Tag Archives: FIBA

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 remnants of missing and removed features in basketball video games.

Features and content are removed from all genres of video games for a variety of reasons, from design changes and technical challenges to deadlines and legal issues. It’s unfortunate even when it’s understandable, but it’s also entertaining to discover the remnants of cut content. They’re intriguing mysteries when we stumble upon them, fascinating What Ifs when we know their back stories, and sometimes even things that can be restored through modding. Our community has definitely been able to make good use of leftover content in NBA Live and NBA 2K!

Of course, the remnants of cut content can also be annoying. Not only are they proof of what we missed out on, but sometimes they’re a sign of anti-consumer design. A feature that would’ve been useful to have – and indeed was in a previous game – may have been removed because it isn’t conducive to recurrent revenue mechanics being as profitable as they could be. That may not be quite as insidious as removing content in order to sell it as downloadable content, but it’s still lacking in goodwill! Whatever the case, there have been some memorable remnants of missing and removed features in basketball video games over the years. Here are five that spring to mind for me.

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It’s been almost a month since the last bulletin checking in on PatTheHead’s rosters for NBA 2K13. The project continues to be updated with new content and fixes, so here’s a quick overview of what’s new since March.

New cyberfaces have been added, including one for Tyler Kolek who was previously headless in the 2026 roster. Special arenas and courts have been added for hip-hop squads, courtesy of Kaito2K. Also, for those who may have missed them, the City and Classic Edition courts are already in the 2026 roster and can be manually selected. With the season drawing to a close, further roster updates will be on the way shortly.

Once again, a reminder that the project doesn’t just update the rosters in NBA 2K13 for the 2026 season. It also includes decades of historical rosters for multiple leagues, specifically the NBA, ABA, BAA, NBL, ABL, PBLA, and NBPL. Rosters for the Olympic Games and other FIBA tournaments are also available. I know I say it in every bulletin, but the project truly is a love letter to the history of basketball in addition to providing a current roster update.

You can download the latest version of PatTheHead’s NBA 2K13 rosters here in the Forum. Keep it locked to that topic for further updates as they’re posted, along with previews of what’s to come. As always, thanks to PatTheHead and all of the contributors for their work on the project, and for making it freely available to everyone!

A new version of the Olympic Basketball Legacy mod for NBA 2K20 by RayRay_953 and company is now available! As the name would imply, the project celebrates the basketball tournament at the Olympic Games, as well as other international clashes on the hardwood.

V8 of the Olympic Basketball Legacy mod includes some exciting additions. Every single team that competed in the McDonald’s Open/McDonald’s Championship has been added, representing a number of league champions from around the world. Teams that took part in the NBA Europe Live Tour are also featured in the new release, complete with some jerseys that were originally only seen in NBA Live 07. Other international exhibitions are also accounted for, including NCAA squads taking on national teams, and the NBL’s Adelaide 36ers squaring off against the Phoenix Suns in 2022.

Pick up Olympic Basketball Legacy V8 here in the Forum! The mod is now an all-in-one download, and the necessary sync.bin file is also available if you’re having trouble getting it to work with your game. For more information on installing the mod, check out this video tutorial. Shout out to RayRay_953 and company once again for another fantastic release, and for making it freely available to one and all! If you’re still playing NBA 2K20, you may also want to check out Thunder Shaq’s Ultimate Retro Roster, which now includes a 2026 season update.

There’s a new update to PatTheHead’s comprehensive roster pack for NBA 2K13, as rosters for the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia have now been added. As Pat notes, the event saw one of the most dominant performances in the history of Olympic Basketball, as Bill Russell, K.C. Jones, and the rest of Team USA won the Gold while defeating their opponents by an average of 53.5 ppg.

That’s not all you’ll find, of course. For those who are unaware, in addition to Olympic roster mods, the project adds decades of NBA, ABA, BAA, NBL, and ABL rosters to NBA 2K13. Not only is it a fantastic celebration of basketball history, but for those who’d like to bring NBA 2K13 up to date, a recent release added an end-0f-season roster for the 2025 campaign.

Check out Pat’s release topic for the download links, as well as previews of what’s already available and what’s coming in future updates! As previously noted, Pat posts interesting trivia along with the releases, underscoring how this project comes from a true passion for basketball. Shout out as always to PatTheHead and everyone else who is keeping old favourites like NBA 2K13 alive with fantastic releases, and making them freely available to everyone!

PatTheHead continues do some amazing work for NBA 2K13, as his roster pack now includes an end of 2025 season update. This is fantastic news for everyone who’d like to bring the modern NBA into a classic release!

In addition to updated rosters, the latest release includes new dornas, new cyberfaces for hundreds of players courtesy of several contributors, and Pep’s 2025 All-Star jerseys. Enhancements have also been made to other rosters in the pack, including teams for the exhibition games in the 2004 and 2008 Olympic mods. A handful of jersey numbers have also been fixed.

