Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! The Friday Five is a feature that I post every Friday in which I give my thoughts on a topic that’s related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games, as well as the real NBA, and other areas of interest to our community. The feature is presented as either a list of five items, or in the form of a Top 5 countdown. This week’s Five is a list of five basketball video games where every player is able to dunk.
I realise the three-pointer is in vogue these days, but I’m all about a flashy dunk. In fact, I’m old enough to remember when the debate was between dazzling dunks and basketball bloopers! To be fair, it’s not as though the dunk has gone completely out of style. Dunks still make the highlight reels, and many gamers who play MyCAREER and its connected modes want a build that can throw it down just as well as stroke a three. Sure, it’s only two points like any other shot within the three-point arc, and analytics insists twos are bad, but many of us are still suckers for spectacular slams.
In real life, while it’s assumed that everyone who makes it to the NBA can probably dunk – even if it’s just a rim grazer – not everybody does. Smaller players who threw it down in college tend to dunk far less in the NBA, where there are bigger and stronger defenders crowding the paint. Sim games usually reflect this, with a combination of ratings and animation packages that ensure specific players will only ever perform layups. Arcade titles naturally take liberties with reality, but even a few sim-oriented games aren’t very strict about which players can slam it home. If dunks are your thing, here are five basketball video games where every player is able to throw it down.