The Friday Five: 5 Stars Who Played For The Lakers & Celtics

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Evergreen Issues with NBA 2K

Since I’ve taken a look at some evergreen issues with the NBA Live series, it’s time to examine similar problems with NBA 2K. Obviously, NBA 2K is a powerhouse in the basketball gaming space, with a virtual monopoly on sim titles. Even in the years that NBA Live was released during the past generation, the NBA 2K series outsold it by a significant margin to say the least. The competition hasn’t been close in terms of sales and critical reception since 2008, in large part because NBA 2K has maintained a high level of quality, while NBA Live has suffered from its own evergreen issues.

However, there are definitely problems that continue to plague NBA 2K to this day. They’re in too comfortable of a position to fail, which once again is the result of them maintaining a generally pleasing level of quality through the years. At the same time, these evergreen issues do affect the quality of NBA 2K games, as well as the overall image of the series. As NBA Live stumbled, NBA 2K became the darling for hoops gamers and the yardstick for its genre. Without competition though, its flaws have been exposed, and its reputation has been tarnished. The evergreen issues that NBA 2K has failed to address are responsible for that, so let’s take a look at five of them.

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Players Who Only Appeared on Certain Teams in Games (Part 20)

At long last, we’ve reached the end of this second run of Friday Five articles looking at players who only appeared on certain teams in games, for one reason or another! The series was actually intended to finish much earlier – at least for the short term – but thanks to the help of David L, I ended up with numerous examples that were just too interesting not to discuss. As I didn’t want to scrap the articles I’d already written and the fun stories they included, this second series of articles has ultimately spanned an entire year, becoming a fun recurring topic for the last Friday of each month.

All good things must come to an end though, so this is it for now; famous last words, I know! There are definitely more examples, but I’ve basically covered the biggest names and most interesting stories; a total of one hundred players, as of Part 20! It’s time to move on to some other topics, but we are ending this second run of articles about players who only appeared on certain teams in video games on an interesting note. All five examples this time around are from NBA Live 2000 PC, with one of the players also boasting a second phantom stint in the original NBA 2K. So, let’s take a look at five more phantom stints that have been captured on the virtual hardwood!

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Reasons I Won’t Stop Retro Gaming

One of the best things that I’ve done to enhance my enjoyment of basketball gaming in recent years is to avoid the annual grind in MyCAREER, freeing up time to play some old favourites. Dee has obviously been a great influence in that regard, as we’ve connected to play a variety of classics over Parsec. It’s reminded me of how I used to enjoy going back to older games or sticking with one for more than a year, especially when I was disappointed with the latest release. Of course, my enthusiasm for retro basketball gaming has now made it tougher to spend time with newer games.

I have no regrets, though. I still gave NBA 2K23 and NBA 2K24 ample opportunity to impress, knowing that they might not, and that I had other options if they didn’t. To dust off a very old but nevertheless wise saying, I’ve learned to not put all of my eggs in one basket. I don’t feel defeated or robbed of a good time if the latest NBA 2K isn’t entirely to my liking. Beyond my interest in other genres, I have a huge collection of basketball games to fall back on if I’m itching to hit the virtual hardwood. While I do obviously have an interest in the future of basketball gaming, I’m finding plenty of reasons to return to old favourites, as well as seek out some new ones. Here are five!

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Times My Games Imitated Real Moves (Part 2)

OAs I’ve previously discussed, it’s difficult to determine what constitutes a realistic or unrealistic trade or signing by CPU-controlled teams in franchise and career modes. After all, the real NBA has seen a number of lopsided deals, unexpected departures, and unlikely reunions. At the same time, too many highly unlikely deals, or downright illogical moves such as readily trading away your best player in the midst of a good season, are examples of unrealistic trades that sim heads don’t want to see. Still, we have to acknowledge that reality can sometimes be stranger than fiction!

To that end, some of the real moves that have coincidentally happened in my career and franchise mode games might seem far-fetched, if not for the fact that they came to pass. While four of the examples that I’m sharing today happened after the fact, one of the moves did actually occur in my game before it became a reality, making it eerily prophetic. Whether they serve as surprisingly accurate predictions or they’re simply fun coincidences, I do enjoy seeing CPU-controlled teams making moves that turned out (or will turn out) to be real; even if they don’t involve any big names. With that being said, let’s get to five more examples of my games imitating real NBA moves!

