Tag Archives: Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside

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 my Christmas of 1998, which included receiving NBA Live 99 for the Nintendo 64.

It’s Christmas Eve, so I hope that you’re enjoying the holiday season no matter how you spend it! To that point, I appreciate you checking in with us for some basketball gaming content. When I glanced ahead in the calendar and was reminded that this week’s Wayback Wednesday would fall on the night before Christmas, I naturally began thinking of what would be a suitably festive topic. I’ve previously reflected on the inclusion of the special Christmas jerseys in various games, and other ways that Christmas has been represented on the virtual hardwood.

This year, I’d like to share something a bit more personal, specifically memories of my Christmas in 1998. We all have years in our lives that are significant to us for one reason or another. Whether they were wonderful, terrible, or otherwise shaped the person we are today, those years stick in our minds. 1998 was a memorable year for me, and for mostly positive reasons. To that end, my Christmas of 1998 capped off a great trip around the sun, and also happened to deliver a new basketball video game: NBA Live 99 for the Nintendo 64. Join me as I 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 pondering another historical NBA What If, specifically what if Kobe Bryant broke the all-time scoring record?

Even before he became a star, many people had correctly predicted that Kobe Bryant would go down as one of the all-time greats. There’s a reason that he was tapped to be the cover player and namesake of the NBA Courtside series, and also appeared on the cover of NBA Action 98 – a forerunner of NBA 2K – while still a bench player in his second season. Robert Horry certainly believed in his young teammate back then. I recall a magazine article published during the 1998 season that quoted Big Shot Bob’s claim that Kobe Bryant would be the one to finally break the all-time scoring record.

While that prediction didn’t come true, it wasn’t too far off the mark! Kobe ended up joining the 30,000 point club, finishing his career third on the all-time scoring leaders after surpassing Michael Jordan. Throw in his countless incredible performances and career accomplishments including five rings, and it’s no wonder that a lot of fans felt that Bleacher Report ranking him as the 11th best player in history was insulting. That raises an interesting question: would Kobe Bryant have a different legacy if he had in fact broken the all-time scoring record? 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 Tecmo Super NBA Basketball, primarily focusing on the Super Nintendo version.

Despite being old enough to have played it when it was new – or at the very least, recent – Tecmo Super NBA Basketball is another classic hoops title that I didn’t play until years later. As you may know from our podcast and my previous articles, I didn’t become a hardcore basketball fan and gamer until the mid 90s. This means that my introduction to the virtual hardwood was through games such as NBA Live 95, NBA Live 96, and NBA Jam Tournament Edition, rather than the likes of Double Dribble, Lakers vs. Celtics, Bulls vs. Blazers, and of course, Tecmo Super NBA Basketball.

I’ll admit that this made it difficult to truly appreciate those games the first time I played them. After all, they felt like inferior versions of games that I was actually nostalgic for! I respected their place in the history of the genre, but it was tough to get into them. They were intriguing though, and over the years, I’ve given those classics another chance. This has led to some fun retro gaming sessions where I’ve come to see why they’re so beloved, and discover aspects that were ahead of their time. That includes Tecmo Super NBA Basketball, so 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 frustrating aspects of old school season modes.

So, I’ve already covered why old school season modes in NBA Live and other early titles were so much fun, and I stand by that. They were the pinnacle of campaign play at the time, and if you’re a keen retro gamer who doesn’t mind a simpler experience, I highly recommend beginning a season in an old favourite today! With that being said, once those modes were fleshed out with some basic staples, it took a while before the next big innovation. We certainly recognised the drawbacks and limitations, and we dreamed of modes that lasted longer and represented the NBA in greater detail.

Thankfully, video game developers had the same vision, which led to the introduction of franchise and single player career modes. Interestingly, old school season modes stuck around as a legacy option in games with franchise modes, such as NBA Live and NBA 2K. It also remained the flagship mode in titles that were lagging behind the two brand leaders. Although it didn’t hurt to keep them in games – indeed, I believe there’s value in offering a streamlined option – it was painfully obvious how primitive they now were! Once again though, we already had our criticisms before then. With that in mind, here are five ways that old school season modes could be frustrating.

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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 five brief stints that were captured for posterity in video games.

Yes, it’s time for another Five that underscores once again that basketball video games end up being interactive almanacs! Last June, I recalled five brief stints that made it into the official rosters of basketball video games, from Rasheed Wallace’s unlikely appearance as an Atlanta Hawk in NBA Ballers to Anfernee Hardaway’s frequently forgotten comeback with the Miami Heat, as seen in NBA 2K7. A combination of late releases, revised editions, and official roster updates have preserved a number of these odd stints for players that we generally picture in a different uniform.

To that point, if we’ve spent a considerable amount of time with a game – especially in the days before official roster updates – we may come to think of these brief stints as lasting much longer than they actually did. That’s definitely the case for me when it comes to at least one of the examples that I’m covering here today. As for the other brief stints, while I do remember them and that they didn’t last long, it’s still thanks to unusual and fortuitous circumstances that they were preserved in the official rosters of video games. Long-time readers will know how much I love trivia like this, so let’s not delay any further; here are five more brief stints that were captured in games!

