I, similar, I’m sure to many of you, spend two hours each Sunday night glued to the television. In a time where much of what we view can be paused and fast-forwarded, the thrill of bolting up from the couch to go to the bathroom or get a nice pan of nachos cooking has, for the most part, been lost. But I simply cannot miss a moment of “The Last Dance.” Michael Jordan’s jeans, Scottie Pippen’s voice, Phil Jackson’s shoulders, or Dennis Rodman’s explanation of how one learns to rebound a basketball. Sure, due to advances in technology, I could pause if my break is a bit longer than the commercial break, but then I would not be watching in real time and the tweets rolling hot off the presses would whoosh right over my head.
But this is not an article about “The Last Dance.” That would be low hanging fruit. Articles on “The Last Dance” are a dime a dozen, with talk of it dominating the sports news world. No, this is an article about what “The Last Dance” has made me realize about basketball as a whole, and more specifically, NBA 2K.
I’ve always been a huge fan of the throwback teams part of NBA 2K, allowing me to play as teams that I was, for the most part, not able to watch live because I was not alive. Nothing beats shooting a terribly inefficient game with Allen Iverson, as he is wont to do, and maybe sometimes winning. Or coming to the pleasant realization that yeah, Clyde Drexler is super good. Or lamenting the absence of Reggie Miller and Charles Barkley between each game.
“The Last Dance” has brought about a certain sense of nostalgia—or an equivalent word that can be used on something that I actually never experienced—regarding the last 60 years of basketball. And while this has, in turn, increased my use of NBA 2K historic teams, it has also reignited my disdain for NBA 2K20.
NBA 2K20 is a trash game with impossible post-play and stupid moves. And that, combined with my roommate owning our copy and taking it home with him during Coronavirus—but mostly because it sucks—has got me playing 2K19, a far superior game with manageable post-play and more fluid moves.
Typically the new 2K comes out, and I never look back. But this step back into 2K19 has got me wanting more from the 2Ks of years past. Maybe the celebrities of NBA 2K13, such as Brian Baumgartner, the man behind Kevin Malone of “The Office.” Or maybe a Career mode with much less story. But mostly, and I would take this over anything else in a heartbeat—bring back the historic team courts. Let us play as historic teams on their original courts, no three-point lines, with the camera all grainy-like.
It’d be a blast. So, ride the high of “The Last Dance” and all the classic highlights myself and so many other basketball fans are watching right now, and 2K, go all in on historic teams and make a game that doesn’t suck.