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Additions That Would’ve Greatly Improved Games

We’ve yet to see a truly perfect basketball video game. That’s not surprising since true perfection is an unrealistic goal, and we all have our own ideas as to what that would entail besides. We have had some fantastic sim and arcade basketball games though, with the NBA Live, NBA 2K, NBA Jam, and NBA Street series all offering up some candidates for the best hoops titles of all-time. However, much as many of the all-time great players have had a weakness or two, the best basketball video games are often missing a feature or mode that would’ve made them even better.

Interestingly, it’s not just the all-time best basketball video games that feasibly could have been improved by just one addition. There are some very good and even a few mediocre games whose overall quality and reputations would be greatly impacted by the addition of a key feature or mode. It might not quite push them into the upper echelon of virtual hardwood classics, but hypothetically, they suddenly become far more appealing and playable with one big addition. I’ve selected five hoops games of varying quality, and nominated a major addition – one per game – that I believe either pushes them closer to “perfection”, or results in the most significant improvement.

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Players Who Only Appeared on Certain Teams in Games (Part 21)

Remember when I said this series was done with Part 20? I lied! Well, to be fair, I did say that it was done “for now”. Part 20 was the last instalment that I had planned coming into 2024, as it’s been my intention to move on to other topics here in The Friday Five. However, I did leave the door open for a Part 21 at least, as thanks to David L’s help and my own research/serendipitous discoveries, there are some more examples to discuss. Even though I would like to explore some other topics, there’s no sense in delaying this postscript instalment.

Unlike Part 20, I don’t have a consistent theme for this group of players who only appeared on certain teams in games. As it stands, I was lucky that I still had five players whose phantom stints could all be found in NBA Live 2000 in order to give Part 20 an added motif. At this point, I’ve also covered the biggest names and most prominent examples of players who only appeared on certain teams in games. Of course, the more obscure names are still worth talking about, especially as they can jog the memories of long-time fans who haven’t thought about those players in years. With that being said, let’s take a look at five more phantom stints…for now…honest!

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Unexpected Retro Kicks

As I said in my first Friday Five for February 2024, I’m not going to stop retro gaming anytime soon! It’s a habit that I’ve picked up again with the help of Dee, and I’m quite grateful for that, as grinding up a new MyPLAYER year after year had become an absolute chore. We’ve connected to play a number of different titles over Parsec these past few years, with some of them becoming staples of our co-op rotation. In many cases, I’ve also been inspired to revisit these games solo, leading to some fun sessions and more than a few Wayback Wednesday articles.

Of course, not every game that I revisit turns into a retro kick. I’ll have some fun with it, and then it’s back on the bench, so to speak. However, other games do capture my interest and become regulars in my basketball gaming rotation. These unexpected retro kicks take me by surprise, but I’m always delighted when they happen. Quite often, it leads to me spending time with a game that I didn’t play much when it was new, if at all. As someone with a predisposition to enjoy retro gaming, it’s never too late to give games a second chance and make up for lost time. I have been surprised by some of the titles that ended up hooking me years later though, such as these five.

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Reasons NBA Live 06 PC Was The Best NBA Live

I can’t stand manufactured, hot take-driven, performative debate, whether it’s about basketball, basketball video games, or anything really. I prefer nuanced discussion, though when it comes to basketball gaming, I don’t have many controversial opinions to begin with. However, I do have one opinion that you, my fellow virtual hardwood enthusiasts, might vehemently disagree with. Specifically, NBA Live 06 PC – and that’s an important distinction – is my pick for the best game in the NBA Live series. All personal enjoyment and nostalgia aside, I believe that it has a strong case.

Yes, even stronger than NBA Live 10, NBA Live 2000, NBA Live 2005, NBA Live 2004, NBA Live 95…you name it! It’s not that I don’t think those games rank among the best releases in the NBA Live series. They’re also all personal favourites, as I’ve previously discussed. I also won’t pretend that NBA Live 06 PC is perfect, because that’s an impossible expectation of any basketball video game, be it NBA Live, NBA 2K, NBA Jam, or another series. Once again though, I do believe that there are some compelling arguments for NBA Live 06 PC being the best game in the NBA Live series, and to that end, here are the five main reasons why it deserves that distinction.

