Tag Archives: Tracy McGrady

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Although the original Jordan Challenge was the catalyst for a new era of historical content in NBA 2K, NBA’s Greatest was an innovative follow-up.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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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #554 of the NLSC Podcast!

What is it that keeps us hooked on the virtual hardwood? This week, we join the community in sharing the reasons why we play basketball video games, ranging from a love of the sport, to bonding experiences with family and friends, to joyful fantasy and escapism. Following on from last week, we and our listeners pick three stars from the 2000s to bring into the modern NBA in their prime. In response to the end of online support for NBA Live 18, we note how the offline version of The One succeeds where MyCAREER fails nowadays. We also share an interesting tidbit about Dr. J vs. Larry Bird, and answer a question about bad basketball video games in another edition of Andrew Asks.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:09:28 — 48.1MB)

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!

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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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 potential comebacks that would’ve been fun to play with in video games.

Needless to say, a star player coming out of retirement is a big deal, no matter what the sport. There have been some significant comebacks in NBA history, with Michael Jordan’s returns easily being the most famous (not to mention the most successful, thanks to the second threepeat). Of course, while nostalgia leads us to reflect on some of our favourite and most memorable events, curiosity also draws us to the “What Ifs”. There’s an undeniable appeal to pondering the trades and signings that could’ve been…and also, the comebacks that we might’ve seen!

A couple of years ago I reflected on five comebacks that, had they actually happened, would’ve resulted in some fun and interesting lineups to play with in video games. When Dee and I ended up discussing Darryl Dawkins’ attempted comebacks during the 90s on the NLSC Podcast, it inspired me to revisit this topic. To that end, Dr. Dunk is the first example on this list, but there are four other noteworthy players whose returns would’ve been exciting to see in real life and on the virtual hardwood alike. Their names will certainly be quite familiar, but many fans may well have forgotten that these players attempted (or at least considered) a comeback or two.

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In our most recent Parsec sessions, Dee and I turned back the clock to 2003 in a couple of different ways! As you’ll see from the latest highlights uploaded to the NLSC YouTube channel, we connected to play the GameCube version of NBA Live 2003, and NBA 2K17 PC using Dee’s Ultimate Classic Teams Roster.

The NBA Live 2003 game – which we’ll be discussing in this week’s NLSC Podcast – saw us take on the San Antonio Spurs with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Whenever you flash back to that era, it’s difficult to pass up the opportunity to play out an epic battle of big men, namely Tim Duncan vs. Kevin Garnett. It wasn’t just KG and TD putting on a show though, as David Robinson, Steve Smith, Wally Szczerbiak, Anthony Peeler, and other notable names all contributed highlights.

Dee put together a fantastic project in the Ultimate Classic Teams Roster, and it allowed us to play an extremely authentic 2003 season showdown in NBA 2K17, jam-packed with highlights. We took on Steve Francis, rookie Yao Ming, and the Houston Rockets with an Orlando Magic squad featuring Tracy McGrady, Grant Hill, and an aging Shawn Kemp. The game opened with a jaw-dropping poster from T-Mac, and the great plays just kept on coming after that!

Check out the highlights of these 2003 season matchups in two different games – one from the season in question, one more recent and modded to include those teams – below! As always, be sure to subscribe to our channel for more basketball gaming content, and feel free to hit us up with any suggestions of games you’d like to see us play.

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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 teammates who were once traded for each other, and the video games that feature those stints.

While it’s become far more common – and some would say, acceptable – for stars to change teams nowadays, it’s always been somewhat rare for players to spend their entire career with one club. Even if a player does stay put, they’ll end up playing with a host of different teammates throughout the years. Between the players that join the team they’re on and the teams that they may go on to join, old rivals will become teammates, former teammates will reunite, and superteams will form, giving us plenty of interesting lineups to talk about…and of course, play with in video games.

Needless to say, trades also break up duos and teammates who no doubt enjoyed playing with one another. We’ve even seen former college teammates get traded for each other during the Draft, as Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison were back in 1998. A trade where former teammates end up being swapped for one another gets you thinking, specifically whether the reverse has ever happened. In other words, have any players who were once traded for each other later become teammates? It has indeed happened, and since I explore such trivia through the lens of the virtual hardwood, here are five traded players turned teammates, and the games featuring those pairings.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #533 of the NLSC Podcast!

Which NBA players from past decades would be even better if they competed in today’s league, with all of the changes to the rules and the style of play? This week, we join the community in picking five players – be they superstars, fringe All-Stars and other very good players, solid role players, or even benchwarmers – that we believe would really thrive in the modern NBA. Speaking of players who would be fantastic in any era, we also pay tribute to the late, great Jerry West, the inspiration for the NBA logo and one of the most successful individuals the league has ever seen on the court, on the sidelines, and in the front office.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:30:37 — 62.6MB)

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!

With the launch of NBA 2K24, you can expect plenty of post-release coverage and content from us, including commentary and highlight reels. However, I wanted to share a couple of recent uploads to our YouTube channel that you may have missed, featuring highlights from Fantasy Teams games in NBA Live 10.

