 was doing more than just considering such possibilities, as he has released a new 1997 roster for NBA 2K11!

The rosters are accurate as of opening night, and all of the teams have their 1997 season jerseys. Faces are also included, with the players who were still active in 2011 featuring their appropriate throwback likenesses. Accessories and other roster details are impressively accurate, as the mod does a fantastic job of winding back the clock to 1997 in NBA 2K11.

Download the roster and check out some previews of the project here in the NLSC Forum! Paxson-for-3 did some excellent work with retro mods for NBA Live back in the day, and it’s awesome to see him return with a new project for one of the best NBA 2K releases. While we obviously support our modding community’s efforts to work on NBA 2K25 and future releases, we’re also advocates for the retro gaming and modding scene, so it’s great to see classic games still receiving mods. We welcome releases for basketball games new and old, so always, please feel free to make use of our file hosting facilities. In the meantime, enjoy this amazing mod for an outstanding game!

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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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 whether to create 1996, 1997, or 1998 season rosters, as I consider future modding projects.

As I’ve said before, in order to stand the best chance of completing any major roster projects that I attempt moving forward, I need to pick an idea that I’m invested in, for a game that I want to play. When it comes to the games that I’d most like to play and mod, NBA Live 06 PC is definitely one of the frontrunners. As far as roster projects, I’d prefer something nostalgic over a current season update. This includes an Ultimate Jordan roster, various classic team rosters, and if I can assemble the appropriate assets and viable placeholders, at least one complete retro season mod.

To that end, I have a few seasons in mind. My work with NBA 2K6 for Xbox 360 has demonstrated how 2006 season games can be effectively rolled back a few years, and such projects can be made even better on PC with all of the modding capabilities. I’ll always be drawn to the idea of bringing the 90s into a 21st century favourite though, but that raises the question of which year. Being a 90s kid and Chicago Bulls fan, the 1996, 1997, and 1998 seasons are all prime candidates when mulling the possibilities for retro rosters. However, even if I were to create all of them for NBA Live 06 PC or another game, I’d still need to pick one to start with. So: 1996, 1997, or 1998 rosters?

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #536 of the NLSC Podcast!

The NBA 2K League has been put on hiatus until 2025, an announcement that came as a surprise to both league players and everyone else involved. This week, we join the community in discussing how and why the NBA 2K League failed to meet some incredibly lofty expectations, despite the backing of the NBA. We also recap a game of NBA Live 10 in which we took on Argentina with Team USA, as well as an NBA 2K10 session in which we ran back a showdown between the Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz using the fantastic 1997 season mod. There’s also some fun trivia to share, along with a PSA to grab the digital version of NCAA Basketball 09: March Madness Edition from the Xbox Live Marketplace while you still can.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 50:42 — 35.2MB)

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!

Although Dee and I enjoy connecting to play a variety of basketball video games over Parsec, we’ve established some reliable favourites that we’ll always go back to. Two of those titles are NBA 2K10 and NBA Live 10, and to that end, Dee has uploaded highlights from our recent sessions with both games!

In our NBA 2K10 session, we played another game with the incredible 1997 season mod. Once again we were took control of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and the Chicago Bulls to face Karl Malone, John Stockton, Jeff Hornacek, and the Utah Jazz. It was an exciting game that went back and forth and right down to the wire, with back-to-back clutch plays leading to an epic victory. NBA 2K10 is a more a recent favourite of ours, but I know that we’ll connect on it again, especially with that awesome 1997 roster at our disposal.

Meanwhile, thanks to Parsec and RPCS3, NBA Live 10 has long been one of our favourite games to play together. With the 2024 Olympics looming, we were inspired to play with the FIBA teams, specifically taking on Argentina with Team USA. It was yet another reminder that NBA Live 10 was doing some great things, and could’ve set up a bright future for the series. Wistful What Ifs aside, it was a blast to play NBA Live 10 as always, and it produced some entertaining highlights.

We’ll be discussing those games on the next episode of the NLSC Podcast, coming out this Tuesday. In the meantime, check out both highlight reels below! As always, feel free to hit us up with any suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play, and be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content!

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #534 of the NLSC Podcast!

We had a blast this past week playing a co-op game of NBA 2K10 PC over Parsec, using a 1997 season roster. We reflect on how the game is an overlooked gem, and the brilliance of retro season mods in general. Indeed, it seems there’s more and more interest in revisiting classic games and memorable seasons with retro roster mods recently, and we’re all for it! To that end, this week we join the community in discussing what’s been drawing us to old favourites and classic seasons in the NBA. We also talk about the importance of appreciating history and note how video games play a role in that, as well as touch on the need to debunk ridiculous narratives such as the recent hit piece on Michael Jordan.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:10:38 — 48.9MB)

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!

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 roster updates for NBA Full Court Press.

While Microsoft’s NBA Inside Drive series was respectably popular in the early 2000s, many long-time gamers may forget about its predecessor, NBA Full Court Press. It’s understandable, of course. Its name didn’t spawn a series of titles like Inside Drive, Live, 2K, ShootOut, and so on, and it was also exclusive to PC. Additionally, although it has its strong points and it’s interesting to revisit it today, it didn’t have the best gameplay or most well-designed modes. I’d suggest that Microsoft made similar mistakes with NBA Inside Drive 2000, before the series took a big leap with 2002.

One of the interesting aspects of NBA Full Court Press is that it was a 1997 season title that featured 1996 season rosters. A few years earlier, it wouldn’t have been unusual for a game to launch without updated lineups and a new rookie crop, but that approach had fallen out of vogue by 1996. I’ve previously covered NBA Full Court Press with a retrospective back in 2018, but the issue of its outdated rosters deserves another look; especially because there were actually some official roster updates that I neglected to mention! Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 revisiting NBA Live 2002, and creating some makeshift 90s teams.

Minimalist modding has become a staple of my retro gaming. It’s a way to indulge nostalgia in multiple ways: the mechanics and aesthetics of my chosen game, the teams that I assemble, and the process of modding. I do also enjoy simply playing with the default rosters, or a roster update set in the same season as the game, for a more authentic step back in time. However, the creativity of minimalist modding so often steers me towards discovering what I can do with the content that’s available in any game that I’ve chosen to revisit.

In games such as NBA 2K6 and NBA Live 10, it’s difficult to go back to the 90s with any makeshift classic teams, at least without creating a bunch of players. After all, by that point, most the stars and role players who were active in the 90s had retired. Not all of the big names had signed on to be Legends around the time of NBA 2K6, and NBA Live 10 doesn’t have any historical teams or players at all. However, since NBA Live 2002 came out closer to the 90s and includes several stars from that decade, is it possible to cobble together some retro teams? Let’s take a look back…way back…

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