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 7 in an ongoing series where I look at players who only appeared on certain teams in video games.

Yes, we’ve reached a seventh instalment of this series profiling the players that only played for certain teams on the virtual hardwood! Whether it was due to an injury that shelved them for their entire tenure, an offseason move that was outdated by the time a game shipped, or some other circumstance, there are players whose stints with teams didn’t include any playing time in real life, but resulted in the opportunity to suit up for them in video games. As official roster updates became common, we’ve seen more of these on-paper/”phantom stints”, especially with journeymen.

This was originally meant to be the final instalment in this series, at least for now. However, I’ve had some more great examples pointed out to me, including a few very prominent players whose phantom stints I’ve overlooked in compiling the first seven articles. I suppose that speaks to how obscure some of those appearances were, and how easy it is to forget about them with so many games coming out over the years! I will get to them at some point – shout out to David for helping me out there – but in the meantime I’ve got five more examples, most of whom were fairly well-known role players back in their day, though younger fans may not be as familiar with them.

1. Victor Alexander (Toronto Raptors, NBA Live 96)

While many examples of players who only appeared on certain teams in video games involve transactions that were outdated by the title’s release, when NBA Live 96 PC came out, Victor Alexander was indeed a member of the Toronto Raptors. He’d been acquired from Golden State in the trade that sent B.J. Armstrong to the Warriors, after Armstrong had refused to report to the Raptors after the team selected him in the 1995 Expansion Draft. A frequent starter for the Warriors during the 271 games he played for them, Alexander didn’t log a single minute for the Raptors while on their roster. They tried trading him to Cleveland, but it was rescinded when he failed a physical.

Toronto did succeed in trading him to the New York Knicks for Doug Christie and Herb Williams. The Knicks promptly released Alexander, and re-signed Williams after he was cut following one game with the Raptors. That appeared to be the end of Victor Alexander’s NBA career, until he made a surprising return to play 15 games for the Pistons in 2002, as seen in NBA Live 2002. Oddly enough, I’m most familiar with that game-less Raptors stint, as NBA Live 96 PC was one of my main sources when I created 1996 season roster mods for NBA Live 2001 and NBA Live 2004. Now that more accurate information is readily accessible, I was able to fix the latter mod.

2. Howard Eisley (Chicago Bulls, NBA Live 07 & NBA 2K7)

When we talk about Howard Eisley‘s history with the Chicago Bulls, it’s usually not about how he almost played for them, and can be found on their roster in a couple of video games. After finding a home in Utah following brief stints with the Spurs and Timberwolves, Eisley was John Stockton’s trusty young backup during their back-to-back NBA Finals appearances in 1997 and 1998. Infamously, he had a three-pointer waved off at the halftime buzzer of Game 6 in 1998, which replays showed should’ve counted. Who’s to say what would’ve happened if the shot were allowed, but it’s fair to argue that scrubbing those three points played a role in saving The Last Dance.

“What Ifs” aside, Eisley never ended up succeeding Stockton in Utah as he was traded to Dallas in a four-team deal in August 2000, while Stock remained the starting point guard for the Jazz until his retirement in 2003. Eisley did make a one season return to the Jazz in 2004, albeit in a bench role that wasn’t represented in any official rosters (hence its exclusion from my Familiar Faces Back in Familiar Places series). A couple of years later, he was traded to the Bulls for J.R. Smith, whom the Bulls had recently acquired for Tyson Chandler. Eisley was cut and never played in the NBA again, but he was still a Bull when NBA Live 07 and NBA 2K7’s default rosters were finalised.

3. Bryant Stith (Los Angeles Clippers, NBA Live 2003 & NBA 2K3)

In Part 6 of this series, I covered another example seen in NBA Live 2003: Rafer Alston, aka streetball legend Skip 2 My Lou. Like Alston, Bryant Stith‘s phantom Clippers stint is the result of an offseason move that was subsequently reflected in the finalised roster for NBA Live 2003. Specifically, four days after the 2002 Draft, Stith was acquired by the Clippers along with Andre Miller in exchange for Darius Miles and Harold Jamison. However, he chose to retire rather than play for the Clippers, bringing his ten year career to a close. This is in contrast to Alston’s brief Warriors stint, which came towards the beginning of his career and preceded his breakout.

The reason that I chose to highlight this example – which also appears in NBA 2K3 – is that while Stith wasn’t a star, he was a fixture for the Nuggets throughout the 90s. In fact, he was their starting shooting guard for most his time in Denver, including all 82 games for the underdog 1994 Nuggets, one of the classic squads in NBA 2K. Stith’s decision to retire before ever playing for the Clippers meant that his career ended at the rather young age of 31. This is hardly unprecedented, but not altogether common, either. It’s easy to joke about him not wanting to play for the then-lowly Clippers, but his injury problems later on his career were likely just as much of a factor in retiring.

4. Khalid El-Amin (Miami Heat, NBA Live 2003)

I’ve previously mentioned Khalid El-Amin as a player that I remember in large part due to video games, specifically NBA Live 2001. I also recall his performance in the 2001 Rookie Challenge, not to mention his surprising release shortly afterwards. In tribute, my cousin and I continued to substitute his name for the line “How you gonna win?” in “Unstoppable” by Montell Jordan, the game’s theme song featured in its intro. A stocky 5’10” point guard, El-Amin never tallied another minute in the NBA after the Bulls abruptly waived him, but he had opportunities to latch on elsewhere over the next couple of years; phantom stints that made their way into video games.

To that point, you’ll find him in Dallas in NBA Live 2002, though not NBA 2K2. Once again, by the time the rosters were finalised and the game was out, he’d become a preseason cut. That’s the final transaction that’s listed on Basketball Reference, but it’s not the last NBA contract that he signed. As with Stacey King’s appearance on the Sacramento Kings in NBA Live 98, El-Amin’s RealGM profile explains why he’s playing for the Heat in NBA Live 2003. Khalid signed a multi-year deal with Miami in 2002 – phrasing that often refers to a non-guaranteed contract with an option for a second season – and was cut a few weeks later, effectively ending his NBA career.

5. Dan Dickau (New York Knicks, NBA Live 08, NBA 08 & NBA 2K8)

Even if you don’t remember Dan Dickau‘s short NBA career, you may have heard his name on the NLSC Podcast, as he’s one of Dee4Three’s virtual hardwood legends. I best remember him playing for the Atlanta Hawks, which is strange because he only spent his first season and a half with them. Perhaps it was the amusing story of how he requested #21 – his college number – only to be denied because it had been retired in honour of Dominique Wilkins! He settled on #12, a number he wore in high school but had to give up at Gonzaga as it belonged to another legend: John Stockton. By the time he ended his career with the Clippers, he’d also worn #7, #21, #20, #2, and #10.

There was also a seventh number that he was set to wear: #1, for the Knicks. This wasn’t accurately reflected in NBA Live 08, NBA 2K8, and NBA 08, where he’s wearing #2; his number from his second stint with the Blazers in 2007. He’d arrived in New York via a Draft Day trade, but was released October 2nd as the Knicks opted to run with Jared Jordan as their backup point guard. Ironically, Jordan was also released later that month – and never played in the NBA, despite appearing in multiple video games – while Dickau latched on with the Clippers a day later. Roster updates for NBA Live 08 and NBA 2K8 reflected Dickau’s signing with his final NBA team.

Once again, this was originally going to be the final instalment in this series for the moment, but thanks to some excellent suggestions of players that I can’t believe I overlooked, there will be further articles coming at some point. In the meantime, I hope you’ve enjoyed the examples so far. Do you recall any of them? Have your say in the comments below, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.