For those who are unfamiliar with the previous releases, on top of a 2025 season update and Olympic rosters, PatTheHead’s NBA 2K13 roster pack includes a host of retro season mods spanning decades of basketball history. This includes retro NBA rosters, ABA rosters, NBL rosters, BAA rosters, and even ABL rosters! It’s definitely a love letter to hoops, in a game that still holds up superbly today.

Check out Pat’s release topic for the download links, as well as previews of what’s already available and what’s coming in future updates! You’ll also find some fun basketball history and trivia. Shout out as always to Pat and everyone else who’s keeping NBA 2K13 and other classics alive with retro rosters, current roster updates, and other excellent mods! Your efforts and willingness to share these fantastic projects with the community free of charge is most appreciated.

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #575 of the NLSC Podcast!

We recently played NBA 2K9 and NBA Live 09 over Parsec, with a view to starting a co-op season in one or both of them. In addition to recapping the fun we had during those sessions, this week we’re comparing and contrasting the 2009 season releases from EA Sports and Visual Concepts. We reflect on how they were both notable improvements over their immediate predecessors, discuss a couple of the teams that we’d potentially like to use in our season, and reminisce about the NBA of that era. The community also weighs in with their views on the comparison, and recalls some of the teams that they liked to use in NBA 2K9 and NBA Live 09.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 55:13 — 38.3MB)

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!

PatTheHead continues to expand upon his comprehensive retro roster pack for NBA 2K13, with the latest addition being the rosters from the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. As Pat notes, it remains one of the most noteworthy basketball tournaments in the history of the Olympics, from the absence of Bill Walton to the controversial ending of the gold medal game, which saw the USA suffer their first ever loss in the event.

Once again, in addition to the Olympic roster mods from 1972 and other years, the project adds decades of NBA, ABA, BAA, NBL, and ABL rosters to NBA 2K13. There’s also a current season roster for gamers who’d like to bring NBA 2K13 into the modern era.

Check out Pat’s release topic for the download links, as well as previews of what’s already available and what’s coming in future updates. Shout out as always to Pat and everyone else who’s keeping NBA 2K13 and other classics alive with retro rosters, current roster updates, and other excellent mods! Once again, March Modness 2025 is underway and includes a giveaway of a copy of NBA 2K26 later this year, so keep those mod releases coming for basketball video games, new and old!

PatTheHead’s comprehensive retro roster pack for NBA 2K13 continues to expand, as the latest release includes rosters from the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico! As Pat notes, despite the presence of future All-Stars Spencer Haywood and JoJo White, it’s very much an underdog team given the absence of many of the top college players of the time, such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Elvin Hayes.

The mod continues to be a fantastic celebration of basketball history. As I noted in the bulletin for the previous release, on top of the Olympic rosters, the pack features a host of retro season mods for several leagues, including the NBA, ABA, BAA, NBL, and ABL. There’s also a current season roster, if you’d like to bring NBA 2K13 up to date.

Check out the release topic for the download links, as well as previews of what’s already available and what’s coming in future updates. Shout out as always to PatTheHead and everyone else who’s keeping NBA 2K13 and other classics alive with Olympic rosters, current roster updates, and other excellent mods! I hope to see more people engaging in retro gaming and modding in 2025, and with any luck, I’ll be joining you in releasing some new work for old favourites.

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 basketball gaming theories that I can’t conclusively prove, but strongly suspect to be true.

Video games have attracted countless theories, rumours, and hoaxes throughout the years. From speculation about secrets to gossip about gameplay mechanics, these stories have spawned myths, legends…and occasionally, actually been correct! Yes, games are often designed to essentially cheat in order to give us a challenge. Yes, sometimes that rumoured hidden content is there (or at least, there’s a remnant of it). And yes, it’s hardly a wild conspiracy theory to suggest that so many modern Triple-A titles are being designed to push gamers towards microtransactions.

Of course, there are the theories that aren’t true: the secret that’s a hoax, the misguided belief as to why something is a certain way, and so on. These are the things that we’re so sure of, or want to believe, but they’ve been proven false. And then, we have the video game theories that we can’t conclusively prove – yet, anyway – but they haven’t necessarily been disproven, and seem quite likely. I’m not usually one for conspiracy theories – philosophical razors tend to make short work of most of them – but I do have a few related to basketball gaming that I am inclined to believe. Well, maybe not conspiracies as such, but they are five basketball gaming theories that I put stock in.

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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 basketball video games that are somewhat overshadowed by their immediate successors, or even predecessors.

As I’ve acknowledged in previous articles, “underrated” and “overshadowed” are relative and subjective terms, as are “overrated” and “overexposed” for that matter. They assume some level of consensus, and to that point, once we start talking about how something is underrated or overshadowed, it often ceases to be either. With that being said, when it comes to basketball video games, there are some that always seem to fly under the radar. Even if they were well-received at the time, they still don’t get their due in hindsight, because another title from the same era is more acclaimed.

