NBA 2KXX Games Thread

[Yevrah]

Some of you might recall me getting involved with NBA 2K15, so much so I even managed to understand how all the trade (and other such nonsense) rules worked.

Then I got slightly bored of it and due to the combination of the ludicrously small bone hard drive and a staggering 50GB+ install size, it had to go.

Well, I'm pleased to report that having hooked a 4TB hard drive up to the bad boy, NBA 2K15 is now back in business.

I was tempted to buy NBA2K16, but given I don't keep up with the sport in real life, I figure what's the point?

Anyone still playing these games?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I played 2K16 and just couldn't get into it like I did with 15.

I hated Spike Lee's story and when playing I felt it just didn't play as well as 15.

Hoping 17 is a lot better.

[Yevrah]

Yeah, I never really got into the career mode on 15, but the Spike Lee stuff on 16 looked dreadful.

[Ian]

I was really enjoying 2k14 until I broke the 3 pointers record halfway through the season and then when I cranked the difficulty up and started a new save I never really got into it the same even though I was doing okay.

[Yevrah]

Does anyone know what the default camera angle for NBA2K15 was?

I pissed around with it during a My Career game and now I've no idea. :cab:

[Pleb]

MyCareer on 16 is shite.

MyLeague seems pretty good so far from what I've seen so far considering I only picked up a copy Wednesday.

Yevrah I use 2k personally...

[Raoul Duke]

Is there a new one of these out recently? Is this the best basketball game? Is the career mode decent + can I manage a team (and buy/sell players etc.)? Is it a bit shit, like FIFA's career mode?

I'm tempted to pick it up as I've not played one for ages. I used to enjoy the Dreamcast B-ball game.

[Pleb]

MyLeague has a franchise mode and you can relocate teams on 16 as far as I'm aware.

[wullie]

It's pretty much the only basketball game. Do EA even bother any more?

I've got the latest but the Spike Lee joint didn't do much for me and I haven't got into it like I did the MyPlayer mode a year or two before where my Utah Jazz tenure was all passive-aggressive plane journeys and ending with me fighting Richard Jefferson in the Thunderdome.

[phonics]

I loved the Spike Lee stuff, you could see the massive amount of money money spent on it for something that was the level of a highschool talent show play. It was incredible in a purely "How the fuck did this get past production?" way.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

It's pretty much the only basketball game. Do EA even bother any more?

I've got the latest but the Spike Lee joint didn't do much for me and I haven't got into it like I did the MyPlayer mode a year or two before where my Utah Jazz tenure was all passive-aggressive plane journeys and ending with me fighting Richard Jefferson in the Thunderdome.

They do but it's so bad.

I play the demo every year and can't believe there's more than 1 person working on it. Although 14 was the worst, it got absolutely slammed. I think mid 40's were the best reviews for it.

[phonics]

The best was the year where they shipped the game and then called them back a day or two later, never releasing it because the game was so bad.

[wullie]

I thought they'd just waved the white flag at that point, surprised they're still trying. Has the EA series ever been up to much? The only other basketball game I liked other than 2K was the old Total NBA series on PS1.

[Raoul Duke]

It's weird how EA can't get their shit together in this, as they seem to beast every other sports game.

Is this the newest game? When's the next one out?

[Yevrah]

To be fair, they're rubbish at the football too. FIFA Is a pile of turd.

[phonics]

The current season is still going, the NBA 2k games normally come out around November.

They're doing the weekly stats updates like all sports games now and they've apparently had to make Steph Curry's 3 point shooting >99 to make it realistic in the game :D

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

They're also rubbish at MMA (THQ's undisputed games were so much better than EA's two thus far) and not that great at American Football (far too many things broken in the NFL game and the Ultimate Team mode is laughable as it's so obvious it's one giant money grab from EA).

[Yevrah]

So between the point I stopped playing this originally and reinstalling it they've fucked around with the rosters. Carter-Williams is no longer at the 76ers, for example.

Most interestingly however there's a 16 year old rated 68 on the free agent list called Matt Simon. Is he real and what's the deal with him?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

He's real.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2333020-nba-2k15-team-grants-special-wish-for-fan-battling-debilitating-disease

http://www.ibtimes.co.in/nba-2k15-dream-comes-true-this-fan-battling-disease-roster-update-locker-codes-free-vc-points-621020

It's pretty cool.

Imagine being 16, getting into a video game, getting a prom date hooked up and hanging with some cheerleaders. Fucking hell.

[Yevrah]

Ugh, I thought he was a real player.

Nice touch mind.

[phonics]

Ugh, I thought he was a real player.

Nice touch mind.

With the current NBA laws it'd be impossible to have a 16 year old player. All players need to have one year in college before signing for the NBA.

[Yevrah]

The Lakers are so fucking shit in this, passes going astray all over the shop.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Free on PS+ to download in June.

I'll be back in the game then until 17 drops.

[wullie]

Was 15 on PS+ too? I might not bother buying 17 and just wait, get something that actually makes the subscription worthwhile.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Nope but 14 was.

[Browning]

Been wanting to give one of these a go for a while so I'll take a look at it when it's free.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

When I first got it, everything downloaded fine but when I went to play it just wouldn't get online and I couldn't play my old save game because it defaulted to save to the cloud. Despite me playing the game on this very PS4 it's clearly mental that a save game wouldn't be placed on the PS4 so I could play it offline, that's clearly thinking too far out of the box.

Decided to uninstall and then reinstall but it's taking fucking forever to finish the whole thing and it keeps cutting out if I don't load the game up. Utter shambles.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

http://i.imgur.com/6q0Omtx.jpg

:drool:

http://i.imgur.com/7bXHVaq.jpg

Doubt I'll be breaking any more single game records. That rebound stat in particular is fucking obscene, my best is 17.

Oh and this is probably my favourite thing I've done thus far:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKHtZT8JkkI

[wullie]

One assist, three blocks? The Filippo Inzaghi of basketball.

[7om]

If you were my teammate in The Park I'd reach inside the tv and throttle you.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I was playing a career game and wanted to beat Wilt's record, eat me.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Oh and 3 blocks for a point guard is like amazing.

[wullie]

Whatever goalhanger. Your teammates are going to shiv you on the team bus.

[Pepe]

One assist as a PG. :sick:

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

One assist as a PG. :sick:

It was a begrudgingly given assist too. I was being triple teamed and there was no chance of getting space so had to feed LeBron in :(

Made up for it in the next game with around 15 or so though.

Edit: I'm also playing a lot of minutes at shooting guard to make room for that hack, Kyrie Irving.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

http://i.imgur.com/lAjeRFE.jpg

:cool:

[Pepe]

Six turnovers. :sick:

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I hate you.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

http://i.imgur.com/D7dk6gD.jpg

Eat me Pepe.

Got to 29 with 2:30 left in the third but I was then on the bench until 2 minutes to play in the fourth.

[Shindig]

No blocks.:fun:

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

http://i.imgur.com/Jc35YRt.jpg

:drool:

A double triple double/quadruple double. Scenes.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

First playoff game and I set a new record for steals with 18, 16 of which came against Kyle 'Where did I put the ball' Lowry.

Glorious.

I did foul out right at the end of the third quarter so I'd have broken 20 I feel had the refs not been so whistle happy.

Edit: The Raptors are my bitch:

http://i.imgur.com/S6PTqzo.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PFPqPwM.jpg

Quad double before the half finishing with:

http://i.imgur.com/rfH1ZgJ.jpg

Oh and here's some epicness from Kyle Lowry:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2j54oJ5rII

[Yevrah]

Does anyone have a clue how I can put which draft players I want into a custom draft class on NBA 2K20?

They have all the real drafts going back to 1980 ish, but I can't for the life of me work out how I mix and match players from each.

[bruhnaldo]

Mahow playing on Rookie and bragging sheesh.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

It wasn't on Rookie.

Also, I've been playing MyTeam this year and yesterday I packed the new 99 Allen Iversen who is absolutely filthy.

[bruhnaldo]

it says it was 81-27 in the 2Q bro.

[Gray Fox]

Mahow was Toronto.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

it says it was 81-27 in the 2Q bro.

It was pro and it was also 4 years ago...

[bruhnaldo]

Idk what the time has to do with it my man.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

MyTeam is a lot better than career I'm finding.

Saved up enough MT to buy PG Giannis (for about 120k cheaper than market value too) who is absolutely filthy.

[Yevrah]

I've taken over the Chicago Bulls 85-86 team in My League, solely because of The Last Dance.

It's amazing how shit they all are bar Jordan. Two games in and two defeats. Narrowly lost to Orlando and then got humped by the 76ers.

[Alex]

I picked up a copy of NBA 2K20 last night. I haven't bought one in about five years but it's currently on sale on the Playstation Store for the quite frankly ridiculous price of £3.99, so why would you not.

[wullie]

I was getting a little bored of the series but leaving it a few years has did the trick as I'm enjoying 20 a lot. So far Garbageman has been drafted by his hometown Bulls, talked himself out of a Jordan shoe deal, started a passive aggressive feud with local radio and been royally slagged off for wearing a shit suit. There's been some basketball in there at some point

[Vercetti]

I just had a bash at 2k18, as it's on PSNow.

I don't doubt for a single second that it's because I'm shite, but it just seemed completely random. No control over anything at all. :D

[Shindig]

Turn all the AI sliders to zero and just go nuts.

[Yevrah]

Finally settled into a season on MyLeague that I've been hammering away on this weekend. Went online to see what custom franchises people had created and after navigating through the porn ones found a skin for the Bronx Raiders. 5 minutes later we are in the Atlantic conference and it's time for the draft.

For those that don't know every team gets to protect 8 players and I then get to pick a squad of 14 from the rest. Most of what was unprotected, as you can imagine, was dogshit, but I managed to cobble together the below:

https://i.postimg.cc/QdPVMJJW/Bronx-Raiders-Season-1.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

Games on Pro difficulty, 6 minute quarters with minutes and stats adjusted to the sim length of 12. I'm quite crap at this so was pretty chuffed to lead the team to the playoffs, with a 9-6 record. Set the playoffs to be real length and am currently knee deep in a round one best of 7 with the 76ers. Embiid was thankfully out of the series injured, but we're still struggling at 2-3 after 5 games, although we did just hammer them in the last one.

https://i.postimg.cc/v8VRRLcN/25-05-2020-19-50-08-qmp202h2.png (https://postimg.cc/nMpSBmK4)

I seem to struggle against teams with a good centre that can defend, so if we somehow get through I'd probably rather face Toronto than Cleveland, but either way I think that'll be as far as we go.

As most of the squad are on 1 year contracts I've no idea what the team will look like next season, but I fear my unwillingness to sign virtual players, to virtually long contracts, for a lot of virtual dollars, is going to cost me.

Other than it making almost no attempt to explain how anything works beyond the on court controls, this game is really good. It's also dawning on me that the American system is a far better model than how our sports operate.

[Gray Fox]

Did I see right that this is £2.49 now?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Should be something like that but it wont be for long.

They always drop it to £3 or less around this time.

[Giggles]

Is that another online only PC thing?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Is that another online only PC thing?

Give your head a wobble you cunt.

[Giggles]

:cool:

[Giggles]

Though I've nearly bought that one a good few times for the iPad as it's one of the only proper looking sports games that has controller support.

[phonics]

Those are completely different games from the one you see above. Just the same name.

[Yevrah]

Does anyone know how plays work in this?

It's the most confusing thing I've ever seen.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Just run easy plays and then you'll start to understand how it all works. It's basically move here, pass there, move there, shoot.

I only run one play though:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz1y3G897JY

I don't use it anymore as I can beat the AI on HOF in Myteam without it.

You only really need plays against online people though to help create more space.

[Yevrah]

Oh I understand the concept of what they're for, it's pre-selecting them, selecting them and activating them that utterly baffles me.