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Secret Courts Unlocked by Cheats

Wasn’t it way more fun unlocking content in basketball video games by completing tasks or entering secret codes, than buying it with microtransaction-based in-game currency? I know, I know, more Grumpy Old Man griping about the Good Old Days, but come on, am I wrong? I mean, not everything was better “back in the day”, but bonus content that we could all enjoy without pumping more money into the game, or mindlessly grinding, was a far superior and way fairer approach. If you disagree, then I’m sorry, but you might just be too far gone as a shill!

Alright, alright, enough with the antagonistic commentary about microtransactions! That issue aside, basketball video games have had some cool secrets over the years, and it was always entertaining punching in codes to access them. Those secrets also gave rise to a number of urban legends and hoaxes, but some were legit, allowing us to change things up on the virtual hardwood. Indeed, some of those secrets and bonus content directly involved the virtual hardwood, as basketball games have included some secret courts that can only be unlocked via cheats. It was a fun way to alter the setting and atmosphere, and with that in mind, here are five of the best secret courts.

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Limitations With A Sensible Explanation

It’s always frustrating when we encounter limitations in basketball video games that stand in the way of having fun with them. It’s even more frustrating when those limitations aren’t present in other games – in some cases, in the very same series – which suggests that it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. However, that doesn’t mean that there weren’t technical roadblocks when a particular game was released, or a reason for a particular feature or function being designed a certain way. Quite often, there’s a sensible and reasonable explanation for these limitations.

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily make it less frustrating, especially if we don’t learn the reason until much later. Furthermore, in the early days of basketball video games, we couldn’t be blamed for dreaming big as far as the things we wanted to see, and video game developers have clearly had similar visions. To that end, some limitations have been overcome as technology has improved, and programmers have found a way to make ambitious ideas work. Even so, it’s important to acknowledge that there are sensible explanations as to why those limitations were once in place, or why a mode or feature is still restrictive by design. Here are five that we’ve often grumbled about!

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Weird Bugs & Design Errors in Modes

It bears repeating that no video game, basketball or otherwise, is going to be perfect. If it were possible to design games and software that were completely bug-free, it would’ve happened a long time ago! As basketball games and their modes have become deeper and more sophisticated, the chances of there being a few bugs here and there has only increased. Likewise, while there have been some very smart and passionate people working on basketball video games past and present, not all ideas pan out as well as hoped, leading to what we could reasonably call design errors.

Needless to say, it’s frustrating for everyone when bugs and design errors stand in the way of modes being as fun as they could and should be. In the best case scenario, a patch can fix the problem, or the issue will be resolved in next year’s release at the latest. Sadly that isn’t always the case, and there are times when we’ve been stuck with bugs and design errors for a few games running (and sometimes, even longer). Even when bugs and design errors don’t completely ruin a mode, they still have an impact on the experience, and they become one of the things that we remember most about a title. Here are five weird bugs and design errors that I’ve encountered in modes I play.

[RayRay_953]

One design bug that's bothered me in at least two consecutive 2K installments is the player regression sliders also impacting the assists sliders. If you don't know a specific "workaround" to manage the glitch, it can ruin your MyNBA save file. If you increase the assists slider too early, you also massively increase the player regression in your saves (conversely, if you lower the amount, you lessen the player regression by a significant amount). This forces you to tank one of the sliders at some point, but then increase it only when you are about to proceed to the offseason. There's a video that briefly touches upon the issue that I have timestamped if you want to know more about it here:

phpBB [video]

[Andrew]

Oof, that's a nasty bug for sim heads (who are obviously the ones who are most likely to tinker with those sliders in the first place)! Good to know there's a workaround, but that can easily fly under the radar for sure.