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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 midseason rosters in Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside.

Now that roster updates are common and viable on all platforms, we’re accustomed to midseason moves being officially represented in video games. In the 90s and into the early 2000s however, we generally had to make our own roster updates, even on PC. As such, there have been many brief stints and short-lived lineups that don’t appear in any official rosters due to occurring midseason, and being over by the time the next game is released. Outside of those rare official updates, the only way we’d see games reflect midseason rosters would be revised and re-released editions, and late launches.

That brings us to Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside, a Nintendo 64 exclusive released in 1998. Indeed, that is the key factor that sets it apart from other 1998 season titles such as NBA Live 98 and NBA Action 98/NBA Fastbreak ’98. Whereas those games were released in late 1997 ahead of or around the beginning of the season, NBA Courtside came out after the calendar rolled over to 1998, and thus features midseason rosters. To that end, it captures a unique snapshot of the 1998 season, with some stints and lineups that you won’t find in any other games. 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 sensible roster choices that were made in classic basketball video games.

Generally speaking, roster accuracy is something that we want to see basketball video games strive for. Of course, in the days before official roster updates were common, it didn’t take long for games to become outdated. A big trade or an abrupt retirement shortly after the roster cut-off date could leave games with glaring inaccuracies. Still, we wanted the games to do their best: all of the necessary players as of the roster cut-off date, the correct players starting, and so on. Even in arcade titles, we wanted to see up-to-date squads that featured the most sensible roster choices.

To that point however, sometimes the most sensible roster choices in classic games – both simulation and arcade – have meant foregoing accuracy. In these situations, a completely accurate roster or starting lineup wouldn’t be as fun, because it would mean leaving out a player we want to take control of on the virtual hardwood. If a game lacked an inactive roster, was a sim or sim-arcade hybrid that didn’t include full lineups, or otherwise called for a break from reality, it was the right choice to make. With that in mind, here are five classic games where the developers wisely made sensible roster choices, even when it technically meant getting something wrong.

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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 Herb Williams and his lengthy association with the New York Knicks.

When we think of players who are synonymous with the New York Knicks, I feel quite confident in saying that Herb Williams probably isn’t the first one that comes to mind for most people. NBA history buffs will likely recall Willis Reed, the Finals MVP on both of the Knicks’ championship teams in the 1970s, or his teammate Walt “Clyde” Frazier. Obviously, Patrick Ewing will be a popular choice, being an All-Star and the franchise’s all-time leader in twenty categories. Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire might be the first Knicks that younger fans think of.

If tasked to keep naming Knicks, then players like Charles Oakley, John Starks, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley, Anthony Mason, Earl Monroe, Allan Houston, Latrell Sprewell, Bernard King, Micheal Ray Richardson, and Dick Barnett will be on the list. Marcus Camby, Kurt Thomas, Charlie Ward, and even Phil Jackson will possibly get a mention. These days, Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle will probably be brought up as notable New York Knicks long before Herb Williams is. This is understandable, yet at the same time, Williams can claim one of the longest tenures in the history of the team, which produced some interesting stories. 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 brief stints that somehow managed to be captured in basketball video games.

At this point, I’m sure that I sound like I’m on a constant loop whenever I refer to basketball video games as interactive almanacs. I can’t help it; it’s a fitting term that describes what it’s like to browse the rosters in an old release! Of course, games will vary as far as being an accurate resource. If nothing else, they can capture some very brief stints – and in some cases, phantom stints that didn’t result in any official on-court appearances – which may not be apparent if you don’t know your NBA history. To that point though, they’re still fascinating glimpses of the league at that time!

In older games, between revised releases, ports to different platforms, and publishers releasing games at various points during the season rather than everyone aiming for a pre-season launch, titles set in the same year – and even different versions of the same title – could easily feature inconsistent rosters. To me, that’s only made those games an even more entertaining window into the past, especially when they preserve some brief stints! Those can certainly occur in games that were released close to opening night, but games that were released later stood a better chance of capturing an even rarer stint that resulted from a midseason move. Here are five noteworthy examples.

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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 players who had single-season stints with the Detroit Pistons

So, this might seem like a weird topic for me to cover in The Friday Five! The Detroit Pistons are hardly the only NBA team whose all-time roster includes a number of players who only stuck around for a year. I’m also generally not inclined to focus my content on the Pistons; indeed, as a Chicago Bulls fan, it would be rather unusual for me to celebrate the team from the Motor City! However, I do love basketball and basketball gaming trivia, and it’s fun when real hoops reminds me of something from a video game, or revisiting an old title brings to mind some tidbit about the NBA.

While writing about my Minnesota Timberwolves Franchise in NBA Live 2003 for Wayback Wednesday, I noted that Joe Smith was on the roster, also mentioning his brief time with the Pistons. In the weird way that a mind that enjoys trivia works, I began trying to recall other players who only spent a single season of their career with Detroit, resulting in an often overlooked stint. Some of these players are bigger names than others, but they all have one thing in common, that being multi-year careers in the NBA with only one in Detroit. With apologies to fans of Korleone Young, that disqualifies him from this particular list, but here are five other single-season Pistons!

