Menu
Home | Tag: NBA

Tag Archives: NBA

NLSC Podcast #501: 2024 NBA Season Tip-Off & Halloween Treats

NLSC Podcast Logo

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #501 of the NLSC Podcast!

The 2024 NBA season has tipped off, and this year, we’ve resolved to follow it with more enthusiasm from the very start! To that end, we’re sharing our thoughts as the new campaign gets underway, from our early picks for contenders and pretenders to what we expect from our favourite teams, namely the Chicago Bulls and Boston Celtics. We also react to Victor Wembanyama’s first few official NBA games, and discuss other players we’re keeping an eye on. Also, since it’s Halloween, we reflect on some spooky moments on the virtual hardwood, including an overlooked horror-themed hoops game released for the Sega Master System.

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!

Monday Tip-Off: Set Trends, Don’t Follow Them

Monday Tip-Off: Set Trends, Don't Follow Them

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 basketball video games chasing trends in gaming, rather than doing their own thing.

I’m going to make a comparison here. Although I’m not a fan of Adam Silver and I have some gripes with his NBA, I won’t pretend that the late David Stern always got it right, either. Like many older fans, I rolled my eyes whenever he talked about the pipe dream of expanding into Europe; an idea that seemed like a logistical nightmare for a league in which teams play four to five games per week, and players can get traded wherever and whenever, whether they like it or not. In particular, I remember cringing when he once used the word “friendlies” when referring to exhibition games.

Obviously, those two words do mean the same thing in terms of sports. Of course, “friendlies” is commonly used in football (that is, association football, or soccer if you prefer) to describe a match that doesn’t count, and is more of a British/European term. Conversely, American leagues such as the NBA tend to use the word “exhibition” for such games. As an Australian, they’re interchangeable terms for me. As for Stern, he was clearly trying to sell the NBA to the European market and ingratiate himself by using a familiar term. I understood that, but I still cringed because it felt inauthentic. Basketball video games chasing trends instead of setting them reminds me of that.

Read More »

The Friday Five: 5 Players Who Only Appeared on Certain Teams in Games (Part 17)

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 Part 17 in an ongoing series looking at players who only appeared on certain teams in video games.

Many of the examples of players who only appeared on certain teams in games go back a number of years. There’s a reason for that, and it’s not just my love of retro basketball gaming (though yes, that is a factor!). With decades of basketball video games capturing a snapshot of the NBA when they were released, there have been tons of older examples to cover. On top of that, official roster updates were once uncommon, preserving a number of phantom stints. With active players who are potential examples, I obviously need to wait until their phantom stints are “official”.

However, there are indeed players who only appeared on certain teams in more recent video games too, and are safe examples to cover at this point. To that end, in Part 17 of this ongoing series, there are three players whose phantom stints are preserved in games that were released within the last five years. With that being said, the first two examples are much older, including one that I’ve somehow neglected to mention in this series until now, despite noting it in other features. Once again, I must shout out David L, as his research has been invaluable in compiling examples for this second run of articles about players who only appeared on certain teams in video games!

Read More »

Wayback Wednesday: Players From NBA 2K14 Still Active in 2023

Wayback Wednesday: Players From NBA 2K14 Still Active in 2023

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…

Read More »

Wayback Wednesday: Debuting in Games Before the NBA

Wayback Wednesday: Debuting in Games Before the NBA

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 examples of players debuting in video games long before tallying their first NBA minute.

Every offseason, there’s a new crop of players – both drafted and undrafted – that will make their debut in the real NBA and on the virtual hardwood alike. To that point of course, barring Summer League play, basically all NBA players will be debuting in games before the real NBA, and have done so as long as titles with updated rosters have been released before the season tips off. However, there are players whose real life debuts came well after their first appearance in a video game. For the purposes of this article, this is what I mean when I say “debuting in games before the NBA”.

This includes players that missed what should’ve been their rookie season, and future NBA players who made cameos through other means. These appearances can make it difficult to remember exactly when certain players debuted or were drafted, since we recall playing with them in video games much earlier. There are also fun examples of bonus content leading to pre-NBA cameos for players who would become noteworthy names, and in some cases, major stars. It’s a lengthy list, so settle in as we take a look back…way back…

Read More »

NLSC Podcast #498: Mods vs. MyNBA Eras, & Overdue Call-Outs

NLSC Podcast Logo

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #498 of the NLSC Podcast!

