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Wayback Wednesday: What If…Isiah Thomas Was Traded to the Knicks?

Wayback Wednesday: What If...Isiah Thomas Was Traded to the Knicks?

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 pondering another historical NBA What If, specifically what if Isiah Thomas was traded to the Knicks in 1994?

Let it be known that I’m not a big fan of Isiah Thomas! I certainly respect his skill and accomplishments, and I’d even go so far as to say that like too many players of his era, he’s now become somewhat underrated. However, I’ve never respected his decision to lead the walk-off after the Chicago Bulls finally topped the Detroit Pistons in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals, and consider it a stain on his character. Also, many of his comments regarding Michael Jordan in recent years have been incredibly petty, and laughably inaccurate. I’d suggest that some of the harsh truths in The Last Dance hurt!

With that being said, he’s undoubtedly one of the all-time greats. On top of being a two-champion and 12-time All-Star, Isiah Thomas remains the Detroit Pistons’ all-time leader in points, assists, steals, and minutes, having spent his entire NBA career with the club. However, there was briefly a possibility that Zeke might end his career with the New York Knicks – a team that he’d later come to be associated with – and one more NBA Finals run. It’s an interesting What If, and with the Knicks back in the NBA Finals, it feels like a good time to revisit it! Let’s take a look back…way back…

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The Friday Five: 5 Things You’ll See In Unpatched Games (Part 2)

The Friday Five: 5 Things You'll See In Unpatched Games (Part 2)

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 things that you’ll see in games that are unpatched.

As I noted in my first article recalling things that you’ll see in unpatched games, official updates are a contentious issue. Day 1 patches do little to convince gamers that modern titles aren’t rushed out before they’re ready, and frequent updates can be annoying when they’re several gigabytes in size, essentially forcing you to download the entire game all over again. From the list of issues that they have to fix to some of the undesirable changes that are pushed through, the sight of a pending patch is one that makes many basketball gamers groan in frustration.

However, when we consider that we used to have to beg and plead for patches that barely fixed any issues, and for a long time weren’t viable on console, I’ve come to believe that having too many patches is actually the lesser of two evils. While there are times when foregoing an update or downgrading to a previous version is in fact preferable, you’ll also be reminded of some weird and bothersome issues when you play unpatched games. Of course, you’ll also see some interesting snapshots of the league when a game and its rosters are restored to their vanilla state. With that being said, here are five more noteworthy things that you’ll encounter without patches.

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NBA Live 2005 Mod Releases: Court & Coach Update

NBA Live 2005 Cover Art

Today’s NBA Live 2005 mod releases from Iceman99 include an NBA Cup court for the Boston Celtics, and a 2025 season coach update. Check them out at the links below!

Iceman99
Boston Celtics NBA Cup Court (2025)
2025 Coach Update

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and Mod Releases bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

The Friday Five: 5 Wild Predictions from a NBA 2K19 MyCAREER Sim

The Friday Five: 5 Wild Predictions from a NBA 2K19 MyCAREER Sim

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 predictions that were made while simulating through twenty seasons in NBA 2K19 MyCAREER.

From their earliest appearances, multi-season modes in basketball video games have provided us with the opportunity to simulate into the future, and in doing so, make some wild predictions. Although my cousin and I had a blast actually playing through a season in NBA Live 2000’s Franchise mode, we also had an interesting afternoon simulating through the full 25 years. What’s really wild to me looking back is that the once far off year of 2024 is now the present! In fact, that might just be tougher to get my head around than any of the fictional outcomes in that simulation.

Franchise modes have generally advertised their length, but career modes have been less forthcoming about their endpoint. As such, it was something that I was curious about when I ran some experiments in NBA 2K19 MyCAREER way back in March 2019 (seriously, where does the time go?). I discovered that there is indeed a forced game over after twenty seasons, as well as the answers to some other questions that I had. NBA 2K19 MyCAREER is now only available in a limited offline state, but I’ve kept records and screenshots of my time with it, including that 20-year simulation. To that end, it produced some wild predictions that I certainly have my doubts about!

