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 jerseys appearing only once in basketball video games.
We’re accustomed to seeing a wide variety of jerseys in the 5v5 sim titles. Ever since the introduction of retro uniforms and the jersey selection screen, we expect to have plenty of choices to outfit the team we’re controlling on the virtual hardwood. The variety has fluctuated throughout the years, and recently, NBA Live and NBA 2K have taken very different approaches. NBA Live only includes the selection of current jerseys and specific throwbacks that will be worn during a season, whereas NBA 2K – in part thanks to its bevy of retro content – features a more comprehensive selection.
Of course, there are some jerseys that you won’t find among the retro uniforms in the recent NBA 2K titles. A few teams have gaps in their selection of historical primary uniforms, but there are also some alternate and special jerseys that can’t be found. This isn’t necessarily surprising though, especially when some of those jerseys have only ever appeared in games once over the years. Indeed, to the best of my research, the jerseys I’m listing here have only ever appeared in one game. Note that I’m talking about official appearances, which excludes mods and unused files. With that being said, let’s take a look at some of the rarest uniforms on the virtual hardwood!