I'm in MyLeague if that makes a difference.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Oh he does go through that in the video.

But it's basically L1 (LB?) then select them but they're the basic ones. If you want the more advanced plays you need to set them to the menu via offensive settings and in there you can also set who you want to take the shot.

[Yevrah]

Ah, cheers.

So the player you're assigning to the play is always the one you want to shoot?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Yes.

If you leave it to default then it's usually the PG or SG. At least that's the case with the one and only play I sometimes run.

[wullie]

I tend to ignore the tactical side and convoluted skills completely, same as FIFA where I couldn't tell you how to do a stepover. I'm a pure pass and shoot man, basically haven't learned a new trick since NBA Jam.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

The only thing I do now is put my offense on 4-out-1 so I've got more 3-point options.

Although on MyTeam I'm only ever really shooting with Tracy McGrady.

[Yevrah]

Oh he does go through that in the video.

But it's basically L1 (LB?) then select them but they're the basic ones. If you want the more advanced plays you need to set them to the menu via offensive settings and in there you can also set who you want to take the shot.

Is there a way to access that offensive settings menu outside of a game so I can set plays globally for every game or do I have to do it each and every time I go into a match?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

You can't do it in MyTeam, no idea about League though.

[Yevrah]

I can't see it anywhere either. So you have to pick from hundreds of plays and assign them to each player in every game? Crazy.

Does it at least save what you set last time?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Not in MyTeam.

I think most people will generally use a freelance set (like 4-out-1-in) and use 3/4 plays throughout the match.

[Yevrah]

How do you activate a set in game? Look like I have 3 to choose from.

Sorry for all these questions Mahow.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Right on the D-Pad, then L1 (LB) and select the one you want.

You can also change the freelance set options in offensive settings.

[Yevrah]

Top man, thank you.

I only started looking at all this because I wanted more open looks at 3's. My players on the perimeter seem to love standing like statues while being marked.

[Yevrah]

Back to the actual game, started another save (I know), this time with the Chicago Bulls.

Traded Felicio for Guduric to free up some cap space and then waived Guduric, Mokoka and Strus to free up squad space. Then two pieces of the master plan came into play. Firstly trading Shaquile Harrison and my 2020 first round pick for Bol Bol. He's a bit crap, but he is 7' 2", only 19 and his Dad was Manute Bol, I believe the tallest player in the NBA ever, so I'm ok with that.

Then I signed William Floyd, a skinny arse white guy point guard who is also 19 and crap, but already has A+ for three point shots. Turns out he's not real, or at least not a real basketball player, but some kid who is in the game through the make a wish foundation. Target is to make him an NBA legend.

Season has started very well as we sit 6-1 at the halfway point. Zach LaVine is immense, breaking Jordan's record for field goals made already and in the hunt for MVP. William Floyd has also been cracking off the bench, breaking the Bulls 3PT record for a game (with 10) and in the running for the NBA's 6th man award. I Scottie Pippen'd him by signing him up on a super min deal. :drool:

Goal for this season is the playoffs, so anything more would be a bonus. Longer term I want Giannis when his contract is up at the end of next season, so hopefully being a contender for a couple of years will help that. He absolutely ruined me when we met the Bucks in the only game we've lost so far this season.

[phonics]

Season has started very well as we sit 6-1 at the halfway point.

Wait, what? Do they not make you play every game anymore? I might give it a go in that case.

Can I recommend going for Jah Morant instead. It's his Rookie year this year so you should be able to get him.

[Yevrah]

Not in MyLeague. You can set it to 14, 28, 50-something or a full 82 games. Playoffs are fully customisable as well. I've gone for best of 3-3-5-7 this time.

As for Morant, he looks the nuts, but William Floyd has a rare genetic disorder causing severe muscle weakness and heart problems and I want to see how good he can get.

[Yevrah]

Oh and I do 6 minute quarters with the points and minutes normalised to the sim game length of 12 mins.

Trade deadline day now, I might have a looksie. Otto Porter (and his disgusting contract) needs to be gone at some point.

[phonics]

Yeah no idea what Morant is like in the game but I love to watch him. He doesn't score here but look at this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJvHeuCLJAs

The guy he jumps over is 6 ft 6

This game not putting MyCareer in the pirated version, then putting to to £2.50 on all platforms but PC has proper annoyed me.

[phonics]

My other scouting tip is you might be able to get Kyle Kuzma from the Lakers as well.

[Yevrah]

That is ridiculous.

[Yevrah]

My other scouting tip is you might be able to get Kyle Kuzma from the Lakers as well.

Cheers. I might be able to you know. He's only 77 rated and on peanuts.

[phonics]

Cheers. I might be able to you know. He's only 77 rated and on peanuts.

These are the guys you should look at, they'll all be on rookie contracts.

https://i.imgur.com/q7QvLJS.png

Kuzma, Young, Doncic, Sexton and Tatum are the best players on that list imo.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I'd also look at Bagley.

I don't know what he's like in MyLeague or in real life but his Amythest card (92 rated) in MyTeam is seriously good.

He's a quick center who shoots very week with good dunking animations and he seems to grab so many rebounds.

Used a lot in budget squads.

[Yevrah]

Past the trade deadline now but I'll check them all out.

Currently 11 points behind against Cleveland at half time. :moop: Their defence is a right arse.

[phonics]

I'd love to get into MyTeam but I can't get a handle on how trades work in those American socialist systems.

[Yevrah]

13 points down at half time against Cleveland and we have a huge 3rd quarter, shooting 92% from the field to bring it within 3 going into the 4th. Tense as fuck as the lead keeps changing up to the last 30 seconds, where we took a two point advantage before all the fouling started, holding on to win 76-75 (152-150). 7-1 takes us to the top of the Eastern conference, ahead of Brooklyn on the same win % by virtue of having beaten them I think.

This is the squad we're working with:

https://i.postimg.cc/D04ZHQRV/Bundes.jpg (https://postimg.cc/307YDGK9)

LaVine I'll keep unless something exceptional comes along or he wants a super-max contract and is rated anything under 95 ish. Point Guard is sewn up for years between White and Floyd. Small Forward is where the problems start as Porter is bang average and on $27.25m, taking up exactly 25% of my wage cap and inexplicably having a player option to steal a living from us for another year. If I can't trade him to get the salary off the books (and who would want him without giving me their overpaid shit in exchange) I might be stuck with him until we make the play for Giannis at the end of 2020/21, which would obviously sort the PF position out. Markkanen currently occupies it and while he's a beast on rebounds he moves like an oil tanker.

Not sure what's going on with his contract either as everywhere tells me it has two years left to run but he appears in the contract extensions tile which presumably should only be for those in the last year of their deal.

Centre is a real problem too currently. Wendell Carter Jr, while highly rated for a 20 year old fails to impose himself on games and also moves in a horrible to control way. Gafford might actually be the better bet and then there's the Sudanese giant in Bol Bol, but he is far from ready.

Drummond's contract is up at the end of this season so that could be an option, but he'll want a small fortune and that eats into the pot earmarked for Giannis.

[Yevrah]

I'd love to get into MyTeam but I can't get a handle on how trades work in those American socialist systems.

I think I've finally got to grips with it now. I find deciphering who has what pick from the "view picks" tab more of a headache than it needs to be, but I've got to the level where I can navigate the off season comfortably without my squad being decimated.

It's a really good effort to be fair to 2k. The MyLeague mode and its tv broadcast style presentation feels like I'm in a living breathing season far more than any other sports game I've played.

[Yevrah]

Checked Bagley out, he looks very good as a promising young Centre. Added to the trading block.

[phonics]

13 points down at half time against Cleveland and we have a huge 3rd quarter, shooting 92% from the field to bring it within 3 going into the 4th. Tense as fuck as the lead keeps changing up to the last 30 seconds, where we took a two point advantage before all the fouling started, holding on to win 76-65 (152-150). 7-1 takes us to the top of the Eastern conference, ahead of Brooklyn on the same win % by virtue of having beaten them I think.

This is the squad we're working with:

https://i.postimg.cc/D04ZHQRV/Bundes.jpg (https://postimg.cc/307YDGK9)

LaVine I'll keep unless something exceptional comes along or he wants a super-max contract and is rated anything under 95 ish. Point Guard is sewn up for years between White and Floyd. Small Forward is where the problems start as Porter is bang average and on $27.25m, taking up exactly 25% of my wage cap and inexplicably having a player option to steal a living from us for another year. If I can't trade him to get the salary off the books (and who would want him without giving me their overpaid shit in exchange) I might be stuck with him until we make the play for Giannis at the end of 2020/21, which would obviously sort the PF position out. Markkanen currently occupies it and while he's a beast on rebounds he moves like an oil tanker.

Not sure what's going on with his contract either as everywhere tells me it has two years left to run but he appears in the contract extensions tile which presumably should only be for those in the last year of their deal.

Centre is a real problem too currently. Wendell Carter Jr, while highly rated for a 20 year old fails to impose himself on games and also moves in a horrible to control way. Gafford might actually be the better bet and then there's the Sudanese giant in Bol Bol, but he is far from ready.

Drummond's contract is up at the end of this season so that could be an option, but he'll want a small fortune and that eats into the pot earmarked for Giannis.

If you're looking for a center, Rudy Gobert (he of COVID fame) should be in the last year of his deal. LaMarcus Aldridge too.

[Yevrah]

That was the twat that licked the microphones? :D He's got two years to run on the game. Same for Aldridge. Although the latter is paid a fortune and is old. It'll be the undoing of me, but I'm going to struggle to sign anyone I don't perceive to be value.

[phonics]

That was the twat that licked the microphones? :D He's got two years to run on the game. Same for Aldridge. Although the latter is paid a fortune and is old. It'll be the undoing of me, but I'm going to struggle to sign anyone I don't perceive to be value.

Most centers will be older as it's one of those experience positions.

If value is your interest then absolute rake those rookie contracts. The problem you'll find though is that as extensions happen a couple years down the line you won't be able to keep them all.

You could just find a Power Forward instead and move Makkanen to Center.

[Yevrah]

How would I go about getting the rookies though? I don't have anything that attractive in my squad to offer.

Markkanen to centre and Giannis in at PF in a season and a half could well be the play. Cheers.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I'd rather have Harry Giles or Marvin Bagley if you can get them at center.

I don't know how well they progress in MyLeague but they were given great cards in MyTeam and both have really nice animations.

[phonics]

How would I go about getting the rookies though? I don't have anything that attractive in my squad to offer.

Remember when I said earlier that I have no idea how the trading system works. All I know is Rookie contracts last 2 years with a 3rd year option normally.

[Yevrah]

Remember when I said earlier that I have no idea how the trading system works.

Ah. I assumed by "rake those rookie contracts" you knew more than I did.

The other option is that I have the 1969 draft class loaded into this season (1978 and Larry Bird to follow next), but that does mean I could chuck a shitload at whoever gets the number 1 pick from the lottery to get Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

[Yevrah]

A 188-142 battering of the Atlanta Hawks in which LaVine became the Bulls all time top scorer in a game with 72, takes us to 9-1 and clinches a playoff spot.

With Boston, Miami, Detroit and Charlotte left to play (none of which are in the playoff spots) I'm quite confident about clinching first seed too, but annoyingly the Bucks are hovering around 8th seed at the moment.

[phonics]

A 188-142 battering of the Atlanta Hawks in which LaVine became the Bulls all time top scorer in a game with 72, takes us to 9-1 and clinches a playoff spot.

K I just lost interest in purchasing.

[Yevrah]

Get on it, it's gooooood.