As Dee and I have discussed on the NLSC Podcast, NBA Live 10 has been a reliable go-to for us to play over Parsec. I’ve also developed a much greater appreciation for it since revisiting it a couple of years ago, and it’s now one of my all-time favourite basketball video games. The Fantasy Teams mode has been a fun way of changing up our NBA Live 10 sessions, especially when we’ve put together makeshift classic teams. That brings us to the two highlight reels that I’m sharing today.

The first game is one that I played on an actual PlayStation 3, using a work-in-progress Fantasy Sandbox roster. Using Fantasy Teams and the players available in the default rosters, I put together the 2001 Orlando Magic and took on the 2001 Los Angeles Lakers. The second game was played using the PS3 emulator with Dee hosting over Parsec, where – inspired by the Mamba Moments in NBA 2K24 – we used Fantasy Teams to re-create a 2006 season matchup between the Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks. Both games were a blast to play, and produced some great highlights in a game that still holds up superbly.

You can check out both of those highlight reels below! Be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content, including the weekly Top 10 Plays, episodes of the NLSC Podcast, game retrospectives, video essays, and more.

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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 reflecting on five weird outcomes in my various franchise and career games over the years.

There are many ways to play franchise modes in basketball video games. I’ve always preferred a more straightforward approach: take control of a team with current rosters, leave injuries and CPU trades on (assuming they’re optional), and play through the season to create my own reality. While this may be more conventional than a fantasy draft or using a heavily customised roster, it’s not immune to weird outcomes. Sim engines are prone to producing unexpected results, from season standings and Playoff outcomes to weird league leaders. Obviously, this happens in career modes as well.

Of course, when we’re talking about realism and weird outcomes with sim engines, it isn’t easy to define what that actually means. Results and player movement may not reflect reality, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re unrealistic in nature. In real life, we do see puzzling trades, bewildering awards and All-Star snubs, and teams that are surprisingly better or worse than expected. Some outcomes are unlikely, but weird things do happen practically every year in the NBA. With that being said, sim engines do produce some illogical and weird outcomes that are unrealistic and highly unlikely given the circumstances. Here are five examples that I’ve encountered.

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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 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 even more NBA players who became familiar faces in strange places, and those stints in video games.

It’s time to once again look back at the various stints of NBA players that we may have forgotten, or at least don’t think about too often. We expect to see role players bounce around the league, as teams seek out their services to bolster their rosters. Although it’s getting more and more common to see perennial All-Stars changing teams in their prime as well as late in their careers, it’s still often a surprise, and seeing them in their new uniform takes some time to get used to. Funnily enough, photos of them wearing their old jersey eventually seem like the stranger image!

As I’ve noted before, in addition to photos, footage, and records in resources such as Basketball Reference, we’ve got another way of documenting familiar faces in strange places: video games. Fire up an old video game, and you’re bound to see at least a few players on teams you don’t remember them playing for, including some big names who were in the midst of a less memorable stint than one that usually comes to mind. I’ve got another ten examples to share today, 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 going back to NBA Live 2001 to play with the “unbelievable” starting five that was posted in our original Forum many years ago.

There aren’t too many members of our original Forum who are still active, so the legacy and impact of the infamous “I Cannot Believe My Starting Five” thread may not resonate with a lot of people in our community today. I’ve covered it in-depth in a previous Wayback Wednesday retrospective, and mentioned it as one of the most bizarre moments in the history of our Forum, but the short version is as follows. A member by the name of A.L. made a post describing a lineup they’d put together in NBA Live 2001’s Franchise mode, which included Kevin Garnett at point guard.

A.L.’s insistence that point guard was KG’s “natural position” unfortunately derailed an interesting discussion about fantasy draft and trade logic, as well as experimenting with a fun idea for an unorthodox lineup, before it even began. The thread quickly turned into a catch-all for jokes and general banter, and became the first thread in the old Forum to surpass one thousand posts. However, as much fun as it was to take part in, it’s extremely unfortunate that A.L. felt unwelcome due to the way his post was received. Furthermore, it’s a creative idea that’s at least worth messing around with, so that’s what I’m going to do at long last. 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 simulating to today in NBA Live 2000, in order to see how long virtual Vince Carter (and a few other stars) stick around.

Some nineteen years ago, my cousin and I spent an afternoon simulating way into the future in the brand new Franchise mode in NBA Live 2000. Back then, the year 2020 seemed so far away, and yet, we’re only four months away from the calendar flipping over into that futuristic annum. Keeping with the theme of Wayback Wednesday, I’ll quote a classic 1980s film by John Hughes and say that life moves pretty fast. Ferris Bueller was right on the money with that line, and one only has to look at the NBA to see how a couple of generations of stars have seemingly come and gone in a blink.

A name that still remains on an NBA roster all these years later is Vince Carter. The future Hall of Famer known as Vinsanity and Half-Man, Half-Amazing, has just re-signed with the Atlanta Hawks to play in his 22nd and final NBA season; a record that will see his career span four different decades. As the last player standing from the 90s, Vince Carter is also the last active player from NBA Live 2000 still in the league. Would virtual Vince stick around as long as his real life counterpart? What about some of the other stars? To answer that question, I’m simulating until today in NBA Live 2000’s Franchise mode! Let’s take a look back…way back…

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