Tag Archives: NBA 2K11

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 reasons why Roster Players weren’t an entirely bad thing back in the day, and still have their charm now.

Even if you didn’t grow up playing basketball video games in the 90s, chances are you’ve heard the legend of Roster Players. The moniker – which comes from the naming convention they used in several games – refers to the fictional placeholder players that stood in for anyone who wasn’t licensed to appear. The name “Roster Player” is practically synonymous with Michael Jordan, since he was frequently replaced by such a player in games released during the mid to late 90s. Charles Barkley was another regular Roster Player, at least up until his final few seasons.

Big names and role players alike have been replaced by stand-ins when licensing issues prevent them from appearing. Ironically, while it’s often looked upon as a phenomenon associated with early basketball video games, it’s still happening today with NBA 2K’s classic teams and MyNBA Eras rosters. It’s hardly ideal – then or now – and so given the choice, we’d all rather see the real players in the game. However, while Roster Players may not be the most desirable sight to behold when we fire up a game, they’re not all bad! Here are five reasons why Roster Players weren’t (and still aren’t) a complete abomination, and indeed, can actually be fun in their own way.

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Paxson-for-3’s 1998 roster for NBA 2K11 has been updated, and the new version is now available to download!

As previously noted, the mod was in need of some additional logo updates. Thanks to Shamgod and clutchcity1994-1995, those logos have now been properly updated for the 1998 season. A few jersey assignments have also been fixed, with all of the teams now using the appropriate 1998 uniforms by default.

You can download the 1998 roster for NBA 2K11 from this topic in the Forum. That’s also where you’ll find some previews of the project, as well as details on any future releases. In case you missed it, Paxson-for-3 has also released a 1997 roster; more information on that here.

Once again, shout out to Paxson-for-3 for spearheading these awesome retro roster projects, as well as Shamgod and clutchcity1994-1995 for their contributions to the latest version of the 1998 season mod! As I’ve said in previous bulletins, it’s great to see the classics still receiving love through some excellent mod releases. While we’ll always be committed to housing mods and providing other resources for new releases, we’re all about promoting retro gaming and modding as well. To that end, a reminder that we welcome discussion and mod releases for all basketball video games, new and old. In the meantime, be sure to check out these awesome rosters for NBA 2K11!

Get ready for more fantastic highlights from the basketball gaming community in the NLSC Top 10 Plays of the Week, curated by Dee! 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, send Dee a message, or hit him up on X.

The community continues to have a blast producing wild moments on the virtual hardwood, as this week’s NLSC Top 10 Plays demonstrates! A block party that turns into a bucket, a crazy shootout to end regulation, ridiculous buzzer beaters, perfectly-timed alley-oops, and devastating poster dunks, are all part of another spectacular countdown. As always, the variety extends beyond the array of highlights as eight different games are featured, from NBA Streel Vol. 2 all the way up to NBA 2K25. Without any further ado, 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.

Just a couple of weeks after releasing a new 1997 season mod for NBA 2K11 PC, Paxson-for-3 has followed up that project with a 1998 roster!

Like the 1997 mod, the 1998 rosters are accurate as of the season’s opening night (in this case October 31st, 1997), and all teams have their correct jerseys. The project is based on a previous 1997 mod that was released years ago, thus players also have era-appropriate faces.

Presently, a few teams that changed their logos ahead of the 1998 campaign are still using their 1997 season branding. Paxson-for-3 has appealed for help in updating those logos, so if you have the knowhow, he’s definitely keen to hear from you!

In the meantime, you can pick up the 1998 roster for NBA 2K11 here in the Forum, where you’ll also find some previews of the project. That’s also probably the best place to get in touch with Paxson-for-3 if you’re willing and able to help out with the missing 1998 season logo updates. As always, shout out to everyone who continues to release these passion projects for classic basketball video games! Once again, I’ve been mulling the possibility of retro rosters for old favourites, so I’m delighted to see that others have been similarly inspired to indulge their nostalgia. Keep up the fantastic work!

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 moments in modding that are extremely satisfying.

Needless to say, modding has long been a major part of what we do here at the NLSC. For nearly thirty years now, talented people in our community have added missing content, fixed and updated content that was in the games by default, made unofficial fixes for bugs and other issues, and created brand new experiences with amazing total conversions. These efforts have not only enhanced the virtual hardwood experience for a lot of people, but also been creatively satisfying for those who enjoy tinkering with video games. Indeed, some people mod the games more than they play them!

Naturally, modding can also be a frustrating and tedious activity. From repetitive data entry to tasks that are complex to complete and all too easy to mess up, certain parts of modding aren’t as enjoyable as others. The fun steps, breakthroughs, and technical triumphs along the way, are what keep modders going until the job is complete. As someone who has both successfully released major projects and unfortunately had others fall through for a variety of reasons, I’m quite familiar with some of the most satisfying moments in modding. To that end, here are five that I’ve experienced while messing around with some of my favourite basketball games throughout the years.

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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 thoughts on why we should never say never when it comes to basketball games and modding, even though I probably will.