[Yevrah]

Regular season done and we finished 12-2. You might need to look away here Phonics as it's award time:

MVP: Zach LaVine (Chicago Bulls)
Rookie of the Year: Coby White (Chicago Bulls)
6th Man of the Year: Dennis Schroder (Oklahoma City Thunder)
Defensive Player of the Year: Giannis Antetokonmpo (Milwaukee Bucks)
Most Improved Player: Bam Adebayo (Miami Heat)
Coach of the Year: Michael Stauffer (Chicago Bulls)

LaVine made the All-NBA 1st team, White the All-Rookie 1st team and Gafford the All-Rookie 2nd team.

First seeds in the East, the playoff draw looks like so:

https://i.postimg.cc/135cRpRn/30-05-2020-17-16-38-of5kmoy4.png (https://postimg.cc/VdpbD0Cm)

Fancy us to take Atlanta, but Philadelphia or Cleveland will be a tough game should I make the conference semi's. I seem to always struggle against both.

[phonics]

You are literally destroying the Bulls storyline of being a complete mess. Matt Stauffer is a complete joke so well done saving his reputation.

I still don’t get how 350 points got scored in one game.

[Yevrah]

It's because I've got it set to adjust the points I score in 6 minute quarters to what it would be if the quarters were 12 minutes, i.e. double.

If I don't do that then I get really low scores.

[phonics]

You absolute arsehole making me want to buy it at 55 quid...

Maybe I'll boot up 2k19 and hope COVID brings up 2k21 release date.

[Yevrah]

Why does it cost £55? It's been on the consoles for peanuts lately.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

2k (and EA) don't give a shit about the PC guys.

[phonics]

Why does it cost £55? It's been on the consoles for peanuts lately.

Console players buy microtransactions, PC players don't.

[Yevrah]

Fair enough. The game keeps asking me if I want to let my credit card get surprised sexed by VC credits.

We win the first game against Atlanta, while Philadelphia cruise to a 2-0 win over Cleveland and the man mountain that is Joel Embiid awaits in the semi's if we can finish the Hawks off. :eyemouth:

Brooklyn also through in two against the Bucks and in the Western conference Oklahoma sweep Dallas.

Marvin Bagley also wants to leave the Kings. :drool:

[phonics]

My main issue from 2k17-2k19 was definitely teams with good centres but I think that's from years of MyPLayer where I just want to go to the basket for a layup, so good luck.

[Yevrah]

Yeah, I find teams that defend deep and/or have a quality center hard to beat as you can't cheese running round the back of them for an easy lay up.

We beat Atlanta 2-0, to complete the conference semi's line up:

East

Bulls (1) vs 76ers (4)
Nets (2) vs Raptors (3)

West

Nuggets (5) vs Lakers (8)
Trailblazers (2) vs Thunder (3)

Lakers aiming to become the first team to win from 8th seed.

[Yevrah]

Joel Embiid is out for 1-2 weeks with a broken nose!!!!!!!!!

EDIT: But he's still playing. :moop:

[Yevrah]

Won the first game pretty comfortably in the end, 140-112, with Embiid's injury making him far less effective.

The Nets are through to the Eastern conference final, so I'll play them if I can win one of the potential two games left vs. the 76ers.

The Lakers also swept Denver and are in the Western conference final.

Shame I have some objectives busy work to do on FIFA now, properly enjoying this.

[wullie]

Zach Levine really ought to be getting a cut of my salary in MyCareer, the amount of assists I rack up by just waiting for him to get a decent look is ridiculous. The big Finnish lad is pretty handy too

[Yevrah]

Did you get drafted by the Bulls Wullie?

Talking of the big Finnish lad, proper Last Dance stuff from him in the 2nd game of the semi-final playoff series vs. Philadelphia, nailing two three pointers in overtime to give us the victory in a ridiculously tight game and the series 2-0.

Conference Finals

Oklahoma City Thunder (3) vs Los Angeles Lakers (8)
Chicago Bulls (1) vs Brooklyn Nets (2)

Best of 5 series for a place in the NBA Finals. :drool:

[wullie]

I did yeah, picked Chicago as the character hometown so I figure start as local boy done good before eventually moving and alienating the city when we finish outside the playoffs each year

[Alex]

I started in the off-season in MyLeague so I could run through the draft and one of the first thing that happened was, at the league meeting, the teams voted overwhelmingly in favour of increasing the shot clock to 45 seconds. :D

Suffice to say I took to executive decision to force the veto on that.

[Yevrah]

Which team did you go with Alex?

[Alex]

Knicks. I wanted to see what I could achieve in the draft and ended up with RJ Barrett anyway. :D

He tore it up in game one of the summer league, to be fair to the lad. 28 points. I binned off most of the staff and we're know running with the head coach/assistant coach combo of Gregg Popovich and Tim Duncan. :cool:

It's a nice project to be fair. I had something like $70 million in cap room to fuck around with in free agency. We're going for a very defensive minded build. Mitchell Robinson is going to be a key component of the side I think. He's looking like an absolute beast on the boards, at both ends.

[Yevrah]

Nice. The Knicks is one I'd love to do at some point.

Two games into the Eastern Conference Finals and it's 1-1 in a best of 5. We've played badly in both games but somehow clutched out the 4th quarter in the first game to win that one, but Kevin Durant absolutely butt fucked us in the second one to level things up.

Over in the West it's also 1-1 between the Lakers and Thunder. I'd love a final against the former, but think we'll struggle to make it at all at this rate.

[Alex]

I tried the same as you initially, with the expansion franchise. I just couldn't get into it for some reason though. I spent far too much time fucking around the court design and the uniforms as well. It was counter-productive. :D

[Yevrah]

Yeah, it was fun while it lasted and some of the online preset designs are pretty good, but ultimately the less choice you get with a pre-existing franchise is probably better.

What settings (season, game length etc.) did you go for?

[Yevrah]

In a surprising turn of events we absolute smash the Nets in game three on their patch, 92-61 (184-122). It was so dominant my coach decided to give the entire starting five the 4th quarter off and even Kornet got some game time.

One win away from the NBA finals, as are Oklahoma, who weirdly and just going by their player ratings don't actually look that good.

[Alex]

Yeah, it was fun while it lasted and some of the online preset designs are pretty good, but ultimately the less choice you get with a pre-existing franchise is probably better.

What settings (season, game length etc.) did you go for?

I've gone with the full 82 game season and the full quarter lengths. I'm obviously not planning on playing them all though! I'll sim through games here and there I imagine. I think, with the "Sim Cast" option you can sort of simulate it and jump in and out of live play? I'm not sure. I haven't tried it yet.

You're absolutely correct with your "sometimes the less choice, the better" observation too. Give me all that option to customise and I'll inevitably spend hours faffing around with it all. It's same reason that I've probably spent more time on the character creation screen of most RPGs I've owned that I have actually playing them. Same principle. :D

[Yevrah]

I'm exactly the same. :D Mods are like kryptonite to me.

We win game 4 against the Nets to take the Eastern Conference championship and move to the NBA Finals against Oklahoma, who beat the Lakers 3-1.

Both the first two home games done and we've run out easy winners in both to take a 2-0 lead, with Oklahoma being pretty awful so far.

[Yevrah]

And with a 4-1 win over Oklahoma, your Chicago Bulls are the new NBA Champions.

https://i.postimg.cc/W1RSRv7W/31-05-2020-23-05-49-qt0cfx31.png (https://postimg.cc/D8g1sRHL)

Zach LaVine won the Finals MVP. The legend.

Given how bad I've been at the game since I picked it up I'm quite surprised to have won in the first season. That said, the socialist nature of the sport probably stops things from getting as dull as an FM save you dominate early doors would become.

[Alex]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWHNUlhRuDM

Yev walking around his living room, arms aloft, with this playing as we speak. :cool:

[Yevrah]

:D

It was gutting that isn't in the game.

[Yevrah]

Big off season movements at the Bulls.


Wendell Carter Jr. is traded to the Nuggets for Michael Porter Jr. and their 23' 2nd round pick.
Otto Porter is traded to the Heat for Kendrick Nunn, in a move which frees up $25m+ of cap space.
And I've gone all in on the Bol Bol project, signing the 7' 2" beast on a $15m p/a 4 year deal.


We also drafted 19 year old SG/SF Pat Shepherd with our second round pick.

That leaves $18m cap space, which rises to enough to get Giannis at the end of the season (should he want to join) if I let Young, Satoransky and Markannen go when the time comes.

[Yevrah]

So the line up for the 20/21 season sponsored by Covid Secure will be:

PG C. White 78
SG Z. LaVine 86
SF M. Porter Jr. 83
PF L. Markannen 83
C B. Bol 74
6th Man W. Floyd 70

Bol will either be glorious or a disaster, but it should be fun for the 3's either way, not a single player there is rated less than A- for them.

[Raoul Duke]

Is this still cheap? Might get involved

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

They gave Bol a 99 overall on My team and he's ludicrous.

He has no strength so people play him at PF and he's broken apparently.

[Yevrah]

2 games in and we're 1-1.

Lost by 2 to Atlanta in the opener, missing a three to win it with 2 seconds remaining and then battered Miami on the road in the second game.

Bol is an odd one. At times he behaves like an ethereal giant, with the game just passing through him as happened in the opener. Then, against Miami he gets a triple-double with 36 points, 16 rebounds and 10 blocks.

[Yevrah]

3rd game for Bol:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zACIywU9b-o&feature=youtu.be

Annoying there's no sound and the replay weirds out, but oh Bol.

[wullie]

The thing I remember that I don't like about MyCareer is that it's very much a solo endeavour under the guise of a team effort. You can sign for a team and get points for assists and whatnot but individual rating is all you're playing for, winning or losing games is moot because the game is deciding that for you. Start a game well and build up a lead, be subbed off for a minute and suddenly you're a dozen points down. Start terribly and in the time it takes you to sim back in you're tearing the opposition apart. It's only the odd game where it does it but it's enough to be jarring.

[Yevrah]

After losing the opener to Atlanta, we've won 7 in a row to move second in the East, only behind the team who beat us who have won all 8. For a 75 rated player Bol is a bit good. Averaging over 5 blocks a game (which I don't think anyone's done since his Dad), has 6 double- doubles, 1 triple-double and in the hunt for MVP.

[Yevrah]

Regular season of the 20-21 season finished and with 13 wins in a row we finished 13-1 and get top seed.

It's Awards time:

MVP: Zach Lavine (Bulls)
Rookie of the Year: Ed Moreland (Pistons)
6th Man of the Year: Tony Bradley (Jazz)
Defensive Player of the Year: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Bucks)
Most Improved Player: Zion Williamson (Pelicans)
Coach of the Year: Michael Stauffer (Bulls)

Lavine and Bol made the All-NBA 1st Team, Bol the All-Defensive 2nd Team (???)

Playoffs start with a best of 3 against Miami Heat, with a potential tie against Boston or Brooklyn in the conference semi-finals.

[Yevrah]

After sweeping past Miami we're now struggling.

Made it past Brooklyn 2-1, but not before losing the first game, being 10 points down in the second and being 3 points down with 5 seconds to go in the decided.

And having go through all that, we've started the Eastern Conference final by losing the first game at home to the Bucks.

[Yevrah]

The Bucks beat us 3-1. Giannis was incredible in every game. Going all out to get him when his contract expires in the off season.

[wullie]

In all my games so far he's stood out most as all but unstoppable, also John Wall of the Wizards to the point that I hope career mode has an option to get corrupt and order a hit.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Giannis is just glitchy. He has some of the best animations in the game and just moves differently.

I have his 98 Glitched PG version in MyTeam and he's incredible.

[Yevrah]

I got him. :chief:

[John Arne]

Yev's updates have really made me regret pulling the trigger on this a few weeks ago. May have to bite the bullet and pay the $14.

[phonics]

https://i.imgur.com/V2yoVEK.png

I'm just going to wait for next years I think.

