Could annualised sports franchises be building something greater?

 This post is based on around a week of playing several modes of NBA 2K20.

When they jump into QuickPlay and other similar modes, NBA 2K20 players are greeted with a selection of three sets of teams: current NBA rosters, notable historic teams, and all-time rosters for each franchise (there are also WNBA teams, but no opportunity for a battle of the sexes). The latter is a welcome addition since the last time I played, although a little more flexibility here would be nice. Using base rosters, there doesn’t seem to be an option to choose past players that fit the criteria, or even add the best of today the ranks of past greats for those who the developers have not yet deemed worthy of a spot. Tyson Chandler’s two seasons with the Mavericks would still qualify him as a fan-favourite among some recent NBA viewers, even if he doesn’t belong in Nowitzki/Finley/Nash territory for that franchise. There’s also a split between the repeatedly great franchises, with almost too many players on the all-time list, and the less historic, which struggle to offer a decent selection.

The historic rosters also contain a smattering of disappointments. Firstly, some players are missing due to licensing issues – goodbye Manu Ginóbili – which severely limits the appeal of some inclusions. Shorthanded versions of the 2003-04 Pistons, 2013-14 Pacers and 2013-14 Spurs, among others, aren’t quite the noteworthy inclusions they should be when you realise the roster is a little thinner than it was in real life. Some are filled with generic inclusions to round out the rosters, which just feels a little limp as you scroll to the bottom. It obviously affects older teams more – I believe part of the issue is that retired players are no longer included in the broad licensing agreement, requiring separate deals. Still, modern teams such as the 2002-03 Suns and 2005-06 Grizzlies are about as thin as some of those from the 60s and 70s, with some of these teams having six, seven or eight actual players on the virtual roster, according to 2K Ratings.

Beyond this, the selection of teams is generally unsatisfying. The Jordan-era Bulls are well-represented, with as many entries as championships, and there’s a team for each era of LeBron (Cavaliers, Heat, return to Cleveland). It’s the inclusion of the 2010-11 Mavericks team that makes several glaring weaknesses obvious to me: where are the champions, where are the fan-favourites, and is there something for everyone? This Mavericks team is perfect for me – a little before my time watching the NBA, but one that hovered over my perception of the league as a newfound Mavericks fan. But what about Heat fans that found the sport in, say, 2008? Sure, they have the similarly-placed 2006 championship team to look back on, but what my imagined fan really wants is the 2011-12 Heat team, which won the first championship that they saw. Luckily, they have the following year as the representative of the LeBron era – except that Miller and others were gone, with Allen, Lewis and Andersen bulking out the team. It’s not quite the same, even if it’s a better inclusion for most. Why can’t every champion be represented?

What about other notable teams of the last few years? While the inclusion of their championship squad is perfect for Mavs fans, Raptors fans now miss out on last years victors (and Leonard’s move to the Clippers means that they don’t really have the approximation that Heat fans get with the 2012 and 2013 champions), Warriors fans get only one representation of the Splash Brothers era (the 73-win team, leaving us all without the Curry-Durant pairing), and Hawks fans are unable to relive the line-up that won a Player of the Month Award. You would think that many more complete rosters, especially those of recent years, could be kept in each iteration of the 2K franchise for those disappointed as real-life teams are broken apart by free agency, trades and injuries. There’s no space in this selection for some of the middling teams that might soon spark nostalgia within fans who watched this era: the short-lived Nowitzki-Ellis combo, Westbrook unleashed after Durant’s departure, Oladipo blossoming with the Pacers. Will future selections include any team featuring DeRozan with the Raptors, Gobert with the Jazz or Walker on the Hornets? All three played an important role in the recent history of these franchises, but these contributions are unlikely to be noteworthy enough for inclusion in future NBA 2K games. A more comprehensive approach, preserving some digital reflection of the growth of the 2010s NBA is certainly possible, but the opportunity has so far been completely left aside. The rosters included do a fairly good job within this limited framework. As someone who started watching basketball in the 2013-14 season, most of the noteworthy teams of the last six years have some rough representations, with the Clippers, Grizzlies, Thunder, Heat, Pacers and Spurs of recent years having something like the rosters a recent fan might want. It’s just not quite enough.

Any limits on the selection will leave someone disappointed, even if that just means masochists that dream of reliving the lows of the 2011-12 Bobcats. Even with enough teams to have something for everyone, it seems better to just have everything instead. Why can’t franchises like NBA 2K build out their historic rosters from year to year, working towards a fuller picture of at least this era of NBA basketball? There’s no real reason to keep leaving entire years behind, to only be remembered in the virtual space on the whims of future selectors. Over time, they could build to something that interests me far more than a chosen few: a complete picture of the entire NBA, year over year over year. Obviously it’s a long-term goal, and it won’t perfectly recreate the league’s legacy, but it seems the far better option than throwing it all away every October.

Extra thoughts: MyHERO, Dean Wade.

During my brief plunge into NBA 2K20, I dipped into the MyTEAM mode. While not quite what I would like (in fact, having a different version of players for every year they played is closer to what I would like from a dream team mode), it is quite a fun set-up: collect cards of players, build better line-ups, and work towards the best versions of your favourite stars. Most of the better players that I pulled out of the starter packs topped out at around a 79 rating, with many in the lower 70s – more average NBA players than go-to stars. One, however, was Cavaliers combo forward Dean Wade, with a 92 overall. I was impressed, and he was obviously the player that I relied on whenever I got down to the last ten seconds of the shot clock. I soon grew curious. Who was Dean Wade? When had he played for the Cavaliers? Perhaps he was a teammate of Mark Price, in an era I knew nothing about? I headed first to Basketball Reference to investigate his box score numbers. There, I was surprised to find that my hero was in fact a much more recent phenomenon, playing 71 total minutes across 12 games, with a career high of six points in his only season – this one. He wasn’t a forgotten great, but rather a bench player with almost no track record elevated by the line of “Fav Favourite” cards that had been included. It wasn’t quite what I had been looking for with the MyTEAM mode.