After revisiting NBA in the Zone 2 over Parsec last week, we recap a fun showdown as we took on the Nuggets with the SuperSonics, while reflecting on the sim-arcade hybrid approach and comparing the game to NBA Live 97. We also played NBA 2K13 using the 1993 season roster from URB, which leads us to compare the attention to detail in retro mods to the lack thereof in MyNBA Eras. Speaking of inaccuracies, the WNBA Players Association called out NBA 2K24’s terrible player likenesses, a move that we wholeheartedly support. We also imagine the ideal gameplay for NBA 2K and NBA Live by combining our favourite mechanics from previous games in both series, and give a heads up on a great PC gaming deal.

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!

NLSC Podcast #497: Where Are All The Basketball Games?

NLSC Podcast Logo

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #497 of the NLSC Podcast!

NBA 2K24 has been out for almost a month now, and honestly, we’re not exactly having a blast with it. To that end, we join our listeners in giving the game a score out of ten, at least as it stands right now. Our disappointment with NBA 2K24 leads us to reflect on the lack of choices in the basketball gaming space, compared to the array of titles that we once enjoyed. We speculate on the reasons why no one is stepping up to offer an alternative – from design challenges to intimidation and gatekeeping – and the community also weighs in with their takes on the matter. We also note some similarities in the attitudes towards basketball gaming and real hoops nowadays.

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!

The Friday Five: 5 Players Who Only Appeared on Certain Teams in Games (Part 16)

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 Part 16 in an ongoing series looking at players who only appeared on certain teams in video games.

So, as of writing, there will be four more articles covering players who only appeared on certain team in games, following this one. That will take us through to Part 20 on the last Friday of January 2024. At one point, this was going to be the final article in the series – at least for now – but David L has come through with so many great examples that I couldn’t not write about them! There were also too many interesting stories and players who were memorable for one reason or another for me to scrap what I had already written, so instead I decided to continue this series a little longer!

After covering some more obscure players in Part 15, Part 16 features names that are – with one exception – far more recognisable to fans who know their NBA history. Of course, their phantom stints can still easily fly under the radar. A couple of them are looser examples of players who only appeared on certain teams in games as they do have a prior stint with the club in question, but their return didn’t come to fruition outside of the virtual hardwood. As such, they do still qualify as phantom stints. Again, that’s probably what I should’ve called this series in the first place! In any case, let’s look at five more players with phantom stints that video games have preserved.

Read More »

The Friday Five: 5 Plays That Affected Video Games

The Friday Five: 5 Plays That Affected Video Games

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 plays that had a profound impact on gameplay design in basketball video games.

Since the aim of sim basketball games is to depict the NBA in a realistic manner, it goes without saying that events in the real league have had an impact on those titles. Likewise, our enthusiasm for real basketball makes us want to imitate NBA highlights on the virtual hardwood. It’s something that the games have allowed us to do with increasing accuracy over the years, as new animations, controls, and mechanics are added. Our desire to see certain plays accounted for in video games can be traced back to wide trends and specific moments alike.

Quite often, they’re the memorable plays that are assured to make all the highlight reels for decades to come; the iconic moments in NBA history. When we see them happen in real life and can’t replicate them in games, we immediately develop a keen interest in seeing them made possible in future releases. While it may not be entirely accurate to ascribe a particular gameplay addition solely to a single highlight, there’s no doubt that memorable plays have had an impact on gameplay development. After all, the developers are basketball fans too, and are just as eager to perform those dazzling plays on the sticks. Here are five plays that impacted gameplay design!

Read More »

Wayback Wednesday: Regional Exclusives & Late Releases

Wayback Wednesday: Regional Exclusives & Late Releases

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…

Read More »

NLSC Podcast #492: ProPLAY, Mamba Moments, & Badges (Oh My!)

NLSC Podcast Logo

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #492 of the NLSC Podcast!

The NBA 2K24 preview season is certainly ramping up! This week, we’re reacting to the ProPLAY trailer and the insights of the gameplay blog, discussing the featured games in Mamba Moments and noting some missed opportunities, debating the merits of the “Green or Miss” approach to shooting mechanics, and mulling the pros and cons of the new MyPLAYER Builder and the Badge progression/regression system. There are some intriguing ideas, but also a few that could prove to be costly missteps for NBA 2K24. We also recap fun sessions with NBA Live 10 and NBA 2K14, celebrate a big milestone, and join the community in sharing some of our favourite memories of Kobe Bryant.