[Yevrah]

It's a bit easy with Giannis, so I need a new challenge.

Trying to work out how I can work through a whole full length season by simming enough to not make it take an age, but playing enough so I feel that I'm involved in it.

Need to start with someone properly shit as well, like Charlotte.

[Yevrah]

Right, MyLeague is back and I think I've cracked it from a challenge and simulating the real feel of an NBA season.

Notched it up to All-Star difficulty and set it to a full game, full length season, with the idea being I'd sim most of the game(s) and either play the start or the end of some matches. Even if I played 12 minutes of every regular season game it's still a manageable amount of time to get through a season.

Next decision was to decide on a team. I wanted someone shit, so Charlotte definitely fit the bill and the idea of leading them to their first World title was an appealing one. But, and it's a big but, I'm not a fan of their kit so I went with the Knicks instead.

This is the starting squad:

https://i.postimg.cc/3xkyyFn1/Knicks.jpg (https://postimg.cc/Yvw2ZYcL)

Nothing too horrendous in there, but the squad is obviously pretty poor. Randle's contract is the most offensive, but it's sub-$20m so should be possible to move him on should I want to. The lack of 3 point quality is striking, but on the plus side RJ Barrett looks fun and with A+ potential I can get the stat benefit on him from the first summer camp. Joakim Noah taking up over $6.3m of our wage cap for three years, despite playing for the Clippers is annoying and should never have been allowed to happen.

Onto the games, we've hit the All Star break and are doing appallingly. Which is exactly what I was after. Been simming the start and then jumping into the games in the 4th quarter if we were in with a chance of winning at that point. The difficulty bump has made things much better as it's far harder to hit free throws and three pointers and you get marked a bit tighter. This is our current record.

https://i.postimg.cc/c4gpzKHC/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/w7z4yjDY)

I think we'll avoid troubling the worst ever NBA season, but my word are we bilge. Every other team in the NBA has at least 20 wins, bar Detroit (14), Charlotte (16) and Utah (17), so on the plus side we should be in for a decent lottery placing and pick from the 1969 draft I have loaded for this season. As you'll note from the screenshot, losing this many games has a significant impact on your player ratings too, which was new information.

I'll go through my thoughts on the players and where I want to strengthen at the next update once we've finished the regular season, but "shit" and "almost everywhere" sums the current thinking up.

The grind is on. :drool:

[Yevrah]

First season done and we finished 22-60, which is somehow better than the Knicks managed in real life in the season before. Nice to go 12-15 after the All-Star game and things did start to click, but it means that we ended with a better record than Detroit and they therefore go into the Draft Lottery with the best odds. I did briefly consider chucking games to finish with the worst record, but decided that this franchise won't ever be doing that.

R.J. Barrett made the All-Rookie 1st Team, which I think was our only award all season. It was, as having just checked we didn't even get a player of the week.

Looking at the overall team stats we have the following problems. Firstly we can't score (30th in the league for points per game, 27th in the league for FG% and bottom for 3P%) and secondly we suck at picking up defensive rebounds (bottom for that too). Stealing, offensive rebounds and blocks we do ok at, so I figure I need to tailor the team to sort our offense out first and foremost. Which brings me to the players:

https://i.postimg.cc/PxMZbb97/Knicks.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

Payton is a rubbish point guard so I need rid of him and the same applies to Harkless at Small Forward. Bringing in two players to the starting five might play havoc with team chemistry, but I'll take the short term hit to get that crap out of the franchise.

RJ Barrett is a keeper and I'd like to build this new Knicks team going forward around him. Randle, while expensive, I quite like and if I bin all the players listed as such above that'll free up $40m of cap space anyway so I'll keep him too. Mitchell Robinson is another centre that I don't get on with too well. Basically I've come to the conclusion that unless they're a giant, or obscenely good an immobile centre kills the way I play so I'd be willing to put him up for trade if the right offer comes along.

The rest of the bench are much of a muchness that all have glaring flaws in one way or another, albeit I would like to give some game time to the preposterously named "Kevin Knox the Second" next season.

Onto the playoffs, which we obviously weren't part of, the Lakers beat the Nets 4-1 in the Finals to seal another ring for LeBron.

Roll on the draft Lottery.

[Yevrah]

As it turns out the bottom three in the league all get the same % chance to win the lottery (14%).

We got 4th pick though, Pistons with the first.

[Alex]

Keep hold of Mitchell Robinson, Yev! I'm a big fan.

[Yevrah]

Well into Free Agency now and it's looking like he's staying.

I've gone balls deep into trading and it's fascinating. Trading for picks is immense fun.

[Yevrah]

20/21 Season business done:

Draft

R1 P4: Lucius Allen (this chap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Allen, now pensionable age)

Contracts Expired

Harkless, Gibson, Bullock & Ellington. All other expiring players re-signed.

Trades

Knicks Trade: '20 1st Round Pick (Clippers) & '20 2nd Round Pick (Hornets)
Bucks Trade: '21 1st Round Pick (Pacers) & '21 1st Round Pick

Knicks Trade: Dennis Smith Jr. & '21 1st Round Pick (Mavericks)
Cavaliers Trade: Kevin Porter Jr & '23 1st Round Pick (Cavaliers)

Knicks Trade: Elfrid Payton & '22 2nd Round Pick (Knicks)
Hornets Trade: Malik Monk

Free Agency Signings

Tacko Fall (C) - 2yr/$10.00m deal
Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk (SF) - 3yr/$23.40m deal
Jared Harper (PG) - 4yr/$13.33m deal

Quite happy with business there. Strengthened the first team I feel and got a bit of depth on the roster too. $17m cap space, which rises to $91m next year, so a lot to play with before renewals. To really get on board with this crazy sport I need a franchise player at some point though.

[phonics]

Tacko :drool:

The mans a cheat code.

[Yevrah]

2020/21 All-Star Break

https://i.postimg.cc/d1w01dWt/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/PLVHVLsB)

Much better this season. With 27 games to go we've already won as many games as we did in the whole of last season. A near even home record is very pleasing too. 4 teams stand between us and the playoffs and if I'm honest I doubt we have enough in the tank to make it, but a serious push next year now has to be the aim.

On the player front the acquistions and draft pick (Allen) have settled in very well, with Malik Monk donning it from 6th man, albeit no one considers us award worthy so far this season.

I still need a heavy hitter to strengthen the brand and it's that time of any save again where Giannis' contract is in its final months. I'll go all out for him in the off season and should I be lucky enough to get him I think the difficulty and season length will still leave enough of a challenge for me to use him for longer than I did in the Bulls save before getting bored.

In other news we have five picks at this year's draft, including 3 first rounders. Most exciting of those is Indiana's, who currently sit 5th in the lottery table. It's the 1978 draft this time, so some kid called Larry Bird is generating the buzz.

[John Arne]

Nice read, that.

[Yevrah]

Cheers John Arne, it's quite fun trying to build a dynasty with a team that's been dogshit for decades.

I mean, look at the state of this. https://www.landofbasketball.com/teams/records_new_york_knicks.htm

[Yevrah]

Giannis re-signed with the Bucks before the contract extension deadline. :moop:

[Yevrah]

Season 20/21 Summary.

https://i.postimg.cc/FFVMkxX3/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/rzznvxmw)[/url]

Season over and we finished in pretty good form, breaking the 40% win barrier and ending with a pretty positive home record too. Points per game up by 10% and a healthy increase in rebounds too.

In terms of the squad, this is the approach we'll take into the off-season.

[url=https://postimages.org/]https://i.postimg.cc/W1GWxNpr/nba-2.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

I need that franchise player and getting rid of the players on the bin list + the space I already have will free up $40m+ from the cap to go all out to get one. Shame it won't be Giannis, but hey ho.

The lottery draw has been done and we got the 2nd, 6th and 28th picks. There's not much I'm interested in available so I might go for a cheeky trade instead with the marquee picks there.

In the playoffs the Denver Nuggets implausibly (given their regular season record) won their first ever championship, which was a bit immersion breaking.

Onto the trading. :drool:

[Yevrah]

Season 21/22 Off Season Business Done.

Released

The contacts of Portis and Dotson expired and they went on their merry way.

The Draft

We went into it with 3 first round picks and 2 second round. Not fancying anything from the likely second first round pick down I traded the following:

Knicks Trade: '21 1st Round (Pick 2) & '21 1st Round (Pick 6)
Thunder Trade: '21 1st Round (Pick 1)

That left me with 4 draft picks and I took the following

Round 1 Pick 29: Coty Wilcox (PF)
Round 2 Pick 4: Cody Jameson (SG)
Round 2 Pick 6: J.P. White III (PF|C)

I can't find any of these players in the actual 1978 draft, so I don't think any of them are real. But that leaves one pick not listed above, the number 1 pick in the 1978 NBA Draft first round.


https://i.postimg.cc/SKB30pg8/Larry-Bird-layup.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

Welcome to New York Larry!



Trades

Knicks Trade: Ignas Brazdeikis (SF) & Coty Wilcox (PF) & '25 2nd Round Pick
Jazz Trade: Juwan Morgan (PF) & '25 1st Round Pick

Knicks Trade: Juwan Morgan (PF) & '24 2nd Round Pick
Wizards Trade: '25 1st Round Pick & '23 2nd Round Pick (Bulls) & $3.43m trade exception

Nothing remarkable in there, but I do pick up 2 1st Round Picks for 2025. Word on the street is that there's a talented kid about to go to college in North Carolina and I'd like to give myself a good chance to get him.

Free Agency Signings

A bit disappointing here as nothing came off. Tried to sign a couple of marquee Point Guards as we had the cap space (De'Aaron Fox & another I forget the name of), but it wasn't happening. Shame as I might not get the chance next summer with a few key contracts expiring that are going to eat into the cap to renew.

21/22 Squad

I was just pulling the squad together and realised that I need a back up Power Forward, quite badly. I thought the one we drafted could do a job, but he's actually shit.

Emergency, eve of season opener, trade time.

[Yevrah]

No worthwhile Power Forwards that I can get as back up, so we go with what we have:

https://i.postimg.cc/CMfgPS4F/NBA.png (https://postimg.cc/vDMkDRjj)

Despite not getting a marquee point guard I'm quite happy with that starting five. Average age of under 23 as well.

Robinson has improved ludicrously, going up by 8 rating overall in three seasons. He's going to cost a fortune to keep and will probably leave me in the position of not being able to sign anyone from free agency for a while.

Can't wait to use Bird too. Time for the tip off.

[Yevrah]

Tacko :drool:

The mans a cheat code.

I'll just leave this here...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMSY7JFuWk4&feature=youtu.be

[Yevrah]

Regular Season 3 Summary (2021/22)

Well we made the playoffs and will take the 4th seed.

https://i.postimg.cc/L5SfcFNQ/14-06-2020-13-11-51-wvki2f4e.png (https://postimg.cc/ftHJdp4Y)[/url]

Cracking season all in all, albeit we did have a horror spell, starting around game 60, where we lost about 10 in a row, but rallied well and ended the season on a 7 game winning streak.

Larry Bird is pretty good (as you'd imagine), but I can't get to grips with his 3 point shooting. I score far more with RJ Barrett. Mitchell Robinson continues to increase his already obscene rating, and is now up to 92. Lucius Allen is playing well too, but is probably never going to be top tier.

Playoff draw:

[url=https://postimg.cc/fktw5JmG]https://i.postimg.cc/G3zHLD2m/14-06-2020-13-11-54-cz2rbuss.png (https://postimages.org/)

Boston should be fun and we may have a chance, but that'll be it if we then come up against the 76ers. Oh and I don't want to sim my way to a Championship, so I'll be playing with the self imposed rule of playing at least 12 minutes/one full quarter per game.