As a Millennial, Don Bluth movies were part of my childhood. Some of them I saw a bit later on because I was too young (or not yet born) when they first came out, but they certainly had an impact on me. That includes An American Tail, the story of a young mouse named Fievel who is separated from his family during their journey to the United States. It’s a classic children’s film with some memorable musical numbers, one of which is the uplifting “Never Say Never”. It’s one of those iconic scenes from a movie that I watched when I was very young that became embedded in my memory.

I’d like to say that the message also resonated with me. In a way it did, but I’ll admit that as much as I try to be optimistic, open-minded, and imaginative, there have been times when, like Fievel, I’ve resigned myself to the notion of “never”. To that point though, it’s refreshing when your pessimism is proven wrong, and a lesson that we should never say never…well, to some things, anyway! When it comes to basketball video games and modding, I’ve been prone to writing off possibilities out of hand. This has led to some incorrect predictions and reminders to think outside the box! So, while I’d like to pledge that I’ll never say never again, I’m sure that it will happen.

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At the beginning of this month, I posted a Monday Tip-Off mulling over the possibility of creating a 1996, 1997, or 1998 mod for one of my favourite games. As it turns out, Paxson-for-3 was doing more than just considering such possibilities, as he has released a new 1997 roster for NBA 2K11!

The rosters are accurate as of opening night, and all of the teams have their 1997 season jerseys. Faces are also included, with the players who were still active in 2011 featuring their appropriate throwback likenesses. Accessories and other roster details are impressively accurate, as the mod does a fantastic job of winding back the clock to 1997 in NBA 2K11.

Download the roster and check out some previews of the project here in the NLSC Forum! Paxson-for-3 did some excellent work with retro mods for NBA Live back in the day, and it’s awesome to see him return with a new project for one of the best NBA 2K releases. While we obviously support our modding community’s efforts to work on NBA 2K25 and future releases, we’re also advocates for the retro gaming and modding scene, so it’s great to see classic games still receiving mods. We welcome releases for basketball games new and old, so always, please feel free to make use of our file hosting facilities. In the meantime, enjoy this amazing mod for an outstanding game!

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 What If; that being, what if Michael Jordan didn’t retire in 1993?

Yesterday marks thirty years since Michael Jordan announced his return to the NBA following his retirement to play baseball in 1993. If you know your NBA history, you’re well aware of what happened next. After falling to the Orlando Magic in the second round, the Chicago Bulls bolstered their roster with Dennis Rodman, and His Airness led the team to a second threepeat before retiring for the second (but as it turned out, not final) time. Even with the interruption – even with the controversial Wizards stint – Michael Jordan had a tremendous career to put it mildly.

Of course, even with all of his accomplishments that still lead many pundits and fans alike to declare him the Greatest of All-Time – and I’m among them – MJ’s career does invite a couple of What Ifs. The most obvious one that would’ve changed the course of the mid 90s, and further added to his legacy, is if Michael Jordan didn’t retire in 1993. Now, as I acknowledged when I discussed the What If regarding Karl Malone becoming the all-time leading scorer, hypothetical scenarios don’t prove anything. They’re fun to consider though, so let’s take a look back…way back…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #572 of the NLSC Podcast!

The seventh generation saw NBA 2K pull ahead of NBA Live – and for good reason – but which 2K titles stand out as the best releases during that run? This week, we join the community in ranking NBA 2K6 through NBA 2K13 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 – as well as the PC ports from NBA 2K9 onwards – discussing the key strengths and weaknesses of each game, while also sharing some of our personal memories and experiences with them. We also discuss some of the factors that make games stand out as classic and nostalgic releases, such as the season they’re set in, and the presence of fun teams to put on the virtual hardwood years and indeed decades later.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:01:30 — 42.6MB)

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!

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 thoughts on planning classic team rosters.

When I discovered the NLSC way back in 1997, and the work that our founders and others in the community were doing, it wasn’t long before I was hooked on modding (or patching, as we called it back then). I’d already been tinkering with the rosters in NBA Live 96 PC, trying to update them for the new season as best I could with what could be done in-game. By the end of the year, I was working on a 1998 season roster. That tipped off a long tenure of updating rosters for NBA Live, and although it was a fun time in our community, I did eventually get burned out on modding.

Of course, the lure of modding is strong, so I’ve remained reluctant to close the door on being more involved in the scene. I’ve dabbled here and there, and as I noted last year, I want to be judicious when choosing projects to work on. That way, they stand a much better chance of being completed. However, even as I’ve taken a step back from modding, ideas for new rosters have frequently come to mind and subsequently joined a long list of projects to consider. Some of those ideas include retro season and classic team rosters for my all-time favourite games. I’m particularly keen on the latter at the moment, but to that end, classic team rosters definitely require some planning.

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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 modding projects that I unfortunately had to abandon before they were finished.