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Get ready for more fantastic highlights from the basketball gaming community in the NLSC Top 10 Plays of the Week, curated by Dee4Three! New and old games alike are featured in this celebration of spectacular moments on the virtual hardwood. To submit your clips, post them in this topic, or hit up Dee on Twitter.

May the 4th be with you, basketball gamers! With this week’s NLSC Top 10 Plays falling on a day that’s obviously very special to Star Wars fans – no matter what side of The Force you’re on – the countdown not only features players defying gravity, but also a couple of familiar faces from a galaxy far, far away. As always, it’s not just about spectacular virtual hardwood moments but also entertaining variety, as eight different titles are on display from NBA Live 2001 all the way through to NBA 2K24. Let’s get to the action!

What was your favourite highlight this week? Sound off in the comments below, and once again, get in on the fun by sending us your best plays! Remember, as long as it’s a basketball game, it’s eligible for the countdown. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to us on YouTube for more basketball gaming videos.

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 secret courts that can be unlocked using cheats in various basketball video games.

Wasn’t it way more fun unlocking content in basketball video games by completing tasks or entering secret codes, than buying it with microtransaction-based in-game currency? I know, I know, more Grumpy Old Man griping about the Good Old Days, but come on, am I wrong? I mean, not everything was better “back in the day”, but bonus content that we could all enjoy without pumping more money into the game, or mindlessly grinding, was a far superior and way fairer approach. If you disagree, then I’m sorry, but you might just be too far gone as a shill!

Alright, alright, enough with the antagonistic commentary about microtransactions! That issue aside, basketball video games have had some cool secrets over the years, and it was always entertaining punching in codes to access them. Those secrets also gave rise to a number of urban legends and hoaxes, but some were legit, allowing us to change things up on the virtual hardwood. Indeed, some of those secrets and bonus content directly involved the virtual hardwood, as basketball games have included some secret courts that can only be unlocked via cheats. It was a fun way to alter the setting and atmosphere, and with that in mind, here are five of the best secret courts.

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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 some famous jersey numbers that were worn by players who weren’t so famous, and the video games where you’ll find them.

There was a commemorative magazine published not long after the Chicago Bulls won their fifth NBA championship. As an avid fan, I read it cover to cover until it was no longer pristine. On top of recapping the championship season, the magazine delved into the history of the Bulls. I was fascinated to learn that although Michael Jordan became the last and most famous Bull to wear number 23, he was the seventh player in club history to don it. You have to remember that in 1997, such information wasn’t readily available and accessible in less than a minute!

That tidbit of Bulls and MJ trivia has stuck with me. The longer I’ve been a basketball fan, and the more players that I’ve seen come and go, the more I’ve seen other stars end up sharing their number with far less distinguished NBA alumni. Like so much other historical trivia, these examples frequently present themselves whenever I’m revisiting an old video game, and see players in the rosters that I haven’t thought about in years. While they may not have reached the same level of fame and success as the stars who donned those jerseys, there’s still that connection to their famous peers and their iconic numbers. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some assorted cover player trivia.

I’m sure that it’s apparent from my various features, as well as comments I’ve made on the NLSC Podcast, that I really enjoy trivia about my passions. I love discovering new “fun facts” about my favourite hobbies and interests, and of course, discussing them in the content that I create. Of course, the downside of being passionate about trivia is that it’s easy to come off as a know-it-all, or a bore. Still, I imagine that if you’re here to consume content about basketball video games, you enjoy these facts as well! It’s always my aim to share something that hopefully not everyone will know.

So, cover player trivia. It seems only appropriate, since in the grand scheme of things, there aren’t too many aspects of basketball video games that are as trivial as the cover player! The face of the game doesn’t necessarily indicate its quality, and there have been some out-of-the-box choices on the front of the box throughout the years. It’s still a point of interest, of course. We admire creative cover art, and while it doesn’t (or shouldn’t) impact our enjoyment of a game, we also appreciate a worthy cover player. With so many basketball games and a multitude of players appearing on their covers, there’s some interesting trivia we can dive into as we tip off another week.

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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 a time when certain basketball video games were regional exclusives, and/or had late releases.

The basketball gaming landscape has changed drastically since our choices were whittled down to just NBA Live and NBA 2K, culminating in a virtual monopoly for the latter. When a handful of developers and publishers were throwing their hat into the ring with hoops games, we received a variety of titles of varying quality, but most brought something interesting to the table. Of course, not every game was available worldwide. While NBA Live and NBA 2K stood as examples of global brands, other games were regional exclusives, usually only released in North America.

On top of that, if other regions did receive a particular game, it might not be until several months later. It may seem like a terrible marketing decision to release an NBA game well after the season has tipped off, but there are titles that have come along quite late in a campaign, even with their domestic release. Indeed, not even NBA 2K and NBA Live have been immune to late releases, if only outside North America. It’s an interesting difference in the way that basketball video games used to be handled, so let’s take a look back…way back…

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