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Reasons NBA 2K17 Was The Best NBA 2K

Since I’ve already declared my pick for the best game in the NBA Live series – NBA Live 06 PC, incidentally – I figured that I should do the same for the NBA 2K series. As you can see, I’m giving the nod to NBA 2K17. As with my nomination of NBA Live 06 PC as the best NBA Live we’ve ever seen, my choice of NBA 2K17 isn’t exactly objective. I have plenty of affection for the game, as it’s one of my all-time favourite basketball titles, irrespective of series. Of course, there’s really no such thing as unbiased opinion, though there are well-reasoned and poorly-reasoned ones.

I believe I can present a fair and hopefully compelling case for NBA 2K17 being the best NBA 2K. You can definitely make valid arguments for other games in the series, and indeed, NBA 2K14 for PlayStation 4 has risen up my personal rankings over the past three years. As was the case with the best of the NBA Live series, it’s a close race between the top NBA 2K releases, and personal preference does come into play. With that being said, while my first four points could also apply to some of NBA 2K17’s predecessors, the fifth point is what puts it above all of its successors, at least in my view. And so, without further ado, here’s why I say NBA 2K17 was the best NBA 2K!

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Modes to Play When You’re Short on Time

Look, we all love basketball video games. That’s why we’re in this community, whether we’re creating or consuming content. Most of us enjoy hitting the virtual hardwood as often as we can, but the fact of the matter is that we all have other responsibilities. Work, school, family, friends, partners, chores…there are times when we need to put the controller down, if sometimes reluctantly! When our gaming time is limited, we need to manage our minutes carefully. That includes everything from playing on shorter quarters, to sticking with a viable mode.

When you don’t have a ton of time throughout the week to play basketball games, then you may find yourself opting for modes that don’t require lengthy sessions to have fun and achieve a sense of completion. Similarly, there may be occasions where you have a small window of time – perhaps at the end of a long session – and feel like messing around on the virtual hardwood a little longer, without getting sucked into another full-length game. Fortunately, over the years we’ve had modes and mini-games alike that are appealing to dabble with when we’re short on time. Whether you’re a retro gamer or playing the latest release, consider trying out these modes!

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Features Seemingly Gone For Good

There are reasons that certain features from older basketball video games have fallen by the wayside. As I’ve discussed before, even though some of the annual games may seem like mere roster updates, the code still has to be rewritten every year. If there’s a feature or function that doesn’t work properly with the new code, and if it isn’t a particularly popular or necessary part of the game, it may end up on the chopping block. Additionally, some features evolve into new concepts, or a technological advance or design change elsewhere will render them redundant.

This is how we lose some of the features that we really like. It’s not something that’s done out of spite, though when microtransactions are involved, there may certainly be a lack of goodwill. Mind you, a reasonable explanation for the absence of a beloved feature doesn’t remove the sting for gamers who were passionate about it. Sometimes we’re lucky and a mode or feature is brought back, though not always exactly how we wanted it. However, other features are seemingly gone for good, much to our dismay. We all have our own examples here, and to that end, here are five features that I wish basketball video games still had, but sadly doubt that we’ll ever see brought back.

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Contentious Basketball Gaming Debates

When you’ve been around a while, both in terms of a gaming community and life in general, a couple of things usually happen. You may well lean into that curmudgeonly aspect of aging, becoming the proverbial old man yelling at clouds. At the same time, you also realise that certain things aren’t as important anymore, if indeed they ever were. Leaving high school is a liberating experience, as problems that once seemed all-important and dramatic now feel like petty non-issues (because they often were!). The flipside of this is dealing with all of the new challenges that come with adulthood.

Of course, being an adult doesn’t necessarily mean avoiding petty drama, especially in hobby and fan communities. As the saying goes, growing older is mandatory, but growing up isn’t. Fanbases have strong opinions that make them prone to contentious debates, and the basketball gaming community is no different. As with any other gaming community or group of fans, there are popular and unpopular opinions, issues that are divisive, and a selfish desire to be right and get what we want. We’re not all going to get along one hundred percent of the time, but there are some basketball gaming topics that are often contentious. Here’s my take on five of those matters!

