Tag Archives: Steve Nash

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)

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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 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Although the original Jordan Challenge was the catalyst for a new era of historical content in NBA 2K, NBA’s Greatest was an innovative follow-up.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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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 lineups that despite their fame, didn’t actually last long.

Just how good is your memory? I like to think that mine is pretty good when it comes to basketball and basketball video games, because those are things that I’m passionate about. However, I definitely don’t have infallible recall! Moreover, our perception of time can be a tricky thing. To that end, while I may remember players, teams, lineups, and other such roster trivia many years later, my recollection of their longevity (or lack thereof) can be skewed. After all, what may feel like a long time when we’re living it day-by-day can turn out to be a short period in the grand scheme of things!

Case in point: the lineups that I’m talking about today. It’s no surprise that they stick in my mind – and I’m sure the minds of many long-time basketball fans and gamers – because they were all memorable in their own way. However, their memorability can ironically make us forget how short-lived those lineups actually were; especially if they did have a significant impact on the league (and video games) while they lasted. Even if they weren’t particularly successful, or a Video Game Team, they may still benefit from an oddity, or simply media hype, that grants them more nostalgic fame – or infamy – than you’d expect. Here are five such lineups that come to mind for me.

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It’s time for the next instalment of the NBA 2K14 Retro Series! This time we’re flashing back to the 2005 season, with a showdown between a young Chicago Bulls team, and the 7 Seconds Or Less Phoenix Suns. And yes, the fact that that’s a retro matchup is a reminder of how quickly time flies!

Needless to say, as a Chicago Bulls fan, my fondest memories of the team are from the championship years of the 90s. However, I also have a great appreciation for those Baby Bulls squads that were beginning to grow up, and it was particularly exciting to see the team become relevant again in 2005. Meanwhile, Steve Nash’s return to Phoenix that same season helped make them a team to watch for years to come. It’s possible to re-create the 2005 Bulls and Suns in NBA 2K14 – minus a couple of players, of course – so I knew it’d make for a fun matchup for the NBA 2K14 Retro Series. Watch how it went down!

Since we’re firmly in the DVD era by this point, I haven’t added any retro filters to these highlights. However, keep your eyes peeled for another classic commercial! There are more instalments coming in the Retro Series, including old school showdowns, so stay tuned. In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content, and feel free to hit us up with any suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play.

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 that have been difficult to rate over the years.

Since they became visible attributes, Overall Ratings have been the subject of much contention and debate. They aren’t nearly as important to realistic performance as individual ratings and other tendency data, yet they’re not completely irrelevant either. If a player’s Overall Rating seems too high or too low, it’s usually an indication that some (or many) of their individual ratings are off. Also, because they’re factored into rotation logic and trade value in franchise modes, it’s important that a player’s Overall Rating generally reflects their ranking amongst their peers.

It’s why in official and unofficial rosters alike, it’s necessary to pay some attention to Overall Ratings. Attributes such as “Intangibles” – found in certain NBA 2K titles – have been helpful in artificially adjusting Overall Ratings. Otherwise, it’s usually a matter of fudging a few ratings here or there so that the Overall Rating feels more accurate, without compromising realism in player skill and performance. Even so, there are some players that have been historically difficult to rate, especially without the aid of an Intangibles attribute. Looking back, these players are among the most likely to end up being overrated or underrated, at least according to their Overall.

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It’s time for another Fantasy Teams Showdown in NBA Live 10! Every so often, Dee4Three and I will jump into a game of NBA Live 10 using Parsec, and use the Fantasy Teams mode to create some fun matchups. These include makeshift retro squads, utilising the players who are available in the game’s rosters. This time, we had the 2006 New Jersey Nets (me) taking on the 2006 Phoenix Suns (Dee).

As always, the challenge is to find retro squads where we can fill all ten roster slots for a Fantasy Teams game. At the very least, we aim to have no less than seven or eight real players that were still available in NBA Live 10’s rosters. The 2006 Suns had ten players in the game, while the 2006 Nets still had nine. It produced a fun matchup filled with spectacular highlights, as Steve Nash, Amar’e Stoudemire, and Shawn Marion clashed with Jason Kidd, Vince Carter, and Richard Jefferson. Dee has compiled a highlight reel, which you can check out below!

You can find more of our NBA Live 10 Fantasy Teams Showdowns over on the NLSC YouTube channel! Got any suggestions for matchups you’d like to see? Check out this list of retro teams that can feasibly be created in NBA Live 10, and let us know! If you have any other suggestions, we can give them a try, too. For more information on how to use Parsec to play basketball video games head-to-head, check out this video tutorial.

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 some famous NBA What Ifs, and portraying them in NBA Live 10.

What Ifs can be fun to ponder, whether they concern the NBA or video games. There are trades and signings that, if they’d happened, would’ve changed the course of NBA history. Likewise, we can point to game-changing moments in the history of the virtual hardwood. Indeed, NBA Live 10 is an example of such a turning point. If EA Sports had elected to continue building on the base it established rather than trying to reboot the series with the ill-fated NBA Elite 11, the basketball gaming landscape would undoubtedly be very different today.

