Tag Archives: Patrick Ewing

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 Isiah Thomas was traded to the Knicks in 1994?

Let it be known that I’m not a big fan of Isiah Thomas! I certainly respect his skill and accomplishments, and I’d even go so far as to say that like too many players of his era, he’s now become somewhat underrated. However, I’ve never respected his decision to lead the walk-off after the Chicago Bulls finally topped the Detroit Pistons in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals, and consider it a stain on his character. Also, many of his comments regarding Michael Jordan in recent years have been incredibly petty, and laughably inaccurate. I’d suggest that some of the harsh truths in The Last Dance hurt!

With that being said, he’s undoubtedly one of the all-time greats. On top of being a two-champion and 12-time All-Star, Isiah Thomas remains the Detroit Pistons’ all-time leader in points, assists, steals, and minutes, having spent his entire NBA career with the club. However, there was briefly a possibility that Zeke might end his career with the New York Knicks – a team that he’d later come to be associated with – and one more NBA Finals run. It’s an interesting What If, and with the Knicks back in the NBA Finals, it feels like a good time to revisit it! Let’s take a look back…way back…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #614 of the NLSC Podcast!

Who are the most dominant players when they’re controlled by the CPU in basketball video games? This week, we join the community in discussing some of the most unguardable players that we’ve encountered on the virtual hardwood over the years, at least when they’re in the hands of the AI. Whether it’s an issue with the engine, or their ratings are slightly overdone or completely inaccurate, these stars and role players alike have given us fits on the sticks. We also reflect on the frustration of not always being able to light it up with those same players ourselves, and mention a few players who haven’t been as dominant in video games they really should be.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:03:25 — 43.9MB)

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 is another list of five teammates who were once traded for each other, and the video games that feature those stints.

When I posted my previous Friday Five recalling five teammates who had once been traded for each other, I mentioned that there was an example that I cut after being reminded of a pairing that I definitely couldn’t leave out the first time around. Since I hate to waste any writing and research, I kept that example aside, with the intention of revisiting the topic. It actually didn’t take too long to find four more examples of players who became teammates after being traded for one another, and as such, the time has come to follow up with a new instalment.

As I’ve often said, I love roster trivia like this! It’s fascinating to trawl through NBA history to find interesting trades, unique lineups, and other unusual events, including phantom stints, and familiar faces in strange places and back in familiar places alike. I look at them through the lens of the virtual hardwood, not only because it’s the focus of our content here at the NLSC, but also because as I like to say, basketball video games are interactive almanacs. I had to search beyond the obvious games to find virtual representation of a couple of these pairings, but that’s all part of the fun! And so, let’s tip things off with the pair of players that were cut from the previous article.

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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 offseasons that ended up being quite exciting for basketball gamers.

As another offseason draws to a close and a new season gets ready to tip off, we’ve got some new lineups to look forward to in the NBA this year. To that end, for those who play with current season rosters, the offseason always sets the table with some intriguing scenarios for the upcoming campaign. Whether you want to play with a team that just made a big trade or signing, or defeat them if they’re a bitter rival of your favourite club, gamers are just as invested as seeing those stories play out on the virtual hardwood as in real life.

Some offseasons are wilder than others of course, leading to lineups that make the games set in the forthcoming season even more memorable. With that in mind, I’ve compiled a list of what I believe are five of the most exciting offseasons from the perspective of basketball fans and gamers alike. Before I get into them however, I’ll give an honourable mention to the 2003 offseason, which saw Gary Payton and Karl Malone join Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant on the Lakers. It’s an honourable mention because it feels like a played-out example, and other offseasons were arguably more exciting league-wide. With that being said, here are my five picks!

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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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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #512 of the NLSC Podcast!

It’s Wishlist season once again, so this week, we join the community in listing our top three gameplay wishes for NBA 2K25! Not surprisingly, many of us have similar thoughts on what we want to see out of this year’s game. Following our recent sessions with them, we also discuss NBA ShootOut (aka Total NBA ’96) and Sony’s NBA 08, and compare them to their contemporaries. We’ve also got an injury update to share, and spend some time reflecting on past-their-prime players still having something left in the tank in real life, as well as being fun to play with in video games; especially when they’re familiar faces in unfamiliar places.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:41:02 — 69.7MB)

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!

In case you missed it, Dee and I both uploaded a couple of new reels to the NLSC YouTube channel over the past week. Dee shared some highlights from a game of NBA 2K19 using an All-Time Fantasy Draft Roster, while mine are from a game in NBA Live 18 Ultimate Team.

Specifically, my reel focuses on Patrick Ewing, who celebrated his 61st birthday over the weekend. I decked out my squad with New York Knicks jerseys for the occasion, and surrounded Ewing with teammates spanning his career with the Knicks, Seattle SuperSonics, and Orlando Magic, as well as his appearances on the Dream Team and East All-Stars. As much fun as I’m having playing with a makeshift 90s All-Stars squad, I enjoyed changing it up to celebrate one NBA Legend in particular!

Once again, Dee’s reel showcases an All-Time Fantasy Draft Roster that he and his brother are playing with in NBA 2K19. The game features the Chicago Bulls taking on the Charlotte Hornets, with some familiar faces obviously in unfamiliar places! Amar’e Stoudamire, Damian Lillard, Julius Erving, Mark Price, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joe Johnson, Charles Barkley, and other stars produced a dazzling array of highlights.

Check out the highlights from my NBA Live 18 Ultimate Team game and Dee’s NBA 2K19 All-Time Fantasy Draft showdown below! Be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content, and as always, feel free to hit us up with any suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play.