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Real Players Whose Careers Resemble a MyPLAYER

Although interest has shifted towards its connected experiences, MyCAREER is a mode that has allowed us to step into the shoes of an NBA player. Mind you, while MyCAREER has tried to replicate the NBA experience from earning minutes and endorsement deals to becoming a star and mulling your options in free agency, it takes a flexible approach to realism. Most of us end up posting some truly ridiculous numbers on route to being enshrined in the virtual Hall of Fame, and the adoption of a story-driven approach has led to some weird, overly-dramatic, and unlikely tales.

With that being said, as the old saying goes, truth is often stranger than fiction. As it turns out, there have been some players whose careers bear striking similarities to our MyCAREER journeys. No, no one has ever quit basketball to become a DJ and then made it to the league following a streetball tournament - though Rony Seikaly did become a DJ after retiring - but there are players whose road to the NBA and rookie seasons can be compared to a MyPLAYER. That's not to say that their stories are exactly the same, but there are some fun parallels between real players and our NBA 2K avatars. Indeed, some stories may not be as unrealistic as they originally seemed!

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Players Whose Careers Should Inspire MyCAREER Stories

As I’ve previously discussed, there are some real players whose careers bear some entertaining similarities to a few of the stories we’ve had in MyCAREER. I’ll admit that making those comparisons made me see those tales differently, especially the saga of the NBA 2K15 MyPLAYER! I also still really enjoy how “The Way Back” in NBA 2K19 resembled Andre Ingram’s road to the NBA, including a debut towards the end of the regular season. Obviously that was coincidental, but it does make you wonder which other players have stories that would be suitable for MyCAREER.

Now, you might be inclined to say that just about every player who makes it to the NBA had an interesting journey that would be viable as a MyCAREER story. That’s true to an extent, but many of them – while impressive and compelling in their own way – are very similar and straightforward. They don’t necessarily set up a unique scenario from a narrative or gameplay standpoint. We’ve already seen a variety of MyCAREER stories from triumphant tales of highly-touted prospects to underdogs scrapping for opportunities. Again, we’ve even seen a DJ become an NBA star! So, could any real players provide a template for future stories? I believe I can name five.

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Single-Season Detroit Pistons

So, this might seem like a weird topic for me to cover in The Friday Five! The Detroit Pistons are hardly the only NBA team whose all-time roster includes a number of players who only stuck around for a year. I’m also generally not inclined to focus my content on the Pistons; indeed, as a Chicago Bulls fan, it would be rather unusual for me to celebrate the team from the Motor City! However, I do love basketball and basketball gaming trivia, and it’s fun when real hoops reminds me of something from a video game, or revisiting an old title brings to mind some tidbit about the NBA.

While writing about my Minnesota Timberwolves Franchise in NBA Live 2003 for Wayback Wednesday, I noted that Joe Smith was on the roster, also mentioning his brief time with the Pistons. In the weird way that a mind that enjoys trivia works, I began trying to recall other players who only spent a single season of their career with Detroit, resulting in an often overlooked stint. Some of these players are bigger names than others, but they all have one thing in common, that being multi-year careers in the NBA with only one in Detroit. With apologies to fans of Korleone Young, that disqualifies him from this particular list, but here are five other single-season Pistons!

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Conceptual Mistakes Basketball Games Made

Game design isn’t as easy as some people believe it to be. Programming is far from entering instructions in plain English, with many technological challenges that must be overcome. It’s also impossible to cater to everyone’s tastes and preferences, and what might seem like a good idea on paper may not work out as well as hoped when it comes to fruition. For the most part, no one is trying to make a bad video game. It’s just that some concepts don’t pan out, there’s not enough time or adequate resources, ambitious plans set the bar too high, or perhaps a combination thereof.

At the same time, some basketball games have left us wondering what the developers were thinking when it comes to an approach or design choice. There may be some small merit to an idea, but it’s still bewildering that it survived the planning stages, or preliminary proof of concept testing. In all fairness, there are other ideas that seemed good to us as well, until the games were in our hands and we realised that it wasn’t quite what we wanted after all. These are the conceptual mistakes that held games back from being as good as they could and should have been. Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but again, a few of these examples were waving red flags from the beginning.

