Tag Archives: Derrick Rose

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #612 of the NLSC Podcast!

Another year is almost in the books! And so, as 2025 draws to a close, this week we’re joining the community in discussing the basketball and basketball gaming gifts that we gave and received during this holiday season. From shoes, shirts, and collectibles, to video games, DVDs, and new basketballs, it’s clear that we’re all still as passionate as ever about real hoops and the virtual hardwood alike. We also discuss the temptation to pick up a new ball whenever we see one on sale, the brilliance of the Ultimate Jordan DVD boxset, the price of collecting retro games, and ending up getting ourselves gifts while shopping for someone else.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 38:07 — 26.5MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #590 of the NLSC Podcast!

While NBA 2K26 will be a hot topic over the next month and beyond, this week we turn our attention to a classic that’s in our rotation, namely NBA 2K9. Now that we’re ten games into our co-op NBA 2K9 Association with the Chicago Bulls, we provide a detailed recap of everything that’s happened so far, and discuss some possible roster moves. The fun we’ve been having with the game also moves us to reflect once again on what a strong release it was. We also invited the community to weigh in on which teams they’d most like to start an Association with in NBA 2K9, and reminisce about some of the 2009 season lineups that were fun in real life and on the virtual hardwood alike.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:12:04 — 49.8MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #581 of the NLSC Podcast!

What are some of the most memorable plays that we’ve seen in all of our years watching basketball? This week, we join the community in reminiscing about a few of our all-time favourite highlights. Considering our favourite teams, players, and eras to watch, some of our choices might just surprise you! Of course, a couple of others certainly won’t be particularly shocking. We also discuss which game should be featured in the next NLSC Tournament that will be played over Parsec, hopefully in the near future. The community also has some suggestions in that regard, and suffice it to say, there are some very popular picks when it comes to sim and arcade titles alike.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 46:15 — 32.1MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

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 celebrates Derrick Rose by recalling five of his best plays.

As we discussed earlier this week in Episode #548 of the NLSC Podcast, Derrick Rose has called it a career after 15 seasons in the NBA. D-Rose is – as I’m sure many of you are aware – one of my all-time favourite players, right up there with fellow Chicago Bulls alumni Michael Jordan and Ben Gordon. To that end, I’m sorry to see him retire, especially without more fanfare and indeed a farewell tour back with the Bulls. After all of his injuries and with family life ahead of him however, one has to respect him for being at peace with his career, and his decision to walk away.

Obviously, there are some wistful What Ifs when it comes to Derrick Rose. If not for that devastating knee injury in the 2012 Playoffs, I’m sure he would’ve been one of the top stars of the 2010s. Who knows what the Bulls might’ve achieved had he remained healthy, and if they’d acquired some more firepower to support him? While it does sting to think about, I’m also grateful that I was able to see him become an All-Star and MVP, and truly get excited about the Bulls’ chances again as I did in 2011. He was a really fun player to watch – and play with in video games, too – so in honour of his retirement and his 36th birthday, here are five of my favourite Derrick Rose plays!

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #548 of the NLSC Podcast!

Derrick Rose has officially retired from the NBA, and naturally, we have a few thoughts in the wake of his announcement, from fond memories to whether or not he should have his jersey retired by the Chicago Bulls. This also leads us to join the community in reminiscing about some other player retirements that had a profound affect on us, as well as undeserved reputations that players have had difficulty shaking. We also discuss some exciting upcoming modding projects that johnz1 has planned for the PlayStation 3 version of NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, and provide an update on the modes that both we and the community are currently spending the most time with in NBA 2K25.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:02:37 — 43.4MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #546 of the NLSC Podcast!

NBA 2K25 has been out for about a couple of weeks now, which means the annual honeymoon phase is drawing to a close. To that end, this week we join the community in following up on our first impressions with a rundown of our key likes and dislikes of the game so far. It’s still mostly good news in our book, but we’re not quite ready to declare it the best NBA 2K ever as some of our fellow gamers are. We also recap a co-op session in which we took on Dwight Howard’s Magic with Derrick Rose’s Bulls using the LeBron era rosters, leading us to reflect on those two squads. Finally, a new segment makes its debut, inspired by a surprising observation while playing NBA 08.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:02:27 — 43.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

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 reflecting on Ben Gordon becoming my favourite active player after Michael Jordan retired, and using him in video games.

Just as the Chicago Bulls remain my favourite NBA team all these years later, my all-time favourite player will always be Michael Jordan. However, although MJ is the player that got me and so many of my fellow 90s kids into basketball, my interest in hoops doesn’t end with him. Sure, I may have some quibbles with the modern game, and certainly the discourse that’s being led by so many talking heads with highly questionable agendas, but I’m still passionate about real and virtual basketball alike. In short, I didn’t drift away from the sport when MJ hung up his Air Jordans.

Of course, maintaining my interest in the NBA as my beloved Bulls fell from grace and MJ rode off into the sunset – temporarily once again, and then for good – required a change in how I approached my fandom. I’d never had trouble enjoying other stars and teams, but with the Bulls nowhere near contention, that interest beyond “my” team became even more important as far as remaining invested in the NBA. While MJ would remain my all-time favourite player, I needed a new active favourite to cheer for. In time, that would become Ben Gordon. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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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 players in the default rosters of NBA 2K14 PS4/X1 who are still active as of 2023.

