Tag Archives: Streetball

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #629 of the NLSC Podcast!

Last week, Play By Play Studios held a closed beta for NBA The Run, their upcoming arcade streetball game set for release in June 2026. Derek had the opportunity to take part in the closed beta, and so this week, he’s sharing his detailed hands-on impressions of the game, breaking down the key positives and negatives while also making some recommendations for how it could improve. We also read out the community’s thoughts on what they’ve seen of NBA The Run so far. While there’s definitely excitement for the game, not everyone has been impressed by the latest gameplay footage. We also once again touch on the importance of not letting hype get in the way of constructive feedback.

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!

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #624 of the NLSC Podcast!

A new mixtape trailer featuring three former NBA MVPs has been posted for NBA The Run, Play By Play Studios’ 3-on-3 online PvP streetball game scheduled for release in 2026. This week we’re reacting to the trailer, and also break down some information that was provided in a recently re-posted Q&A that Play By Play held on X back in December. The community also weighs in with their thoughts on the latest previews, including their current level of excitement and how much they’d be willing to pay for a basketball video game that’s online-only; a drawback that apparently not everyone is aware of! Unsurprisingly, there are some common concerns and criticisms that we certainly share.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:11:07 — 49.2MB)

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!

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #568 of the NLSC Podcast!

This week, we’re reacting to the 2025 Slam Dunk Contest, and the suggestion that threepeat champion Mac McClung has established himself as the greatest dunker of all-time. We’re inclined to disagree, and are bewildered by the lack of acknowledgement of the boosts that he gets on most of his dunk attempts! Additionally, we’ve got a few thoughts on the use of props and gimmicks in the contest in general. We also join the community in discussing the most frustrating types of players to play with and against in organised leagues and pick-up alike, and recap a couple of fantastic sessions with NBA Live 16 and NBA Live 10; two games that continue to surprise and delight us, years later.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 59:57 — 41.5MB)

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 how my basketball gaming has increasingly involved hitting the streets to virtually hoop.

One of the most valuable life lessons I’ve learned is the importance of remaining open-minded, trying new things, and being willing to step outside your comfort zone. As someone who was a picky eater growing up, it’s been a delight to give new cuisine a chance, and discover that I have a taste for foods I was once intimidated by. Meeting new friends has introduced me to hobbies, interests, and experiences that I might not have tried otherwise. As for basketball gaming, I’ve been able to shed brand loyalty and established habits to find new retro kicks, and different ways of enjoying them.

Case in point: my recent appreciation for virtually balling in the streets! There’s plenty of irony here. First of all, playful jabs at JaoSming and his enthusiasm for Blacktop mode were running gags on old episodes of the NLSC Podcast, yet here I am enjoying the type of virtual streetball gameplay that he championed! Second, I’ve been highly critical of NBA Live’s focus on The Streets, particularly in NBA Live 19, so the last thing I expected was to get hooked on the Pro-Am Tour in NBA Live 18. I do still stand by many of my previous criticisms, but like a dish I swore I’d never eat, I’ve developed a taste for – with apologies to the Doobie Brothers – takin’ it to the streets.

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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 Street Hoops.

There was a time when multiple studios threw their hat into the ring with basketball video games, providing a choice beyond the brand leaders such as NBA Live and NBA 2K. Of course, while that era is nostalgic now and many of us miss having a plethora of hoops games, the market glut definitely wasn’t sustainable. Not every game ended up being a big enough hit to spawn sequels or a series, often for very good reasons. Still, there are some overlooked gems and interesting releases that became cult classics and personal favourites for gamers who grew up with them.

As I’ve expanded my collection, it’s been fun to experience games that I overlooked back when I was primarily playing NBA Live, NBA Jam, and NBA Street. Even the titles that lack the polish of the all-time classics are still fun to revisit, and they’re definitely fascinating to dive into all these years later. That’s an apt summary of Street Hoops by Black Ops Entertainment! Like its spiritual sequel, AND 1 Streetball, this 2002 release for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube is rough around the edges, but unquestionably had ambitious ideas and potential. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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With NBA 2K25 dropping next week, the latest Courtside Report provides an insight into what to expect from The City. For anyone who is unaware, The City is the open world hub of MyCAREER that was introduced in NBA 2K21 New Gen, expanding on the concept of The Neighborhood.

As someone who has been critical of The City in the past, it does appear that NBA 2K25 has made a couple of improvements based on gamer feedback. As previously mentioned in the MyCAREER Courtside Report, MyCOURT is making a welcome return. The City has also been condensed, with fewer buildings that serve no purpose.

The connected modes also feature ranked and unranked areas, with overhauled aesthetics. Classic parks will return as part of Seasonal events, and there are new stomping grounds for the Rise and Elite park affiliations. A squad finder has been added, the Streetball sidequest returns, and the Rep system is also back.

That’s just a brief overview, as I’ve summarised the key points from the NBA 2K25 Courtside Report on The City below. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, and jump into the discussion here in the Forum!