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Basic Features We Take For Granted

There are a number of basic features in a modern basketball game that have become firmly entrenched as essential, at least if you want the game to be good! The genre has come a long way, and even though I still have tremendous fondness for the early classics, I’m also aware of their shortcomings. Of course, many of the basic features that were once innovations did come along in the mid to late 90s, so we’ve had them for decades now. To that point though, it’s all too easy to take some of those basic features for granted, especially if you didn’t grow up with the more primitive titles.

“Primitive” is the operative word here. When video games as a whole were in their infancy, those first steps towards what we have now did feel like huge strides. On top of that, technical limitations meant that games couldn’t have the same level of depth and detail as they do now, or even a couple of generations ago. Nevertheless, it’s still interesting to look back at some early basketball video games – as I obviously enjoy doing for Wayback Wednesday – and note how some of the basic features that we now take for granted are nowhere to be found. This doesn’t mean that we can’t and shouldn’t criticise modern games, but it’s a reminder of the progress that’s been made.

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Ways To Improve Basketball Reference

Since it was launched in April 2004, Basketball Reference has become an essential destination for hoops fans. Whether you’re looking for player statistics and bio data, league records, team rosters, or pretty much anything else you’d ever want to know about the NBA, ABA, WNBA, and other leagues, the site has you covered. Over the years, Basketball Reference has constantly added features and data to become an even more valuable and entertaining resource. It’s also powering the basketball version of Immaculate Grid, a fun daily grid-based trivia game that I really enjoy.

Needless to say, Basketball Reference has also become an essential resource when creating roster mods for basketball video games. No matter whether you’re making a current roster or retro season mod, there’s no doubt that you’ll be browsing Basketball Reference for the information you need. It’s certainly quicker than the old methods of looking up almanacs, magazines, trading cards, and previous video games, as we did in the early days of our modding community! However, there are a few ways that Basketball Reference’s resources could be made even better, especially for people creating rosters. If it’s at all possible, I’d love to see these additions and enhancements.

[Andrew]

The Friday Five: 5 Brief Stints Captured in Games

At this point, I’m sure that I sound like I’m on a constant loop whenever I refer to basketball video games as interactive almanacs. I can’t help it; it’s a fitting term that describes what it’s like to browse the rosters in an old release! Of course, games will vary as far as being an accurate resource. If nothing else, they can capture some very brief stints – and in some cases, phantom stints that didn’t result in any official on-court appearances – which may not be apparent if you don’t know your NBA history. To that point though, they’re still fascinating glimpses of the league at that time!

In older games, between revised releases, ports to different platforms, and publishers releasing games at various points during the season rather than everyone aiming for a pre-season launch, titles set in the same year – and even different versions of the same title – could easily feature inconsistent rosters. To me, that’s only made those games an even more entertaining window into the past, especially when they preserve some brief stints! Those can certainly occur in games that were released close to opening night, but games that were released later stood a better chance of capturing an even rarer stint that resulted from a midseason move. Here are five noteworthy examples.

[Andrew]

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 basketball video games, the real NBA or another area of interest to our community, either as a list of five items or in the form of a Top 5 countdown. This is a central discussion thread for the feature, in which I invite you to post any feedback along with your responses to each column's topic. A link to the latest article can always be found here in the first post, along with a link to the complete archive.

• Complete Archive

Latest Feature

The Friday Five: 5 Wild Predictions from a NBA 2K19 MyCAREER Sim

From their earliest appearances, multi-season modes in basketball video games have provided us with the opportunity to simulate into the future, and in doing so, make some wild predictions. Although my cousin and I had a blast actually playing through a season in NBA Live 2000’s Franchise mode, we also had an interesting afternoon simulating through the full 25 years. What’s really wild to me looking back is that the once far off year of 2024 is now the present! In fact, that might just be tougher to get my head around than any of the fictional outcomes in that simulation.

Franchise modes have generally advertised their length, but career modes have been less forthcoming about their endpoint. As such, it was something that I was curious about when I ran some experiments in NBA 2K19 MyCAREER way back in March 2019 (seriously, where does the time go?). I discovered that there is indeed a forced game over after twenty seasons, as well as the answers to some other questions that I had. NBA 2K19 MyCAREER is now only available in a limited offline state, but I’ve kept records and screenshots of my time with it, including that 20-year simulation. To that end, it produced some wild predictions that I certainly have my doubts about!