Tag Archives: Chris Bosh

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 going back to NBA Live 10 and NBA 2K10 to try to replicate The Decision that saw LeBron James go to the Miami Heat.

16 years ago today, LeBron James announced that he had chosen to join the Miami Heat in an ESPN special titled The Decision. Needless to say, it’s one of the most significant events in NBA history. Sure, stars had switched teams before, changing the fortunes of clubs and the landscape of the league. Of course, as a generational talent joining forces with two other stars, LeBron’s move was particularly impactful. The Decision – both the choice in free agency and the special itself – are unavoidable talking points when discussing LeBron James and his legacy.

I’m not going into all of that today, though. Instead, I want to talk about how difficult it can be to replicate moves like The Decision in video games. We see a lot of crazy trades and signings in franchise and career modes, but ironically some of the wildest moves from real life would be considered unrealistic if they occurred in a game, and are incredibly tough or indeed impossible to pull off. With that in mind, is it possible to choose the Heat in NBA Live 10 and NBA 2K10, and have LeBron James make The Decision to take his talents to South Beach? Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 potential comebacks that would’ve been fun to play with in video games.

It’s time to examine five more potential comebacks that aren’t just tantalising What If scenarios in real life, but would’ve been enjoyable on the virtual hardwood! Although some What Ifs are just interesting thought experiments, many of the most fascinating ones are those that were much closer to becoming a reality. Naturally, that includes comeback attempts that weren’t just wishful thinking or idle speculation. Additionally, after watching the NBA for many years – and getting a little older myself – I’ve grown more bothered by players being pushed out of the league seemingly before their time.

Mind you, other times it’s reasonable that teams didn’t have any interest, or it was just a fanciful thought by all parties involved. Between some players making unimpressive comebacks and others sticking around too long, there’s no shame in knowing when to call it a day, or deciding that you’re definitely done despite tempting offers to return. All the same, some of the comebacks that we’ve come close to seeing wouldn’t just grab headlines and draw eyeballs in real life – no matter if they were successful or not – but they’d also be a blast in video games. Whether they created stacked lineups or quirky teams built for gaming, these comebacks would’ve been awesome to play with.

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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 dusting off NBA Live 2004 to see when LeBron James will retire in its Dynasty mode.

As of writing, it seems a safe guess to say that LeBron James will likely play at least one more season. He has an opportunity to set a new record by playing in his 23rd campaign, not to mention add to his career statistics and possibly contend for another championship. It would also give him an opportunity to further mentor his son Bronny and likely play some more minutes side-by-side with him, while also enjoying a full retirement tour. And of course, if by some chance he does decide that the 2025 season was his last, he’s obviously had a long and extremely successful career.

His longevity, while certainly impressive, isn’t altogether surprising. Not only are we seeing more players stick around for 16+ seasons, but LeBron is obviously a superb athlete, and has remained healthy throughout his career. As with other greats who came straight out of high school, it was commonly speculated that LeBron would go on to have a long career, but what did contemporary video games predict? With Dynasty mode in NBA Live 2004 consisting of 25 seasons, the game may still be able to correctly predict when LeBron will retire! Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 lineups that despite their fame, didn’t actually last long.

Just how good is your memory? I like to think that mine is pretty good when it comes to basketball and basketball video games, because those are things that I’m passionate about. However, I definitely don’t have infallible recall! Moreover, our perception of time can be a tricky thing. To that end, while I may remember players, teams, lineups, and other such roster trivia many years later, my recollection of their longevity (or lack thereof) can be skewed. After all, what may feel like a long time when we’re living it day-by-day can turn out to be a short period in the grand scheme of things!

Case in point: the lineups that I’m talking about today. It’s no surprise that they stick in my mind – and I’m sure the minds of many long-time basketball fans and gamers – because they were all memorable in their own way. However, their memorability can ironically make us forget how short-lived those lineups actually were; especially if they did have a significant impact on the league (and video games) while they lasted. Even if they weren’t particularly successful, or a Video Game Team, they may still benefit from an oddity, or simply media hype, that grants them more nostalgic fame – or infamy – than you’d expect. Here are five such lineups that come to mind for me.

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In addition to the NLSC Podcast and the Top 10 Plays of the Week, Dee and I are frequently uploading basketball gaming highlights to the NLSC YouTube channel. To that end, we present some fantastic NBA Live 15 highlights as Dee takes on the Miami Heat using the Washington Wizards!

Looking back, the 2015 Heat and Wizards were a couple of interesting teams. Miami was reeling after LeBron James’ surprising return to Cleveland, but still fielded a respectable roster that included Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Luol Deng. As for the Wizards, they feature Paul Pierce on the back end of his career, teaming up with the once-exciting backcourt of John Wall and Bradley Beal. Both Dee and the CPU made some excellent plays and spectacular finishes with those players, in a close battle that came down to the waning seconds.