This can easily happen in the annual sim titles when they’re at their peak. While there may be several strong releases during a series’ golden age, we tend to focus on the ones that always land on lists of all-time great basketball video games. It can happen to arcade titles as well, even when the games were released a couple of years or more apart. I hesitate to declare all of them to be hidden gems as they were popular, and it might be swinging the narrative too far in the other direction. Nevertheless, in my opinion, these overshadowed games deserve some more love. I would definitely recommend them to anyone looking for some retro basketball gaming inspiration!

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PatTheHead’s comprehensive retro roster pack for NBA 2K13 continues to celebrate the history of Olympic Basketball. Indeed, the latest version takes us right back to the beginning of basketball’s inclusion as a medal sport, with rosters for the 1936 Games in Berlin!

Notably, James Naismith – the inventor of basketball, of course – was invited to the Games and presented the medals to the winners. To that end, the roster replaces Barack Obama in the White House visit cutscene in Association mode with Dr. Naismith! Accordingly, Pat would like to give a shout out to Maravich for providing a spot-on face update.

As I mentioned in the bulletin for the previous release, in addition to Olympic rosters, the pack features a host of retro season mods, including rosters for the NBA, ABA, BAA, NBL, and ABL. There’s also a 2024 roster if you’d like to bring NBA 2K13 up to date.

Head over to the release topic in the Forum for the download links and further previews! Once again, Pat also makes a point of sharing interesting historical facts and trivia about the seasons, leagues, and Olympic Games featured in his rosters, so history buffs will definitely want to check it out. As always, hats off to Pat and everyone else keeping classic games alive with new mods!

The basketball tournament at the 2024 Olympic Games may be in the books, but you can still get your fill of international competition on the virtual hardwood! Following on from the previous release, PatTheHead has added a 1964 Olympic mod to his comprehensive retro roster project for NBA 2K13.

As previously mentioned, the project not only includes Olympic rosters such as the new 1964 mod, but also a variety of retro rosters for the NBA, ABA, BAA, NBL, and ABL. There’s also a current 2024 season roster, for gamers who’d like to update NBA 2K13 for the modern day. The game continues to hold superbly over a decade later, so I’d definitely recommend giving it a look!

Head over to the release topic in the Forum for the download links and further previews of this fantastic project. Additionally, Pat makes a point of sharing interesting trivia along with previews of the rosters, which basketball history buffs will definitely enjoy! As always, shout out to PatTheHead and everyone else keeping old favourites alive with fantastic mods that are available free of charge. With a new generation of modding set to tip off on PC with NBA 2K25, it serves as a great example for the community.

The NBA 2K25 preview season may be officially underway, but modders aren’t quite done with NBA 2K24 yet, as you can see from today’s mod releases! Pick up bratnajbolji’s Team USA Showcase court at the link below.

bratnajbolji
Team USA Showcase Court 2025

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.

As spotlighted in a bulletin earlier this year, PatTheHead has a fantastic long-running roster project for NBA 2K13 that’s continuing to expand. With this year’s Olympic Games in Paris looming and international competition on the minds of basketball fans, the latest release includes a timely addition, namely rosters for the 1980 Games in Moscow.

The roster features all of the teams that competed in the tournament, as well as the United States who boycotted the 1980 Games. This obviously sets up some What If scenarios, as the best amateur players from around the world 44 years ago can go head-to-head on the virtual hardwood, with Team USA notably including several future NBA Legends.

If the NBA is what you’re after, the project also includes a 2024 season update. Not only that, but you’ll also find a variety of retro rosters for the NBA, ABA, BAA, NBL, and ABL! Pat’s roster project is well worth checking out if you’re still playing NBA 2K13 – a strong releases in the series – so head over to his release topic in the Forum for the download links and further previews. As always, shout out to PatTheHead and everyone else making an effort to keep old favourites alive and fun to revisit with new mod releases!

Although Dee and I enjoy connecting to play a variety of basketball video games over Parsec, we’ve established some reliable favourites that we’ll always go back to. Two of those titles are NBA 2K10 and NBA Live 10, and to that end, Dee has uploaded highlights from our recent sessions with both games!

In our NBA 2K10 session, we played another game with the incredible 1997 season mod. Once again we were took control of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and the Chicago Bulls to face Karl Malone, John Stockton, Jeff Hornacek, and the Utah Jazz. It was an exciting game that went back and forth and right down to the wire, with back-to-back clutch plays leading to an epic victory. NBA 2K10 is a more a recent favourite of ours, but I know that we’ll connect on it again, especially with that awesome 1997 roster at our disposal.

Meanwhile, thanks to Parsec and RPCS3, NBA Live 10 has long been one of our favourite games to play together. With the 2024 Olympics looming, we were inspired to play with the FIBA teams, specifically taking on Argentina with Team USA. It was yet another reminder that NBA Live 10 was doing some great things, and could’ve set up a bright future for the series. Wistful What Ifs aside, it was a blast to play NBA Live 10 as always, and it produced some entertaining highlights.

We’ll be discussing those games on the next episode of the NLSC Podcast, coming out this Tuesday. In the meantime, check out both highlight reels below! As always, feel free to hit us up with any suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play, and be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content!

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