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NBA 2K24 & 2K23 Hook Plugins: Coaches With Jackets

NBA 2K24 & 2K23 Hook Plugins: Coaches With Jackets

Looyh has released a couple of new Hook plugins for both NBA 2K23 and NBA 2K24. Specifically, these plugins can be used to have the coaches wearing jackets on the sidelines. Pick up both plugins at the links below, and make sure that you have the latest version of the Hook tool for each game!

NBA 2K24
[Hook_Plugin] Coaches Wearing Jackets

NBA 2K23
[Hook_Plugin] Coaches Wearing Jackets

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and Mod Releases bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

NBA Live 2003 Mod Releases: Roster & Coach Update

NBA Live 2003 Cover Art

NBA Live 2003 has received some new mod releases from zumoto recently, and we’ve got a couple more of them to share today! Pick up current season roster and coach updates at the links below.

zumoto
Coaches Update
Update Roster and Coaches

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and Mod Releases bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

The Friday Five: Top 5 Developer Cameos in Basketball Games

The Friday Five

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 countdown of the Top 5 developer cameos in basketball games.

The first video game Easter egg dates back to 1979, when Warren Robinett added a means of accessing a hidden screen in Adventure for Atari 2600, which displayed the message “Created by Warren Robinett”. At the time, Atari did not give credit to any of their developers for fear of having to negotiate expensive salaries for well-known and highly regarded designers, and Robinett’s Easter egg was his response to that policy. Since then, video games have come to credit their design teams, and these days, key developers are well-known to gamers, and often interact with us.

Of course, the credits screen isn’t the only place that developers have had a presence in their own games. Several basketball games have included secret unlockable bonus teams featuring members of the development team, though the practice has largely been phased out in recent years. We still see developer cameos in other areas of the games though, as they lend their names (and sometimes faces) to fictional coaches, NPCs, and generated rookies. They’ll also pop up in a few other places outside of the credits. Playable or not, developer cameos have provided some amusing moments in basketball games, and this week, I’m counting down my picks for the top five.

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File Additions for NBA 2K18

NBA 2K18 Cover Art

We’ve got a bunch of NBA 2K18 mod releases to catch up on today. The latest file additions include face and body updates, ESPN scoreboards, and more. Please see below for all the download links.

Torogi
Jeremy Lin Face & Body
Jeremy Lin 2011-2012 Face
Klay Thompson Face
LeBron James Menu Art
Zach LaVine Face
Bradley Beal Face (Updated to v2.0)
Salah Mejri Face & Body (Updated to v2.0)
Stephen Curry Face & Body Model (NBA Finals Look) (Updated to v4.0)

Rockmonts
LeBron James Face (2018 NBA Finals)
Kevin Love Face (2018 NBA Finals)

MonkeymanJSV
Torrey Craig Face (With Tattoos)

Eilrahc Drib
Stephen Silas Assistant Coach Face
Monty Williams Assistant Coach Face
Mike Krzyzewski (Coach K) Face
Phil Jackson Coach Face (Young Version)

TwisT
Crowd Update (Updated to v2.0)

SexCurryBeats
New Chains for Playground (Updated to v2.0)

dirtydraw
ESPN Scoreboard (Regular Season/Playoffs/NBA Finals) (Updated to v2.6)

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and File Additions bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.

File Additions for NBA 2K14

NBA 2K14 Cover Art

Our NBA 2K14 modding community continues to thrive and produce great content, as you can see in today’s batch of file additions. The latest releases include player faces, coach faces, and a jersey pack. Check them all out at the links below!

IceCr
Kevin Willis Face
Robert Parish Face
Rick Mahorn Face
Arvydas Sabonis Face
Gary Payton Face
Orlando Woolridge Face
Robert Pack Face

Blang
Omari Spellman Face
Rex Kalamian Face
David Vanterpool Face

ALDUB_livmore
Alab Pilipinas Jerseys Pack (Updated to v1.0)

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to our Downloads database! If you need help uploading files, be sure to check out this video tutorial. For more information about downloads, the modding community, and File Additions bulletins, please see this FAQ in our Wiki.