[Yevrah]

NBA Playoffs 2022 (Season 3)

Eastern Conference Round 1 - New York Knicks vs Boston Celtics

After a 47 game winning season, the best Knicks season for 10 years, we face the Celtics in Round 1 of the Eastern Conference. As 4th seed we have home advantage and open with 2 games at the garden to kick things off in the best of 7.

https://i.postimg.cc/xdpdx0H3/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/zLW53Yxy)

Walker, Brown and Tatum are all a bit good but Williams is a dodgy centre at best, so hoping we can capitalise there as we did in the regular season with a 3-1 series win.

Game 1


https://i.postimg.cc/SKxL571F/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/K1Cg3LyJ)

Absolutely gutting start. We were 10 points ahead in the first quarter and having blown that lead still had a chance to steal it in the final seconds, but Allen missed the game winning lay-up off the rim.

Mitchell Robinson immense and breaking into 5th spot on the Knicks playoff record for rebounds with 20.

Knicks 0 Celtics 1



Game 2


https://i.postimg.cc/dtXKD4dn/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/9rGknPLq)

Another close game that we just couldn't see out. Porter Jr. showing Larry Bird how 3 point scoring is done and another 20 rebounds for Robinson, but the Celtics were always just that bit better. Uphill task now.

Knicks 0 Celtics 2



Game 3



https://i.postimg.cc/Jhx6Hzvm/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/CZZHWSw6)

Much more like it. A career high 36 points for Larry Bird and the third double double in a row for Robinson gives us in the end what was quite a comfortable win after overturning a first quarter deficit. Game on.

Knicks 1 Celtics 2



Game 4



https://i.postimg.cc/zf2QPfj7/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/v19X4bCx)

Game 4 and we're warming up. Our best scoring performance so far with 130 points, with Allen, Bird and Porter Jr all scoring 20+. Performance of the game though goes to Robinson, with his 4th double double in a row and five blocks, his 25 rebounds see him take Charles Oakley's Knicks near 30 year old playoff record for most rebounds in a game. Legend and we tie the series at 2-2.

Knicks 2 Celtics 2

[Yevrah]

Game 5


https://i.postimg.cc/0jyTc2bd/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/cgPkJW7r)[/url]

A record breaking night at the garden saw us beat the Knicks in overtime to take a series lead. The game was close fought but we evened things up with seconds left on the clock in the 4th and held out to take it into overtime where we dominated and ran out winners by 12 points.

With 27 rebounds Robinson broke his own playoff record set earlier in the series, but with 10 steals Lucius Allen not only broke the Knicks Playoff record but also equalled Allen Iverson's record overall Playoff haul. In amongst all that Barrett also shot 33 points. Cracking win which leaves us one up with two to play.

Knicks 3 Celtics 2



Game 6


[url=https://postimg.cc/CzC09rYj]https://i.postimg.cc/TYFPLB4H/NBA.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

After taking the lead in the last game we threw in a total shocker of a performance here. With shooting abysmal across the board we only scored 94 points and Robinson only managed 13 rebounds. Just piss poor and it goes to a series decider as a result.

Knicks 3 Celtics 3

[wullie]

Come on you Knickersniffers!

I can't get my head around trades and whatnot to give the GM mode a proper go so I'm living vicariously through you now

[Kikó]

Unbelievable scenes Yev. Great updates.

[Yevrah]

Game 7

So after 6 hard fought games and coming back from 2-0 down, it's all down to this. Win or go home.


We lost. :sad:



https://i.postimg.cc/QNQ2CWhY/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/gr0SBjw3)

We didn't play that badly, but outside Bird just didn't score enough points and Boston were clinical to seal the series. Would have been nice to win, but the 76ers would have smashed us in the next round anyway (and went on to win the whole thing).

Knicks 3 Celtics 4

https://i.postimg.cc/cJ5nQHWV/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/KKBjbmRN)

Still, onwards and upwards. Much business to do in the summer to get this shithouse franchise functioning.

[wullie]

Larry Bird clearly a double agent, don't trust that man.

[Yevrah]

Larry Bird clearly a double agent, don't trust that man.

I may well trade him at some point should the right opportunity arise. He's great in theory at shooting, but I find that fucking hard with anyone on All-Star difficulty unless I have an open look so would prefer someone more mobile.

[Yevrah]

2021/22 (Season 3) Off-Season preamble

https://i.postimg.cc/44SvRWhz/NBA.png (https://postimg.cc/Dm14qd6Z)

So this is the roster as it stands at the moment. Some challenges ahead, namely:

We have nearly $20m of cap space at the moment, but Randle and Robinson's contracts are up and they'll cost a fair whack to renew. Both have (or will have) 3 bird years so I can go over the wage cap to sign them (I assume Larry Bird was like the trailblazing reverse Bosman of Basketball), but if I do that I'm restricting myself to no free agent activity for some time unless I offload someone. With a young first team this problem will only get worse once the scandalously low amounts I'm paying Allen, Barrett and Bird during their rookie contracts come to an end.

I also want to focus on developing the mid-70's squad fodder I have a bit more, which is difficult due to the sheer weight of them, so I need to trim in that department and bring in some lower rated youth to replace. However of those I've earmarked to bin (Monk should be in the wank bucket, but I can't be arsed to upload the screenshot again) Monk and Trier are all in the last year of their contract and at this point I can't trade them without renewing first. Some future first round picks would be ideal if I can renew and then trade.

On that note I don't think I have any decent picks in this year's draft (I can't check as that screen isn't available at this time of the season :cab:), but I'm not missing out on that much if I don't as it's the 1982 draft which didn't have anyone that amazing in it according to the other tab of my spreadsheet.

Onto the off-season.

[Yevrah]

Scrap that about the 1982 draft, it's actually the 1979 one with Magic Johnson. The Thunder got the first pick, us with 23rd.

[Yevrah]

2021/22 (Season 3) Off-Season

What a summer! I am now so acquainted with the rules of NBA contracts and trading I think I almost understand it.

The Draft

With the 23rd pick in the NBA draft, the Knicks decided to....trade it. Taking the Rockets 2026 1st Round pick along with the Warriors 2024 second round pick, which the Rockets also owned, but now I do.

Trades

Not content with one slightly confusing trade for picks, we decided to do three more:

Knicks Trade: Mykhailiuk (SF)
Spurs Trade: 2024 1st Round Pick (Spurs - Top 5 Protected) & 2026 1st Round Pick (Spurs)

Knicks Trade: 2023 1st Round (Mavericks - Top 10 Protected) & 2023 2nd Round Pick (Knicks) & 2023 2nd Round Pick (Bulls)
Kings Trade: 2026 1st Round Pick (Hornets) & 2024 2nd Round Pick (Kings)

Knicks Trade: 2024 1st Round (Spurs - Top 5 Protected) & 2023 1st Round (Knicks - Top 3 Protected)
Cavaliers Trade: 2025 & 2026 1st Round Picks (Cavaliers)

A lot of shit to get through there, but essentially I now have five first round picks from both the 2025 and 2026 drafts, which is nice.

Players Released

A list of shithousery to follow:

First our starting Power Forward, Julius Randle decided that a $28m (rising by 5% each year) 4 year deal wasn't good enough for an 83 rated player and buggered off for Miami.
Then Malik Monk wanted $20m a season, so goodye to him too.
Allonzo Trier also wanted silly money, albeit not as much as Monk, but after losing Randle I had to move to replace (more on that below) so didn't have the funds and/or the desire to bother giving into this arse's demands.
Frank Ntilikina was more reasonable, but I'd already decided to get rid of him in favour of trying to hold onto Monk (had to ditch one to balance the books to bring in Randle's replacement) so another one bites the dust.

As you can imagine, this left the squad quite threadbare.

Players Re-Signed

First bit of good news in this post (bar the immense work on the pick trading floor) comes in the form of re-signing Mitchell Robinson on a 5yr/$167.21m deal. Tip to the shitehawks who didn't get the money they were after with this one, be better.
Tacko Fall also re-signed on a 1yr/$6.25m deal and was joined by Kevin Knox II.

Kevin deserves a special mention for being the first sub-80 rated player I've managed on this who wanted north of $30m a year. Thankfully the wonderful NBA system stepped in and his restricted free agency status meant I got him on for another year on a mere $7.31m deal. This won't be forgotten Kevin and you'll be traded as soon as the same system that screwed you allows me to. December 15th 2022 to be precise. Kevin.

New Signings

With Randle opting for the beaches of Miami we needed a replacement. Bagley was on free agency and while he's primarily a centre he can also play PF. He opted to stay at the Kings, so I then turned my sights on Jaren Jackson, who also decided to stay where he was.

In the end someone that served me well during my time at the Bulls (in a different life) came good, with Michael Porter Jr. signing a 4yr/$110m deal. I didn't want to go with the same players, but due to the lack of quality options I'll make an exception on this one.

All this meant that we now only had 10 players and needed 14 to start the season. Only snag is that we have $14m left on the wage bill, so a measly $3.5m a head. Scouring the free agency list I bagged the following rejects. Money-balling the fuck out of the NBA.

Boban Marjanovic (74 rated Centre) - Previously of many NBA teams, but only over the last five years. Which is odd, as he's 33. No matter, best thing about Boban is that he happily accepted $1.79m to not play basketball. What a gent.
Clark Anthony (71 rated SF/SG) - What does a bit of potential cost these days? $7m a year, for two years. No evidence of him ever actually playing basketball mind.
Allen Frazier (69 rated PF/SF) - Another one yet to ever play professionally. Signed for two years $3.7m a year. I can feel a trade for a distant, distant first round pick happening at the end of the season.
Curtis Landry (60 rated PG) - Has an excellent beard and will accept employment for the minimum NBA wage at this point of $1.11m. What more can I say? Absolutely nothing, he's 60 rated.

Training Camps

After all of the business was done I sent Michael Porter Jr and Lucius Allen to uncapped potential training camp and Mitchell Robinson to Weight camp, which also improves his strength.

And that, as they say is a wrap for the off-season. Objectives for next season are for one of my players to win the player of the week award, win a playoff series and see someone, anyone, prevent Giannis from winning his 5th MVP on the trot.

[Yevrah]

And here's the squad for season 4.

https://i.postimg.cc/Nj5y1BKr/NBA.png (https://postimg.cc/PCnrHGzt)

Highest average rating for the first team, but less depth than last season.

[John Arne]

Yevrah how often do you actually play games versus sim'ing?

[Yevrah]

In the regular season I play the first quarter of key games and then dip back in for the last 6 minutes. Some other games I'll dip into as well.

For the playoffs I went with 12 minutes minimum for each game, but that ended up as 18, so I'll probably stick to that as a minimum, maybe raise it to 24. Ultimately if I win a championship I want to feel like I've played enough minutes to earn it.

The shorter seasons and playing all the games were slightly better in that respect, but you end up with unrealistic scores and it doesn't feel like you're part of an actual NBA season, which this way does.

[Yevrah]

Season 4 2022/23 All-Star Break

https://i.postimg.cc/52RhxQTR/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/gx3SsjYV)[/url]

Absolutely nailing it. :drool: Team chemistry at 86% is as high as it's ever been and we have the best record in the NBA at the moment. The players have all been great, with the starters increasing their stats all over the shop and the bench doing their bit too. Larry Bird is also in the running for MVP.

[url=https://postimg.cc/bZFJ6y3v]https://i.postimg.cc/JhRkztXj/NBA.jpg (https://poemsonly.com/poem/1511)

Still haven't won a player of the week award mind.

1st seed for the playoffs is now the target and while it'll be tough once we get there, we have loads of contracts expiring in the summer so this might have to be the year.

[wullie]

'2-way 3-level facilitator' has a real Nathan Barley sound to it.

[Yevrah]

You should see what some of the plays are called...

[Alex]

'2-way 3-level facilitator' has a real Nathan Barley sound to it.