When I was reading Felicia Day’s first book several years ago, she offered up the advice to never throw away anything you’ve written. By all means start over or try to re-work what you’ve drafted, but don’t just delete the original file. After all, you may want to return to it as a starting point, or at least salvage a part of it. I’ve kept that in mind when writing articles since then. Whether it’s keeping the first draft while I take another run at a topic, or saving what I’ve written when I remove an example from a Friday Five list so that it can potentially be used elsewhere, I’m hesitant to scrap work.

The same goes for modding projects. Even an abandoned roster potentially has some data or art assets that can be recycled in another mod, so there’s value in holding onto both. Furthermore, while projects can hit a brick wall, there’s always a chance that you can persevere, perhaps by changing direction or scaling down the project. With that being said, there comes a time where you need to cut your losses rather than falling victim to the sunk cost fallacy. I’ve certainly done that with a few modding projects over the years! It’s never a good feeling, but it’s far wiser than wasting time on an ultimately doomed idea. Here are five of my modding projects that fell through.

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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 reflections on how the NBA 2K12 intro makes me wistful nowadays.

To celebrate World Basketball Day – which has indeed been declared an official day of observance – I’ve taken to posting the intro from NBA 2K12 on the NLSC’s socials every December 21st. It tends to get some traction with shares, likes, and comments, because it’s one of the very best intros that we’ve seen in a basketball video game. Accompanied by Kurtis Blow’s iconic hit “Basketball” and re-creating some of the best moments in the history of the sport in a way that blends past and present, it truly is a love letter to hoops.

Thanks to the way that Facebook’s algorithms work, the post on our page is the one that achieved the furthest reach out of all our socials, and it’s still being watched and getting regular reactions as of writing. Many of the comments are praising it for being such an incredible intro to a basketball video game, and also calling NBA 2K12 the best game in the series. I’m more inclined to agree with the former sentiment rather than the latter, but nevertheless, I’m glad that I’m not alone in my enjoyment of the NBA 2K12 intro. At the same time, seeing those comments and watching the intro again has left me feeling wistful about changes in basketball and gaming since then.

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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 things that I should’ve done while making rosters for various games.

Although my modding output has dwindled to sporadic releases over the past decade or so, there was a time when I was extremely active. Current rosters were my bread and butter, and as I’ve recalled in a couple of Wayback Wednesday features, I also created 1996 season mods for NBA Live 2001 and NBA Live 2004. Burnout put an end to my days as a prolific roster modder around 2013, but I did genuinely enjoy the creative satisfaction of modding for many years before that. As such, the lure has always lingered, and I’ve never wanted to completely shut the door on a return.

Indeed, I have released a couple of rosters for NBA Live and NBA 2K games since then. However, I’ve also had a couple of ill-fated attempts at updating NBA 2K11 for the current season, an idea that sadly fell through despite my best intentions. When I reflect upon my burnout, stepping away from roster modding, and my attempts to get back into the hobby, I can identify the mistakes I made, and what I should’ve done instead. From philosophical and strategic approaches to technical procedures, there are definitely things I should’ve done differently, and will certainly strive to do so with any roster projects moving forward. Here are five of the most important ones.

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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 reasons to mod old games.

I remember a conversation with a long-time member of the community many years ago, when we were reflecting on the earliest NBA Live games fading into obscurity. This was around the turn of the millennium, and modding for titles earlier than NBA Live 99 was definitely slowing down and going out of vogue. With that being said, I did release a 2001 season update for NBA Live 96 PC, which at the time was meant to be a farewell to an old favourite. Little did either of us know that retro gaming would one day see a number of old releases find their way back into people’s rotations!

Granted, it’s not for everyone, but I’ll always advocate for retro gaming, basketball or otherwise. Moreover, I’ll also encourage anyone to mod old games if they’re inclined to do so. I can understand if some gamers balk at that idea. While there are people that turn their nose up at the suggestion of playing anything other than the latest release, they can at least see the nostalgic appeal of quickly throwing on a classic game. A modding project can take a lot of time and effort though, and mods for an old title may not seem worth all that trouble. I understand that point of view, but I strongly disagree! In that spirit, here are five reasons why it’s a great idea to mod old games.

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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 an attempt at crafting a Next Gen NBA’s Greatest mode in a future NBA 2K.

Although the original Jordan Challenge was the catalyst for a new era of historical content in NBA 2K, NBA’s Greatest was an innovative follow-up. Many of the classic teams that were added as part of NBA’s Greatest are still in the game today, setting a precedent for expanding the roster of retro squads to celebrate a variety of players. It wasn’t the first basketball game to feature throwback presentation – NBA Jam 2004 had utilised the concept almost a decade earlier – but NBA 2K12 did a spectacular job with it, ultimately paving the way for what we now have with MyNBA Eras.

As a game released in 2011, NBA’s Greatest celebrated fifteen of the most prominent players in league history to that point: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Julius Erving, Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Oscar Robertson, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Scottie Pippen, and Isiah Thomas. Needless to say, those players still deserve to be celebrated today, but after all these years, there’s a new class of all-time greats that a future NBA 2K could build a Next Gen NBA’s Greatest around. With that in mind, here are fifteen players that should be celebrated in such a mode, as well as my picks for their games.

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