What are you waiting for? Check out those NBA Live 15 highlights below! You can also go back and listen to Dee and I discuss NBA Live 15 in Episode #480 of the NLSC Podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming highlights, and don’t forget to hit us up with any suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play.

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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 taking a look back at the Class of 2003, and their impact on and connection to basketball gaming over the years.

Somehow, it’s been twenty years since the Class of 2003 – widely considered to be one of the best NBA Draft Classes of all time – debuted in the NBA. Only one player from that Draft – LeBron James – is still active, and now playing in his 21st season. With the retirement of Andre Iguodala and Udonis Haslem, he officially became the league’s oldest player. This is something I’ve been trying to get my head around and make peace with. After all, I’m a couple of months older than LeBron, which means I’ve reached the point where I’m older than all active NBA players. Old head indeed!

This day was bound to come, of course, but it’s not something you really think about when you’re a hardcore basketball fan in your late teens or early twenties. However, the entry of the Class of 2003 into the NBA two decades ago was one of my first “Oh, I’m not exactly a kid anymore” moments. More than starting to go out to clubs and pubs, staying up as late as I wanted, or any other rites of passage, realising that there were now NBA players who were my age made me feel…well, not that I was grown up, but definitely in the next stage of life! Let’s take a look back…way back…

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at some famous NBA What Ifs, and portraying them in NBA Live 10.

What Ifs can be fun to ponder, whether they concern the NBA or video games. There are trades and signings that, if they’d happened, would’ve changed the course of NBA history. Likewise, we can point to game-changing moments in the history of the virtual hardwood. Indeed, NBA Live 10 is an example of such a turning point. If EA Sports had elected to continue building on the base it established rather than trying to reboot the series with the ill-fated NBA Elite 11, the basketball gaming landscape would undoubtedly be very different today.

As far as NBA What Ifs are concerned though, they’re something that we can play out in video games. It’s a great concept for a roster, and while that’s not what I’m doing today, I’ve decided to mix a couple of ideas together by reflecting on some of the biggest NBA What Ifs and portraying them using NBA Live 10; a game that has an air of What If about it. Obviously there are some other historical NBA What Ifs that I won’t be touching on here because the players aren’t in NBA Live 10, but feel free to discuss those in the comments as well. Let’s wonder what might have been as we take a look back…way back…

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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 NBA predictions that ended up being way off.

Here it is, the first Friday Five of 2020! It’s been a while since I’ve covered a topic related to the real NBA rather than the virtual hardwood, so I thought that I’d tip off the year (and decade) with a change of pace. Don’t worry, I’ve still got plenty of topics related to basketball video games that I’ll be covering in my features, but this week, I’d like to talk about NBA predictions. After all, we’re rapidly approaching the midway point of the 2020 season, and we’re starting to get a clearer picture of the top teams and how they stack up against one another.

It’s as good a time as any to start throwing out some midseason predictions, but keep in mind that there’s a lot of basketball left to play. A lot can change very quickly in the NBA, and while we can make educated guesses in our picks, a seemingly likely outcome can be denied by a twist of fate. At the same time, some people – including supposed expert analysts – will make wild predictions. Some may be trying to get ahead of the curve by expecting the unexpected, while others are relying on sources that are less than reliable. Whatever the case may be, we’ve seen some bold and crazy predictions over the years, with these five examples turning out to be quite wrong.

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Episode #178 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! We’ve got plenty more NBA 2K17 impressions to share with our listeners this week, as well our thoughts on a couple of recent NBA stories (hey, remember real basketball?).

On this week’s show…

• We tip things off with another quick update on some recent advancements in NBA 2K17 modding. Our community has continued to make some exciting discoveries over the past week.
• Our plans to pick up where we left off with the NLSC 2K Pro-Am team have hit a snag, as the mode has not been kind to us. In fact, following patch 1.03, it’s close to unplayable. We share a few of our complaints.
• Once again, we touch on the fact that Virtual Currency rewards have been severely nerfed in this year’s game, and wonder if the new patch has reduced them even further.
• While we have our complaints this week, it’s not all bad news. We still have a very high opinion of offline/single player gameplay in NBA 2K17, and have some positive experiences to share.
• Wrapping up Our Week in Basketball Gaming, a few thoughts on finishing the Jordan Challenge in NBA 2K11, ahead of next week’s Wayback Wednesday feature.
• After 21 NBA seasons, Kevin Garnett is hanging up his sneakers. We reflect on the career of The Big Ticket, the last remaining NBA player from the 16-bit era.
• From the sounds of things, Chris Bosh’s career might also be over. However, given the health scares he’s endured the past couple of seasons, it may be for the best.

Click Play to listen to the show!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:31:18 — 43.7MB)

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Have some thoughts on the latest episode? Sound off in the comments below, or here in the Forum. Also, if there’s a topic you’d like us to discuss on the next episode of the NLSC Podcast, feel free to hit us up in this thread.