"Self-facilitating basketball node".

[Yevrah]

Season 4 2022/23 Regular Season Summary

So regular season over and we take the 1st seed for the playoffs.

https://i.postimg.cc/bw8rtd6w/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/nCRn8Vby)

The team is played some great basketball and the enforced addition of Michael Porter Jr combined with the growing maturity of the young team may have put us in the position of having a championship winning side. Still no player of the week, but Larry Bird did win player of the month for April, which was nice. Giannis breaking all sorts of records with his 5th MVP in a row. Talking of records, a 38 year old Lebron James sailed past Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's career record points haul last season and is now over 2,000 clear, with 2 years left to run on his current deal.

First up in the playoffs is Brooklyn, who I hate playing as Kevin Durant seems to score everything. Always. Still, we have the team and I'd be disappointed if I didn't advance.

https://i.postimg.cc/ncTb3zFz/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/LnqbXmZK)

[Yevrah]

Season 4 2022/23 Eastern Conference Playoffs Round 1

New York Knicks (62-20) vs. Brooklyn Nets (43-39)

For the playoffs I've decided to play both the first and fourth quarters of every game. Should keep the time to around half an hour a game.

Game 1



https://i.postimg.cc/pd3vMX6H/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/1g02pPSC)

Monstrous performance from Julius Allen, hitting 75% from the field and 16 assists, to give us game 1 in the garden. Tacko Fall also ran the show while on the court in the 4th quarter.



Game 2




https://youtu.be/ZMfioIx1uHM

Lucius got the player of the game, then this happened in the final 30 seconds.

[phonics]

Do they still have Durant and Irving in your game?

[phonics]

I just watched the video.

I've been running that 'around the outside of the defender before they adjust' play since 2k14. Always so satisfying :D

Irving missing that free throw should have him fired.

[Yevrah]

They do indeed. Absolute arse to play against.

They both score threes for fun and Durant is also doing very well at closing down Bird. He's on him every minute of every game.

[Yevrah]

Game 3

With a 2-0 series lead we headed to Brooklyn for game 3.

After a tight fought three quarters we had a 6 point lead in the 4th with 45 seconds to go, and managed to spunk it. The Nets pulled it back to 4 and crowded round my players, without thinking we passed it straight to Durant who knocked in the easy put back. With a 2 point lead we held the ball for 20 seconds and then missed the shot to seal the win. Durant bounded down the other end of the court and smashed in the dunk to take it to over-time.

Reeling from that we found ourselves 10 points behind in overtime, before somehow rallying to level with seconds left again. Then Brooklyn scored and were fouled to make it a three point play:


https://youtu.be/vFKggWy8OzA



Taking it into the second overtime, we're now two players down with both Barrett and Robinson having been fouled out, but man of the series so far Luicius Allen is playing a blinder again and during second overtime he reaches 60 points to break the Knicks playoff game points haul and put himself third on the all-time NBA list. The commentators make reference to this which is a really nice touch.

Sadly it isn't enough, with Durant and Irving doing their thing and Brooklyn managing to clinch out a three point victory. Gutting.

Knicks 2 Nets 1

https://i.postimg.cc/XNG4VhM8/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/bdhKgmwD)

Durant is doing such a job on Bird it's untrue.



Elsewhere in the East our potential opponents in the next round Boston or Wasington are tied at 2-2 after 4 games.

[phonics]

I'm loving all this but someone please teach Yev how to clip these videos with audio.

[Yevrah]

For some reason the Xbox won't record them with it. If the game does it of its own accord (like when you get a walkout in FIFA) it does, but manually no dice.

Googled it and nothing I can find will help so far. It's bloody annoying as the audio of the game is great.

[phonics]

Just looked it up. It's banned in NBA2k because there's always a song playing in the background and they don't want to deal with copyright. You'd have to play it through your PC and then record off there.

[Yevrah]

Ah, cheers for checking and confirming. That's annoying, but at least I know why now.

[Yevrah]

2022/23 (Season 4) Eastern Conference Playoffs Round 1 Game 4

After the disappointment in the first game in Brooklyn, would we bound back to take a 3-1 series lead back to the garden or would Brooklyn tie it up at 2-2?

Slightly unrealistic score alert.


https://i.postimg.cc/wBFgvyk8/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/944vgfSJ)

We battered them. Lucius Allen again player of the game and I even nailed three 3's with Bird in the 4th quarter. A two game lead back to the garden it is then. Hoping to see it out in 5 as I've frankly had enough of Durant and Irving, but the worst is Deandre Jordan and his ludicrous rebounding ability.

Knicks 3 Nets 1

[Yevrah]

2022/23 (Season 4) Eastern Conference Playoffs Round 1 Game 5



https://i.postimg.cc/MT3mD5z6/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/ftXdWx3p)

Another standout performance by Allen sees us cruise to game 5 and the series win.

Knicks 4 Nets 1

The 8 teams left line up like so and it's an opportunity for us for revenge against Boston for last year's first round defeat.

https://i.postimg.cc/MTSCwWBM/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/qt1bXHj4)

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I don't think anyone other than me plays MyTeam but if you do:

https://2kmtcentral.com/20/players/9230/danny-manning

He's going for around 6k (PS4) and he's brilliant. One of the best value cards in the game mode.

[Yevrah]

I had a look at it the other night as it happens. I can't be arsed to get into another game like that after FIFA, but it did look much easier to get good players than Ultimate Team. I used my VC I'd earned just by playing the game and was able to open enough packs to get loads of 90 rated players.

In other news, I might have to put the Knicks game into storage as it's a bit too easy and if I don't win the Championship this year I will do next. I've no idea how I'm so good at a basketball game so quickly, but I need a save where I can't turn shite into title contenders within 3/4 seasons.

I've been looking at the difficulty settings, but any suggestions welcome.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

You'd love it tbh.

These are 2 of the cards you can grind for, completely free:

https://2kmtcentral.com/20/players/9060/kobe-bryant

https://2kmtcentral.com/20/players/9241/larry-bird

Kobe is the bigger grind as you have to complete 300 games and there are squad restrictions. For Larry it's 50 games I believe and 0 squad restrictions.

It's easy to get very good cards but the mental cards (Giannis 99, Jordan GOAT 99 etc) are crazy prices.

[Yevrah]

I'm sure I would, but that's partly why I don't want to get into it. These live service things are like crack. No doubt immense fun but life is just better if you say no to that shit in the first place.

[Yevrah]

Right, I think I've cracked it.

Using a pre-built expanson team will allow me to start with a mostly awful squad, particularly if I increase the number of players that are protected in the expansion draft. I'll need to add another one of the expansion teams to level out the NBA to 32 teams. Just need to decide which one to choose.

Gameplay difficulty will be upped to Superstar and the following sliders will be moved to 100 (their hardest settings): Simulator Difficulty, Trade Negotiation Difficulty & Contract Negotiation Difficulty. Some testings shows that all that should make simmed results worse, harder to pull off trades and less likely to be able to hoover up free agency, at least while I'm shit.

One thing I will allow myself to do is change player positions. e.g. if I have someone who is a SG but better suited to being a PG I can change it.

Game on.

[Yevrah]

Game not on. The expansion teams somehow lead to all the game build up being omitted and putting those sliders all the way up to 100 causes problems. Basically none of my players would re-sign and I could only pick up shite.

But and on the plus side I have found this youtube video that seems to make things both harder and more realistic without going too crazy.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEyHV2IS-Gk

[Yevrah]

Right, all that sorted and difficulty set to Superstar, with Sim difficulty set to 100 and my new franchise will be:


https://i.postimg.cc/rFzrMWZ2/NBA.png (https://postimages.org/)


Utilising the 'start today' feature, I'll be picking up the league from this point, presumably as it's just about to resume in real life, in some form or other.

https://i.postimg.cc/hGCXkt8t/NBA.png (https://postimages.org/)

While the team may not be doing too bad when the season broke, the game has them down as the worst team in the NBA by some distance, with only one player rated 80 and the rest below that.

I expect I'll slip down the table with the difficulty selected anyway, but given the gap probably not enough to make the top draft pick that likely, which as is custom for the first season is from the 1969 class.

[Yevrah]

2019/20 Season 1 - Charlotte Hornets

So after taking charge we inherited this squad:

https://i.postimg.cc/D0cK8Bvf/NBA.png (https://postimg.cc/PvN77bv0)

Few things beyond the general very poor standard jump out. Batum, Rozier and Zeller are all paid far too much and will need to be moved on. I had Malik Monk in the other save and he's not bad, so that's a plus point. Bridges and Washington look pretty promising too.

Given we couldn't qualify for the playoffs or finish much worse than 4th bottom, I simmed a lot more games than I normally would and we ended with a 24-58 record.

https://i.postimg.cc/PrcS11Cd/NBA-1.jpg (https://postimg.cc/xcvG2JGZ)[/url]

Onto the playoffs and the 76ers took the championship with Joel Embiid Playoff MVP. I need to use him at some point, he looks utterly beastly.

[url=https://postimg.cc/FfB3ZjmY]https://i.postimg.cc/Pxtyd4RQ/NBA-2.jpg (https://poemsonly.com/poem/1208)

Looking back at the history books, not only have the Hornets never won a Championship, they've never got past the conference semi-finals.

[Yevrah]

2019/20 Season 1 Summer Business - Charlotte Hornets

Much to do in the market in getting rid of the wasters on the books and snapping up some of those valuable future 1st round picks.

Players Released

Biyombo, Hernangomez, McDaniels, Bacon & Martin.

Took a couple of high earners off the roster and freed up over $20m overall. In fact, everyone in the last year of their deal left the franchise.

Free Agency Signings

Tacko Fall (C) 69 - 4yr/$21.5m deal
Kostas Antetokounmpo (C) 71 - 4yr/$17.2m deal
Jared Harper (PG) 68 - 4yr/$9.46m deal
Jordan Bone (PG) 69 - 4yr/$15.05m deal
Nerlens Noel (C) 77 - 2yr/$17.22m deal
William Floyd (PG|SG) 68 - 4yr/$8.8m deal

Some familiar names there, but keen to see what I can get out of Tacko Fall and William Floyd over a longer save like this. Also found another Antetokounmpo on my searches, this one the youngest of the three and recently released by the Lakers. He looks like Giannis on court, but that's where the similarities end for now. I've converted him to play Power Forward and we'll see where we go with him.

Trades

Binned off Rozier III, Zeller and Zeller (ultimately, after many trades to get there) for first round picks from Pistons (2021 & 2024), Knicks (2023) and Spurs (2024).

The Draft

We had three picks, one first rounder and two second rounders.

R1 P5: Carl George - SF - 76 Rated, A+ Potential
R2 P2: Troy Anderson - C 72 Rated, B+ Potential
R2 P26: Timmy Carlisle - SF - 71 Rated, A- Potential

Quite pleased with Carl George and his A+ potential. The Knicks got first pick and took Jo Jo White ahead of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (presumably because of already having Robinson and no decent Point Guard.

For 2021 I've loaded the 1960 class (complete with Jerry West) to mix things up a bit.

The Roster

https://i.postimg.cc/fyDY4bpJ/NBA.png (https://postimg.cc/DJpSL72T)

Season Expectations

Given we finished last season with a 3-13 record from the point I took over, including losing the last 10, we're going to struggle. The team isn't any worse, but as I've gone for potential it isn't any better either, so a strong draft pick is probably the aim. Well, that coupled with winning enough games to avoid destroying my player's ratings.

[7om]

You got four first rounders for Rozier and Zeller? That's daylight robbery.

[Yevrah]

It was a bit of a faff and I can't break it down as it's no longer in the trade history, but yeah. Shame I can't as I don't know enough about Basketball to know which trade was the ridiculous one in the sequence.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

ffs.