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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 various iterations of 24/7 mode in NBA 2K.

There are many features, modes, and concepts in basketball video games that are older than we may recall. To that point, MyCAREER has been a staple of NBA 2K since its debut as My Player way back in NBA 2K10; a game released in 2009. For that matter, the story-driven approach to MyCAREER has been the standard for over ten years now, debuting in NBA 2K14 Next Gen and appearing in almost three times as many games as the original version of the mode. In short, a single player career mode is nothing new at this point.

However, the concept is even older than that! While we didn’t get a fully-fledged NBA-oriented career experience until 2009, earlier games did experiment with single player campaign modes. Indeed, NBA 2K branched out into this area very early on in the series, introducing 24/7 mode in ESPN NBA Basketball (aka NBA 2K4). It was relatively short-lived as it was phased out after NBA 2K7, but it stands as a creative concept that undoubtedly paved the way for modern career modes. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #513 of the NLSC Podcast!

If we could bring back just one Triple-A release as an alternative to the NBA 2K series, what type of game would we choose: NBA sim, NBA arcade, street, or college basketball? This week we join the community in answering what is a very tough question! We also recap a session revisiting ESPN NBA 2Night, which despite some interesting features and great presentation, was not one of Konami’s better hoops titles. On the bright side, we played with an interesting New York Knicks team that was definitely in a transitional era. In this week’s mailbag, we’re talking about the players that got us into basketball, and our historical favourites on the virtual hardwood.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:37:13 — 67.1MB)

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!

Catch up on the latest basketball gaming highlights that Dee and I have uploaded to the NLSC YouTube channel! Recent videos include our co-op game of Street Hoops, and a game of NBA 2K6 that I played against the CPU featuring a Draft Class showdown.

As we discussed in Episode #510 of the NLSC Podcast, Dee and I revisited Street Hoops for PlayStation 2 in a co-op game over Parsec. We were quite impressed with how well it held up, and what a strong release it was from a developer not known for their basketball games. The session produced some outstanding streetball highlights that’ll evoke memories of the AND1 Mixtape Tour from the early 2000s. Check out the action as we use the Highflying Homies to take on the Mad Bombers!

My NBA 2K6 game was played before my old desktop crashed late last year, so I’ve been sitting on the footage for a number of weeks! I was eager to put together a highlight reel from it, as I had a blast taking on the Draft Class of 2000 with the Draft Class of 2001. Jason Richardson was the star for me, and in looking to dunk as often as possible with him, he ended up putting on a show. As I said in my retrospective, NBA 2K6 for Xbox 360 is a game that’s really grown on me, retroactively becoming one of my all-time favourites.

Check out both highlight reels below, and be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content! As always, Dee and I are open to suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play, so by all means hit us up with those titles!

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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 AND 1 Streetball.

As much as I enjoy revisiting old favourites that I’ve spent hundreds of hours with over the years, I also enjoy going back and checking out basketball games that I missed the first time around. It’s given me reason to seek out deals on eBay and expand my collection, and these days, I’ve got a variety of hoops titles at my disposal. Good, bad, or mediocre, they’re always interesting to check out. In fact, there’s often a lot of fun to be had with the titles that are slightly rough around the edges, especially when they can bring something different to the table.

Case in point: AND 1 Streetball. Developed by Black Ops Entertainment and released for PlayStation 2 and Xbox, it didn’t have the polish of an NBA Live or NBA 2K, or for that matter, NBA Street. It was a competent effort though, and a fun game in its own right. The use of AND1 talent also made it stand out from NBA Street, as did its approach to gameplay. It’s another basketball game that’s somewhat forgotten, which is unfortunate as it deserves to be remembered. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! The Friday Five is a feature that I post every Friday in which I give my thoughts on a topic that’s related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games, as well as the real NBA, and other areas of interest to our community. The feature is presented as either a list of five items, or in the form of a Top 5 countdown. This week’s Five is a list of five improvements that NBA Live 20 needs to demonstrate in terms of its gameplay.

If NBA Live 20 is to be the big release many of us are hoping it will be, it will need to improve upon an area that’s been a perennial weakness since the series returned back in 2013: its modes. The different modes of play are what give basketball games their longevity, and this year’s release from EA Sports must add long overdue features and depth to Franchise, Ultimate Team, and online modes. Deeper customisation is also a must. Of course, while these are all vital areas of NBA Live that require attention, it’s crucial that above all, the gameplay experience continues to improve.

NBA Live’s gameplay has gone through some interesting ups and downs during this generation. NBA Live 14 felt very stiff on the sticks, with animations that looked very “last gen”. Since then, improvements have been made to the fluidity, the depth of the controls, and certain animations. Most NBA Live gamers would agree that there is still plenty of room for improvement, and I’m unquestionably in that camp. What are the most important changes and improvements that need to be made to gameplay in NBA Live 20? We compiled some great ideas in the Wishlist that we sent in to EA, but this week, I’d like to discuss five key areas where Live’s gameplay must improve.

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