Can you believe that NBA 2K14 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One is coming up on ten years old? As I’ve discussed in previous articles and on the NLSC Podcast, it took me a while, but I’ve certainly warmed up to the landmark release! However, while the game itself still holds up extraordinarily well, the snapshot of the NBA that it captures is naturally now quite outdated. A recent perusal of the default rosters made it clear just how much turnover there is in the league over the span of a decade. In fact, some sweeping changes occurred not too long after NBA 2K14’s release!

How many players from the default rosters of NBA 2K14 PS4/X1 are still active as of 2023? Just 73 as of writing, though others were still active as of last season, and may still find a spot in the NBA. When I made a similar comparison with NBA Live 10 back in 2021, only 44 players from the 2010 campaign were still in the league. On top of that, less than 20 players had stints that spanned from the launch of the PS4 and X1 through to the arrival of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Indeed, including a couple that I forgot, only five players are still with the same team a decade later. As we prepare to tip off another NBA campaign, let’s also take a look back…way back…

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Thanks to a combination of Parsec and the Xbox App, Dee and I have further expanded the range of basketball video games that we can connect on to play.  This past weekend, Dee hosted a session of NBA 2K14 for Xbox One, and put together the highlights for our YouTube channel.

The reel is from a co-op game in which we took on the Orlando Magic with the Chicago Bulls. As you can see, our aim was to emulate the style of play of the 2014 Bulls, and use the players to their real strengths, while obviously having a blast and producing highlights. You’ll see Derrick Rose doing D-Rose things, Joakim Noah contributing everywhere with great energy, and a young Jimmy Butler demonstrating flashes of brilliance. As sim gamers, we pride ourselves in playing a realistic style, and assembling highlight reels that are fun to watch. Check it out!

We discussed our game of NBA 2K14 and our satisfaction with the highlights it produced in this week’s NLSC Podcast, which will be out soon. Stay tuned for that, and in the meantime, be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content! As always, feel free to hit us up with suggestions of any games that you’d like to see us play, and we’ll do our best to get them into the rotation.

Following our session with NBA Live 15, Dee went back a year to NBA Live 14, and put together some highlights from the game! Dee took control of the Chicago Bulls – moving an injured Derrick Rose back into the starting five – and faced Charlotte, who were in their last season as the Bobcats.

With some rough animations and other gameplay quirks, it isn’t easy to create highlights in NBA Live 14. However, Dee did a superb job of making the game look better than anyone else I’ve seen play it! From nifty midrange floaters and shots from Derrick Rose, to Jimmy Butler’s snatch-back into a jumper, to Carlos Boozer finishing strong around the rim, he pulled off some great plays. The CPU had some fine highlights of its own, and overall, Dee was able to spotlight the stronger points of an admittedly troubled release. See for yourself!

Dee and I will be discussing NBA Live 14 in this week’s NLSC Podcast, which drops this evening Australian time/tomorrow morning US time. In the meantime, you can listen to us revisit NBA Live 15 in last week’s episode. Be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content, and don’t forget to hit us up with any suggestions for games that you’d like to see us play!

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 reminiscing about playing with the Baby Bulls teams in basketball video games.

My nostalgia for the NBA and basketball video games doesn’t end with the 90s; far from it! Many of my favourite titles were released in the 2000s through to the early 2010s, and I’ve remained an avid NBA and basketball junkie long after Michael Jordan called it a career. Of course, playing with His Airness on the virtual hardwood required some modding back in the day, owing to his absence from the official roster. When it came to running with Bulls teams in the years that followed, I (usually) didn’t have to worry about them missing a prominent player.

Mind you, while all the names might’ve been accounted for, the talent was certainly lacking. I’ve previously reflected on the challenges that came with assuming control of my favourite team in the early 2000s; an extraordinarily tough time to be a Bulls fan after experiencing the glory days of MJ! I mentioned in passing that they became far more appealing to play with as the decade wore on, and their rebuilding efforts began to yield better results. Those teams came to be known as the Baby Bulls due to their youth, and while they didn’t reach the top of the mountain once more, I did enjoy putting them on the virtual hardwood. 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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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 more NBA players who became familiar faces in strange places, and those stints in video games.

As I said in my first Wayback Wednesday article covering this topic, there’s definitely something oddly fascinating in seeing familiar faces in strange places. We often claim that we wish that those stints didn’t happen or that we could forget all about them, yet they’re burned into our memories. It’s hard to forget something that looks strange and out of place, and that certainly describes the image of players wearing the uniform of a team other than the one we associate them with the most. The time capsule-like nature of video games helps us to remember – and also replay – these unusual stints.

I mentioned that there were more examples than the ten I covered in my first article, and to that end, I have another ten to share today. This time, not all of the players were perennial All-Stars, but they are familiar names who ended up in strange places. In fact, a couple of these stints were so brief that the only way to experience them again on the virtual hardwood is to load very specific roster saves – assuming that you still have them, of course – or by recreating them. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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