Lost a challenge in MyTeam to Cavs 2010 right at the death and I just played it again and demolished them but my connection cut out so it counted as a loss...

[Yevrah]

How does the grinding in this compare to FIFA?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

There are no SBCs although there are sets which you can put specific players into to gain either tokens (which can be used on certain packs or certain players).

No real objectives (there are some but they're mainly lifetime ones which offer a bit of MT or tokens).

You then have a few game modes to play.

1. Domination - There are 3 main cards up for grabs in this and you play through each conference choosing your difficulty which increases your rewards. Very outdated though.

2. Triple Threat Online/Offline - You pick 3 players for your team. On offline when you win you get a chance to open the vault (contains tokens, MT, player rewards) and their are certain win rewards too. On online when you win you get to "drop the ball", more wins (5-0 is max) the better your potential rewards.

3. Unlimited - Their version of FUT Champs in a way. It runs throughout the month and if you can go 12-0 you win the player of the month. I've never played because there is apparently a lot of sweat/cheesing/I'm too shit.

4. Single player challenges - The bread and butter for offline really (they have online ones too, never tried them) where you play games to earn rewards. This is the big grind and most people are doing them for either Kobe (HUGE grind) or Larry Bird. You get a lot of rewards for doing these but they need a lot of hours.

I'm currently doing the Bird ones and to those there are 5 decades (70s-10s) to complete with 10 matches in each decade. There are no squad requirements but all the opponents are filled with the best players for each team and they're 5 minute quarters on Superstar.

[Yevrah]

Interesting.

Will all that stuff you can grind for be available even after NBA2K21 is out?

[Yevrah]

2020/21 Season 2 All Star Break Update - Charlotte Hornets


So we've made it to the All-Star break with a quite magnificent 8-46 record. As you can see from the below this is playing merry havoc with the overall ratings of my players, but is exactly where I wanted to be in terms of a challenge. On the plus side this should give us a 14% chance to get the number 1 pick.

On the playing front Devonte Graham is our leading scorer with 16.8ppg (putting him 54th in the NBA :drool:), Tacko Fall our leading rebounder with 7.8rpg (42nd in the NBA) and blocks 1.4bpg (23rd in NBA), Graham top again this time in assists 4.4apg (54th) and steals 1.4spg (25th). In fact the only stat we're competitive in as a team is 3 pointers, with William Floyd leading the charge there with 2.8 per game (putting him at a lofty 19th in the NBA).

Upcoming free agents of note (85+) without any options are Giannis, Jason Tatum, Donovan Mitchell, Bam Adebayo, Rudy Gobert, De'Aaron Fox, John Collins and Derrick Rose. Would be nice to get one of those should any wish to join the worst franchise in NBA history.

https://i.postimg.cc/sDx9pQVf/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/F7tLvKdw)

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Interesting.

Will all that stuff you can grind for be available even after NBA2K21 is out?

Yeah. The challenges are locked in forever.

[Yevrah]

2020/21 Season 2 Summary - Charlotte Hornets

Right, finally caught up with the updates and this is as far as I've reached in the save.

Losing the last 10 in a row saw us finish on a 10-72 record, it could have been 11-71, but I spaffed a chance to beat the Cavs when missing a buzzer 2 pointer. In terms of all time I think that only puts us 3rd for shit seasons, with the 76ers managing a 9-73 record in 1972/73 and our own 7-59 back in 2011/12.

https://i.postimg.cc/wjkkkrWX/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/w17JqwYM)

In other news the Golden State Warriors took their 7th Championship with a win over the Celtics and Giannis won his 3rd regular season MVP in a row.



https://i.postimg.cc/9XTZpS0D/NBA-1.jpg (https://postimg.cc/PNXCfSmH)



Onto the draft and we had two first round picks going in, our own and that of the Detroit Pistons (who finished 12th in the East), so high hopes of actually getting a cracking pick from the lottery this year. Draft class is the 1960 one, with Oscar Robertson and Jerry West looking most promising.

The Lottery


https://i.postimg.cc/2SPC2HV5/NBA-2.jpg (https://postimg.cc/0z0gN0Gg)

:jayjay:

[Yevrah]

2020/21 Season 2 Off-Season Summary - Charlotte Hornets

So into the off-season and with our picks in the draft we took the following:

The Draft

R1 P1: Jerry West - PG, 82 Rated, A+ Potential
R1 P8: Lester Keefe - SG/PF, 70 Rated, A- Potential
R2 P21: David Johnson - C/PF, 69 Rated, B Potential

Happy with West, but I automated scouting during the season and had I not I really would have picked up a better player from 8th pick than Keefe. As it was I could see barely anyone's full stats as it appeared my scouts (left to their own devices) got bored once finding out about half of what there was to know about a player.

Released Players

Renewed all of the players that had an option, but ended up letting Malik Monk and Devonte Graham go, which may be a mistake, but they both wanted in excess of $17m a year and I'd rather give the new guys and the other players already there more game time.

Signings and Trades



https://i.postimg.cc/SQnwz20k/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/PNk6gqrR)

Picked up Wes Wingate who was discarded after being 20th pick in the second round in 2020, but he looks pretty good. More trades for picks as well.



Season 3 Roster

https://i.postimg.cc/h4ygxW3R/NBA.png (https://postimg.cc/rzrvXbkf)

Probably weaker than last year, but much more potential. Excited to use West and I've elevated Floyd into the first team. Bridges contract is an issue and having lost Monk and Graham for nothing I may have to make a call on whether to keep him beyond the trade deadline or cash in on him for a pick.

Other News

Giannis decided not to stay at the Bucks, signing for the Spurs instead. This is annoying as it probably makes the 2024 First Round pick I got from them worthless.

Season Aims

Winning more than 10 regular season games would be nice.

[Yevrah]

2021/22 Season 3 Summary - Charlotte Hornets

Absolute disaster this. Beset by injuries from day 1, our threadbare squad won the opener then proceeded to lose an unprecedented 41 (yes, forty-one) games in a row. 2 of our 5 wins came in the last 10 games, so I suppose one could say we ended the season in some sort of form. Ultimately the squad depth is not good enough and it showed horribly. Michael Jordan will be coming through the draft in two years time and I'm going to chuck everything at getting him, including Jerry West if I have to.

https://i.postimg.cc/sXV1cMGg/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/3ycKrJZs)

The Portland Trailblazers won only their second ever championship, beating a resurgent Chicago Bulls in the final.

Season 4 Roster

https://i.postimg.cc/6QsNwF9s/NBA.png (https://postimg.cc/87bYmKJw)

We got 5th pick in the draft (after that season I don't know how either) and drafted Purvis Short, a small forward who looks half decent. He can phase out Miles Bridges as back up to the starting five, as young Miles seems to be squandering what little talent he has.

West is improving hugely, with Carl George also into the mid-80s now. PJ Washington the best of what I started with. Lots of contracts expiring this season, so I'll be doing some trading to capitalise on that, hopefully for some picks, as there are a few I don't want to keep.

[7om]

I'd sacrifice Fall and go small ball if I were you. Move Washington to center and put Bridges at the PF. If your squad is shit the last thing you want to be doing is using the shot clock against superior defences. Have a look at Mike D'Antoni's "seven seconds or less" philosophy if you're interested.

[Yevrah]

Thanks 7om, you can select 7 seconds as a playstyle in the game. I'm not really feeling this save though, there's nothing romantic about the Charlotte Hornets so I may take a break for a bit and come back with something else.

Gutted I started the Knicks save on what turned out to be a too easy difficulty level.

[Yevrah]

Right, one last attempt at getting into a save for this. If that fails it's onto non-sporting games (not made by Bethesda).

Set the difficulty to Superstar and the sim difficulty to 83. Contract sliders as per the video above. This should keep the challenge going. For the game I'm going to go with putting a couple of the pre-set expansion teams into the league. St. Louis Sound go into the West and the Cincinnati Lions into the East, with me taking control of the latter.

https://i.postimg.cc/Y0fg8JZm/NBA.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

The Expansion draft is done and we've trousered the following:

https://i.postimg.cc/brJ8FnFH/NBA.png (https://postimg.cc/47rrYYGm)

Made Bol Bol a Power Forward and he'll be our franchise player. The merch is on order. In terms of experience in the squad, Kyle Korver was a one time All-Star, Roberson made the 2nd All-Defense team in 2017 and Carmelo Anthony is obvs a future hall of famer. Deng and Bogdanovic have also made the rookie 2nd teams. I don't know enough about basketball to judge whether they've made good on that early promise, but presumably they wouldn't be here if they had.

Ambitions for the first season are a decent draft pick and some wins.

[Yevrah]

https://i.postimg.cc/fRfwC214/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/184h5H9M)

Christmas Day reached in the first season and while we're bottom of the NBA, it's been a pretty enjoyable ride so far.

Reggie Jackson is our best player to date, with some silky ball handling skills on the lay up. Bol progressing nicely and I can actually score 3 pointers with 'melo. They're a bloody nightmare on Superstar difficulty.

[Yevrah]

2019/20 Season 1 Summary - Cincinnati Lions

So season 1 done. Injuries and our lack of depth took their toll and with Reggie Jackson (my new favourite player) out for the last 6 weeks we slumped to 14 wins and bottom of the NBA in our debut season. St Louis Sound inexplicably made the playoffs, with the 76ers taking the Championship.

https://i.postimg.cc/rsH0ngmT/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/5Qw2jBLK)

On the plus side that gave us a 13.9% chance of the top pick in our first draft...


https://i.postimg.cc/26KSryfF/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/XG9bgVqp)

:jayjay:

[John Arne]

Keep them coming, Yev - any decent prospects in the draft?

This has just gone on sale, so I bought it for 150,000d, I guess $7 ( :drool: ).... It's 98 fucking GB!

[Yevrah]

Nice. And yeah, I've no idea why the game is so fricking big.

Any idea who you'll be/what mode you'll play?

Off-season update on its way.

[Yevrah]

2019/20 Season 1 Off-season Summary - Cincinnati Lions

https://i.postimg.cc/T2bc2nvK/NBA.png (https://postimg.cc/qgkKjhRr)

Business done and that's the squad. With our number 1 pick we took Kareem the Dream (who should already be the best centre I've used in this) and Ronny Clement with the number two pick.

A few players left so I brought in Dwight Howard, Hollis-Jefferson and Denzel Valentine to shore the roster up. We're still definitely in the rebuilding phase, but the team is getting better. 20 wins+ this season would be nice.

2020/21 Season 2 - Cincinnati Lions

Neglected to take a screen shot of the closing position, but we ended season 2 18-64, which was disappointing, but while we finished bottom of the East, St. Louis Sound in the West had a worse record than us, so progress! Injuries took their toll and with Bol still developing, Abdul-Jabbar was our only genuinely good player. On that note, he is a joy to use. His rebounding is ridiculous and he's quite agile for a big man.

I've just done the lottery and we got the 4th pick. The reporter lady made a dig at us during the presentation, questioning what we were doing in the modern NBA, this franchise will come to learn her. Howard and Anthony have retired, so in the absence of the latter we go into the draft needing a new small forward, with a couple of prospects at that position. I'm in desperate need of a quality Point Guard and Shooting Guard too, so will be going hard in free agency to get one or both.

In other news the Bucks won the championship, absolutely demolishing the field in the playoffs, only losing one game. Doncic won the regular season MVP and LeBron is closing in on the real KAJ's points scoring record.

[7om]

Why do you give the starters such low minutes, Yev? I'd be playing Bol, Abdul-Jabbar and Jackson 38-42 per game.

[Yevrah]

Is that normal for an NBA game 7om?

When the CPU adjusts the roster it always sets it that low. I know nothing about basketball so the advice is welcome btw.

