NLSC Your source for basketball video games.
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 Stretch and the rest of the OG NBA Street ballers.
With a spiritual successor in NBA The Run set to launch next month, NBA Street has definitely been on our minds as of late. As it happens, next month also marks 25 years since the original NBA Street was released. For basketball gamers of a certain age, that first NBA Street was the arcade basketball video game, held in higher regard than any of the NBA Jam titles. It certainly makes sense as it was a tremendous game that still holds up. Furthermore, by the early 2000s, the NBA Jam name had sadly come to be associated with some subpar releases.
I’ll be diving deeper into that with a retrospective next month. For now though, I’m reminiscing about Stretch and the other OG NBA Street ballers. In addition to placing NBA players on the blacktop, NBA Street introduced us to some memorable original characters. These ballers were basically the bosses of the City Circuit, standing in between us and the next location. Once we beat them, we could benefit from their streetball skill as they joined our squad. Stretch and the rest of the OG NBA Street ballers are undoubtedly legends, so let’s take a look back…way back…