As far as NBA What Ifs are concerned though, they’re something that we can play out in video games. It’s a great concept for a roster, and while that’s not what I’m doing today, I’ve decided to mix a couple of ideas together by reflecting on some of the biggest NBA What Ifs and portraying them using NBA Live 10; a game that has an air of What If about it. Obviously there are some other historical NBA What Ifs that I won’t be touching on here because the players aren’t in NBA Live 10, but feel free to discuss those in the comments as well. Let’s wonder what might have been as we 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 some examples of familiar faces returning to familiar places, and the games where we see those stints.

In an ongoing Wayback Wednesday series, I’ve been taking a look back at familiar faces in strange places; in other words, well-known players and their stints with teams that are less talked about and usually weird to see, and the video games where those stints were represented. This week, I’m inverting the idea and taking a look back at familiar faces back in familiar places; in other words, well-known players who made a return to a team they’re most closely associated with, after leaving to play elsewhere in the NBA.

On the surface, this may not seem as interesting as seeing familiar faces in strange places. However, these return stints are interesting in their own right, as they have their own stories. Some of them were brief and essentially retirement tours, while others lasted longer and saw more success. Oddly enough, it can also feel strange to see a player back in an old uniform after we get used to seeing them in a new one. As I like to say, basketball games act as interactive almanacs for these stints of note, so let’s use them to 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 ten longevity records players have set on the virtual hardwood.

With the Atlanta Hawks’ 2020 season officially over, Vince Carter has officially retired after 22 seasons in the league. The player once dubbed Half-Man, Half-Amazing, has certainly had a wholly amazing career. Beyond his breathtaking dunks, 360 layups, and other highlights, Carter set new marks for longevity, not only by playing the most seasons in NBA history, but also becoming the first player to appear in four different decades. Not bad for a player who briefly gained a reputation – albeit one that was somewhat overblown – for being fragile and constantly injured!

Needless to say, Vince Carter’s lengthy NBA career has set a few records in video games as well. However, he’s not the only player who holds some longevity-based distinctions on the virtual hardwood. I ran through these in Episode #329 of the NLSC Podcast, but I know that audio content isn’t for everyone, and it pays to have trivia like this written down as well. These records span many years of basketball gaming, 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, I’m taking a look back at some more NBA players who became familiar faces in strange places, and those stints in video games.

As I said in my first Wayback Wednesday article covering this topic, there’s definitely something oddly fascinating in seeing familiar faces in strange places. We often claim that we wish that those stints didn’t happen or that we could forget all about them, yet they’re burned into our memories. It’s hard to forget something that looks strange and out of place, and that certainly describes the image of players wearing the uniform of a team other than the one we associate them with the most. The time capsule-like nature of video games helps us to remember – and also replay – these unusual stints.

I mentioned that there were more examples than the ten I covered in my first article, and to that end, I have another ten to share today. This time, not all of the players were perennial All-Stars, but they are familiar names who ended up in strange places. In fact, a couple of these stints were so brief that the only way to experience them again on the virtual hardwood is to load very specific roster saves – assuming that you still have them, of course – or by recreating them. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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When NBA 2K17 was released, many gamers were disappointed to discover that Steve Nash was missing from the rosters of the 2003 Dallas Mavericks and 2005 Phoenix Suns. Since Nash’s inclusion in NBA 2K16 was still covered by the NBA Players Association license, it was speculated that his absence from NBA 2K17 was simply due to oversight, or an inability to work out a deal for his likeness rights before the rosters had to be finalised and approved by the NBA. It certainly wasn’t due to a lack of respect or knowledge on 2K’s part.

Fortunately, it seems that we won’t have to wait until next year to get the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player back in the game, as Steve Nash is included in the latest NBA 2K17 roster update. Nash appears on both the 2003 Mavericks and 2005 Suns, with appropriate ratings and bio data for each season. 2003 Nash is rated 86 Overall, while 2005 Nash is rated 93 Overall.

This isn’t the first time that 2K has managed to add a missing historical player through the official roster updates. Julius Erving was originally absent from NBA 2K14, but after coming to terms on a new deal, 2K were able to add him to the game. It remains to be seen whether any more missing historical players will be added in future updates, as there are still some noteworthy players absent from historical team rosters, including Rasheed Wallace.

As per Mike Wang over in the Operation Sports forums, the latest roster update also includes Adaptive Coaching Engine updates by Da_Czar and Scott O’Gallagher, and a decrease in injury frequency to lower body parts. Contract extensions have also been updated, along with some three-point tendencies and other player attributes.

See below for a couple of screenshots of Steve Nash on the 2003 Mavericks and 2005 Suns in NBA 2K17, and as always, feel free to have your say in the comments section!

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Remember how I stated that positive experiences in basketball video games can make you like particular NBA players? It can also work the other way.

It may seem completely irrational to dislike an NBA player because of their video game likeness, but it’s something I have found hard to control. A player like Kevin Durant could be the most humble guy in real life, but you could still dislike him because he dropped 50 points on you in NBA 2K15.

Sometimes a player can be annoying in one game, but be slightly neutralised in the next due to updated game mechanics or more modest ratings. In any case, the memory of one particular player terrorising your beloved franchise can be enough for you to dislike them over their entire career.

This is a list dedicated to players who I either dislike now or disliked at one stage of my life because of basketball video games.

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