[7om]

Nah, your best players will average out at 35+. Unless they're fatigued or carrying injuries, I'd bump the star players to 38. Everyone else as you see fit.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

If the stamina works the same as the Myteam mode then it doesn't matter how many minutes you give them.

I rarely ever sub players off as it has such little effect.

[Yevrah]

Cool. I'll implement that for this season. Our records should be re-written as a result. :drool:

[Yevrah]

2020/21 Season 2 Off-season Summary - Cincinnati Lions

The draft

With the 4th pick I was hoping to get something decent and believe I did:

R1 P4: Dorell Cousins SF/SG 77 Rated. Only 19 and with A+ potential he could be special. Great replacement for the retiring Carmelo.
R1 P2: Sarunas Tavcar C 70 Rated. Less high hopes for this one, but our first venture into foreign waters with a 7 foot Lithuanian.

Players Released

Dwight Howard - Retired
Carmelo Anthony - Retired
Jared Harper - Released

Howard and Anthony made the Hall of Fame. Harper had to go to keep us below 16 players.

Signed

William Floyd PG 78 Rated - 4yr $47.3m deal.

Really wanted De' aaron Fox, but he re-signed with the Kings. Wouldn't have bothered with Floyd, but it's on my to do list to make the degenerative illness afflicted point guard an NBA great. Made all the easier this time as for some reason his year at Houston saw his rating increase by a staggering 9 overall.

Signed back up the rest of the squad which was nice, but annoying Bol turned down a $20m a year four year deal in favour of a one year qualifying offer deal for $4m. :cab:

Elsewhere Giannis signed off his Championship win and joined the Bulls, which is pretty cool.

2021/22 Roster

https://i.postimg.cc/kM60SW4Q/NBA.png (https://postimg.cc/mh4pfz7k)

Bol up to an 81. :drool: KAJ will be late 90's by this time next year. Reggie Jackson is dying before my eyes though, down to a 75 now and out of the team. :moop: Got two years left on his $10m a year deal so I need to get him out.

Target for the season is 20+ wins again. Up from the 18 last season.

[7om]

Those minutes are much better. Two 7’2” inside players :drool:

[Yevrah]

Those minutes are much better. Two 7’2” inside players :drool:

Playing with them both is so much fun. Our defence is like a brick wall and the rebounds are off the charts. Only a shame Bol has missed 8 weeks of the season through injury. Just need to keep them both fit and improve the backcourt now. Need a quality shooting guard, which will hopefully be MJ when he comes through the draft in two seasons time.

[Yevrah]

2021/22 Season 3 All-Star Break Summary - Cincinnati Lions

So we've made it to the All-Star break:

https://i.postimg.cc/PxQkRwL3/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/ygx5JWyc)

Our record is on course to exceed what I'd hoped, but we'd be so much better had Bol stayed fit. Progress again though as with one win more than the Pistons we're no longer bottom of the East. KAJ is generally ripping shit up. Being named player of the week twice already, making the All-Star starting 5 and 44 double doubles in 55 games (only 6 behind Giannis).

In other news Giannis has transformed the Bulls as they top the East and LeBron is now the leading point scorer in NBA history.

[Yevrah]

2021/22 Season 3 Summary - Cincinnati Lions

Season done and we finished 3rd bottom of the NBA with 25 wins, our best season so far. The Pelicans won the Championship, with Zion bossing things.

https://i.postimg.cc/nL2vHnPd/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/R333dx9f)

3rd pick from the draft lottery saw slim pickings after Magic Johnson (Detroit) and Sidney Moncrief (Warriors) were snapped up. Ended up taking Bill Cartwright as the best of what's left, but he won't play much due to KAJ.

Already done one trade which saw Reggie Jackson go to the Grizzlies for Utah's 23' First Round pick. That takes me to 5 picks for the 2023 NBA draft, which is the big one as MJ is coming. :drool:

Will be going all out to get him at the end of this season even if it means losing Kareem, but with Cartright and all the picks I have I should manage it.

Onto Free Agency. Not much out there I can get, so just need to shore up the contracts. Really want to tie Bol down long term.

[7om]

Imagine Kareem and Jordan on the same team...

[Yevrah]

The progression in this game goes absolutely nuts at times.

After Floyd's huge increase last season, this chap has risen 16 in overall rating during this, having only played 614 minutes for Utah and not a minute previously anywhere else. In any case, his stats are insane, so I snapped him up from the free agency list.

https://i.postimg.cc/pX6v6SY3/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/w7Lnt0rk)


Imagine Kareem and Jordan on the same team...

Indeed.



https://i.postimg.cc/fLw1L7fx/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/p96scF7T)

He's in the save now. :drool:

[Yevrah]

2021/22 Off-Season 3 Summary - Cincinnati Lions

https://i.postimg.cc/VNBLpRNM/NBA.png (https://postimg.cc/2qyDBnh8)

So that's the roster for season 4. Ponds a huge signing and our starting five all 80 or above for the first time. Had to lose Bogdanovic and Anigbogu. The former to balance the books and the latter as I no longer need him. The balancing of the books was a waste of time anyway as it turned out as once again Bol Bol turned down trousering $22m+ a season for 4 years, in favour of a one year qualifying offer on sub $4m.

If the starting five stay fit, our first playoff appearance has to be the aim this year.

[Yevrah]

2022/23 Season 4 All-Star Break Summary - Cincinnati Lions

All-Star break reached and it's shaping up to be our best season yet.

https://i.postimg.cc/wBM3yrcV/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/5HcfDnrY)

KAJ made the All-Star starting five again, but this time was joined by Bol and Floyd, who played 6 minutes each. :cool: KAJ also won our first monthly award, with November's player of the month.

We're in great form at the moment, with a 50% record in our last 10, but it's going to be a struggle to overhaul New York to make the playoffs.

https://i.postimg.cc/28jYSZxd/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/NLnSNLSL)

[Yevrah]

KAJ has broken his hand. Playoff dream over for this year. :moop:

[Yevrah]

2022/23 Season 4 Summary - Cincinnati Lions

Season done and we finished two spots outside the playoffs.

https://i.postimg.cc/vTGSvC81/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/r0YJVnrc)

KAJ's broken hand may have hampered our playoff run, but didn't stop him picking up the francise's first annual award.

https://i.postimg.cc/sDNwBMWG/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/TpnrFYCT)uploadpic (https://postimages.org/)

:cool:

A Larry Bird inspired Charlotte Hornets won their first Championship, so three different winners so far.

Onto the off-season, the draw for the draft is done. My 5 picks, translated into four lottery picks and with MJ in the draft, hopes were high....


https://i.postimg.cc/Bbt2sCMY/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/CnTRsbyk)

:jayjay:

I only want Jordan and the other picks aren't high enough to get Olajuwon or Stockton, so some trading will be happening.

[Yevrah]

https://i.postimg.cc/85rspnL0/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/PpTdKy3W)



:cool:

Due to the 76ers inexplicably picking Scot Daniels, the Charlotte Hornets now have Hakeem Olajuwon joining Larry Bird on their roster.

[7om]

Amazing. Who else did you get?

[Yevrah]

2022/23 Off-Season 4 Summary - Cincinnati Lions

https://i.postimg.cc/cCZT2CKX/NBA.png (https://postimg.cc/WFWMJ2wk)

After Jordan we set about sorting contracts and once that was done we had a full roster of 15 and therefore no further business was needed. Bol annoyingly once again turned down a ludicrous deal in favour of a shitty 1 year default deal, which means both him and KAJ will be free agents next summer. If I can keep both, particularly KAJ it'll be huge.

2023/24 Season 5 New Year Summary - Cincinnati Lions

https://i.postimg.cc/4369M5zR/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/sB2xG56T)

3rd in the East. :cool: Injuries have up to now been minimal and we're playing the best basketball we ever have. The table is properly tight, with only 6 wins separating first and eighth, but this could well be our first playoff appearance coming. Jordan is a dream to use by the way, although I need to move him to shooting guard sooner rather than later. Currently he's 40th in the NBA for PPG and 1st for Steals.

Huge game on the road at Miami up next to continue the New Year. :drool:

[Yevrah]

https://i.postimg.cc/g2xhmhZr/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/nXtr1CTt)free pic hosting (https://postimages.org/)

We win the showdown! Played the first and last quarters, doing some magical things with MJ and KAJ. Three pointers are still hard as nails on this difficulty though.

[Yevrah]

2023/24 Season 5 Summary - Cincinnati Lions

Not quite the full season summary as we made the playoffs for the first time. :jayjay:

https://i.postimg.cc/RV5xQRq1/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/kDcH7WQD)[/url]

This is the draw.

[url=https://postimg.cc/4YdkDBjJ]https://i.postimg.cc/L8k9ZWTZ/NBA.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

So it's Jayson Tatum's Celtics up first.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I've been opening packs with MT in the last few weeks as there's no real point in saving it up and today I pulled this beast:

https://2kmtcentral.com/20/players/9343/james-wiseman

He's not in the NBA yet but he's likely to be the top pick when the draft does happen and my word is he good in the game.

He's got great animations and his stats are near perfect.

I don't play online so can't effectively judge him properly (although a lot of Youtubers rate him as the second best C after KAJ) but I usually struggle to stop Kareem on All-Star in these Larry Bird challenges but he deals with him tremendously well. He gets bullied a bit in the post by Kareem but the AI doesn't utilise it that much which is grand.

[Yevrah]

2023/24 Season 5 Playoff Summary - Cincinnati Lions

Boston absolutely humped us. Be it simming or me playing, we were battered. The game we did win was won by 2, with the other 4 20-30 point deficits. Given the team I have, which is pretty obscene, I'm calling failure on this one and this challenge ends here. A lowering of the difficulty back to All-Star and the Sim difficulty down to mid 60's is probably called for for the next one. Fear not though, I have a corker in mind and one that allows me to continue to use a rookie MJ.

https://i.postimg.cc/4yTB2ZnX/NBA.jpg (https://postimg.cc/k6fQD0xH)

[Pepe]

Do you just sim seasons Yev? You go through them at a crazy pace.

[Yevrah]

I dip into a fair few games and sim from a point where nothing will really change. e.g. once it was clear I'd made the playoffs with the Lions.

Played a lot of the first three games in the playoffs as well, but again, once it was clear we weren't going to win that was that.

I think I'll play the next game at a more serene pace. I'm back at work next week as well so I'll have less time anyway.

[Pepe]

Having the old players in the Draft sounds like a cool feature. Might tempt me to give it a try some day.

[Yevrah]

It's great. You've got every draft going back to 1976 and some select ones before that. Now a fair number of the players in the 60 to select from are auto generated, but it's seemingly got almost all of, say, the top 10 picks from each year.

Add in the wealth of custom rosters and the scope for creating unique saves is immense.

What I'm tempted to do for the next save is to load in a custom draft for the 1984-1985 season (Jordan's first) and play out as far as I can (be arsed) to present day, loading in the real draft each year and see who ends up where and what happens.

[Pepe]

I guess the only issue with the old drafts is that there are no surprises, you know exactly who is going to turn out good and who won't.

[Yevrah]

That is true.

The other issue I have with starting in 1984 is that 7 of the current teams didn't exist back then and in the online roster they're just given 68 rated players. Which is fine in the respect that it was a piece of piss to make the playoffs back then (16 of the 23 teams qualifed, which think is worse than the Euros), but in theory what should then happen is all these teams will hoover up the best players from the draft, which may or may not be a problem depending on how the CPU manages the other teams.

The main issue bar none with MyLeague is the way the salary cap works though, play as much as I have lately and you realise it's truly fucked.

[Yevrah]

First problem with this downloaded roster is the history of players hasn't been properly cleansed, so Hakeem Olajuwon, for example, has 22,000+ points as a 22 year old rookie. Which is going to fuck the all time points scored list.