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!

The Friday Five: 5 Players Who Only Appeared on Certain Teams in Games (Part 15)

The Friday Five: 5 Players Who Only Appeared on Certain Teams in Games (Part 15)

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 Part 15 in an ongoing series looking at players who only appeared on certain teams in video games.

With the way that I’ve uncovered more examples of players who only appeared on certain teams in games – with a huge assist from David L, of course – I’ve had to alter plans and re-write instalments of this series. Four of the players that I’m talking about today were originally planned for earlier articles, and as two-for-one examples. When David sent in some bigger names and their phantom stints, I realised that by covering those four players separately, I had enough examples to produce further instalments. As such, there are definitely more entries in this series in the pipeline!

I’m actually glad that it worked out that way, as it means that I was able to run with a theme for this instalment. Both of those two-for-one examples involved players who only appeared on certain teams in video games thanks to being included in the same trade; either a swap for each other, or a multi-team deal. It also meant that I was able to get into more detail about each of those four players, and share some additional trivia on top of how they came to have those phantom stints. As for the fifth player, he’s a more straightforward example involving offseason free agency and preseason cuts, but he’s also a role player that long-time fans may remember. Let’s begin with…

Read More »

NLSC Podcast #489: The Cost of Basketball Gaming

NLSC Podcast Logo

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #489 of the NLSC Podcast!

How much should basketball video games cost, from their base price to any microtransactions that we may choose to indulge in? A recent NBA 2K24 rumour regarding season passes in MyTEAM and MyCAREER has raised concerns about the possibility of additional costs moving forward. Naturally, both we and the community have a few thoughts on the matter; as you can probably guess, we’re not big fans! On a brighter note, there’s a new PlayStation 1 emulator that we recommend, along with some other retro gaming resources. We also react to Jeff Teague’s recent comments regarding James Harden and Dwyane Wade, and a shifting NBA narrative that’s about to start tying the talking heads up in knots.

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!

The Friday Five: 5 Stints That Never Appeared in Games

The Friday Five: 5 Stints That Never Appeared in Games

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 player stints that never officially appeared in any basketball video games.

One of the reasons that I enjoy retro basketball gaming, and covering old titles for Wayback Wednesday, is the interactive almanac aspect. As I’ve said so many times, firing up old games is like consulting an almanac or encyclopedia. You’ll see all the familiar faces in strange places, and back in familiar places. The memorable teams of yesteryear are there to browse, and of course, play with. For so many of us, video games complemented our NBA fandom, and were part of following along with the league that year. Not to overuse a phrase, but they capture a snapshot of the season.

Well…for the most part! As I’ve demonstrated through various articles, there are aspects of basketball video games that prevent them from being completely accurate interactive almanacs. We’ve seen phantom stints; the players that only appeared on certain teams in games, as they didn’t ever suit up for that club in an official NBA contest. There are comebacks that were over before they began, and players who made it into the rosters of video games without ever tallying a single minute in the league. And then, there are the players who had stints that never appeared in the official rosters of a game. Here are five of the most memorable unaccounted for stints.

Read More »

The Friday Five: 5 Players Who Only Appeared on Certain Teams in Games (Part 14)

The Friday Five: 5 Players Who Only Appeared on Certain Teams in Games (Part 14)

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 Part 14 in an ongoing series looking at players who only appeared on certain teams in video games.

As I’ve said before, when I started this series of articles on players who only appeared on certain teams in games, it seemed as though I’d found some unique examples. The more I went back and combed through rosters however, the more players I ended up discovering! I thought that I’d exhausted all of the players worth mentioning, but not long after I posted Part 7, it became apparent that there were several that I missed. Thanks to the research of David L, I’ve been able to go back and cover them. It’s certainly been a fun trip down memory lane, looking into all of those names!

However, now that we’re up to the fourteenth instalment, many of the most prominent players who only appeared on certain teams in games have already been mentioned. A majority of the players I’m covering today had fairly short careers – indeed, only the very last player truly became an NBA veteran – and none of them were ever All-Stars. Three of them did become key role players though, and long-time NBA enthusiasts and basketball gamers will likely recognise the other two. There’s also some fun trivia here concerning their real life careers and the virtual hardwood, so let’s once again take a look at some phantom stints that were captured in video games over the years.

Read More »