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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 how weird stints can enhance the retro basketball gaming experience.

A topic that I’ve managed to get a ton of mileage out of for Wayback Wednesday is the phenomenon of familiar faces in strange places. It even spawned a companion series: familiar faces back in familiar places! Both are part of the interactive almanac aspect of basketball video games that I’ve frequently touted. It’s what makes revisiting old games and combing through the rosters so much fun, especially when there are weird stints that you’ve forgotten about. Together, they’re a great way for me to indulge my interest in NBA history and basketball video games alike.

However, these weird stints aren’t just fodder for creating content. Seeing them in games and reminiscing about them in articles makes me want to spend more time with those titles whenever I’m looking for something to play. That may seem odd, since the players usually aren’t in their prime and playing for the team that we mostly associate them with. Needless to say, I enjoy revisiting classic games that capture famous stints too, as they involve historically significant matchups. There are some rather intriguing scenarios involving those weird stints though, so 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, it’s a highlight reel featuring the ’95 Knicks taking on the ’95 Magic in NBA 2K14 PS4, which I’m calling NBA 1K95.

No, I haven’t forgotten all about NBA Live 10, but I do have a new addition to my retro basketball gaming rotation: NBA 2K14 on PlayStation 4. It’s another game that I’ve developed a new appreciation for, having pushed it aside when it was new. In addition to finally playing through the first MyCAREER story, I’ve been hitting the virtual hardwood with classic teams. The PS4/Xbox One version of NBA 2K14 had fantastic presentation, and combined with music from NBA Live 95, I’ve put together a highlight reel from a game between the ’95 Knicks and ’95 Magic. Check out NBA 1K95 to take a look back…way back…

It goes without saying, but making the right decisions in crunch time is the difference between a win and a loss! I hope that you enjoyed the reel, and found it to be a double dose of nostalgia. As I’ve done with NBA Live 06 and NBA Live 10, I’ll be revisiting NBA 2K14 in a future Wayback Wednesday feature, as I do have some new thoughts on the game in the wake of my recent retro gaming kick. Be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more video content, including the weekly Top 10 Plays curated by Dee4Three!

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 NBA players who became familiar faces in strange places, and the games that captured those stints.

With the NBA season on hiatus, a lot of the conversation on Twitter has turned to historical debates and reminiscing. I’ve seen a couple of recent threads talking about big names who had brief stints with teams that are often overlooked and forgotten. Those Tweets have taken the form of facetious captions describing these familiar faces in strange places as a legend of the team in question, sometimes with a photo for emphasis. It’s an apt way of describing the oddity of those stints, many of which we’d rather pretend didn’t happen (or at least, claim to).

They did happen of course, and we’ve got the photos, footage, and records to prove it. We’ve also got basketball video games, which as I’ve grown fond of saying, act as time capsules and interactive almanacs. In a previous Wayback Wednesday article, I noted how video games have marked various milestones in NBA history. This time, I’m reminiscing about the weird stints of well-known players, and the games we saw them in. 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 reimagining NBA’s Greatest in NBA 2K12.

I had a lot of fun reimagining The Jordan Challenge back in June, so I thought I’d give the same treatment to NBA’s Greatest. As I remarked in my retrospective on NBA’s Greatest, it was a fantastic follow-up to The Jordan Challenge, and added new content to NBA 2K12 with the lockout of 2011 delaying the inclusion of the new rookies and updated rosters. The level of detail with the retro presentation was very impressive, and it’s a feature that would be really fun to have when playing with historical teams in future NBA 2K games.

However, as with The Jordan Challenge, NBA’s Greatest wasn’t perfect. Looking back, there are a few ways it could’ve been better, and teams that would’ve been preferable. As with my previous reimagining, this isn’t intended to disparage the work that Visual Concepts put into NBA’s Greatest, but rather consider what might have been if not for a few legal barriers, and how an already fantastic mode could be made even better. 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 the introduction video for NBA 2K12.

Although NBA 2K11 was a tough act to follow, I would suggest that NBA 2K12 was up to the challenge. Continuing to improve upon the gameplay of its predecessor, it also successfully expanded the historical content we’ve come to associate with the NBA 2K series. The Jordan Challenge gave way to NBA’s Greatest, a mode featuring fantastic production values and several of the best teams in the NBA history on top of MJ’s Bulls. The game was hampered by the absence of the Class of 2011 rookies at launch owing to the lockout, but official roster updates would later resolve that issue.

Firing up NBA 2K12 for the first time immediately got you in the mood to play with the new historical teams, with an introduction video that I once ranked as the best among basketball games. Although we’ve seen some slick intros in the years since, there’s still a strong case for NBA 2K12’s boot-up remaining in the top spot. As such, I thought I’d look back at it this week, and the real highlights that inspired several moments in the intro. 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.

The 2017 NBA season has just tipped off, with a couple of big names making their first appearances for new teams, and a few rookies making their league debut. While the start of a new season is a time to look forward to what will hopefully be another great year of basketball, it’s not uncommon to take the opportunity to look back on the debuts of all-time greats. If you look up “On This Date” lists for October and November, you’ll usually see the debuts of some of the biggest names in basketball history among the dates that are noted.

On this particular date – October 26th – Hall of Famers and 1992 Dream Team members Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, John Stockton, and Patrick Ewing all made their NBA debut; Jordan, Barkley, and Stockton in 1984, and Ewing in 1985. For this week’s Wayback Wednesday, I thought I’d share some screenshots of those players’ first appearances in basketball video games, as well as their last appearances as active NBA players. Of course, all four players appear in NBA 2K17, as members of the aforementioned Dream Team.

Let’s take a look back…way back…

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