Monday Tip-Off: Makeshift Classic Teams & Other Minimalist Rosters

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some reflections on my recent habit of creating and playing with makeshift classic teams – and other minimalist rosters – while retro gaming.

There are multiple ways in which I can indulge my NBA nostalgia. I can simply revisit an old game and play with rosters that are now a time capsule. For over a decade now, the NBA 2K series has provided a plethora of historical content, from classic teams to All-Time squads to the Decade All-Stars. There are also mods that I can download, or I could always create my own retro rosters in one of my favourite games. In short, if I feel like taking a trip down memory lane on the virtual hardwood, it can be done with impressive accuracy.

As such, I will absolutely do all those things! However, cobbling together makeshift classic teams has become a consistent part of my basketball gaming over the past year or so. I’ve also tinkered with the rosters of old games I’m dusting off by rolling them back to the previous season, or creating minimalist Legends squads. It may sound highly unnecessary when there are games that already provide that content, not to mention strange that I’m not opting for more accuracy with a full retro mod. However, I’ve had a blast incorporating some minimalist modding into my retro gaming. There’s an undeniable appeal to assembling something new with only the content on hand.

This of course goes back to when Dee and I began playing the PlayStation 3 version of NBA Live 10 using RPCS3 and Parsec. Stepping back in time with the game’s 2010 season rosters was already fun of course, but we were eventually drawn to the Fantasy Teams mode. At first, it was a fun way of quickly assembling squads of our favourite Virtual Hardwood Legends, but we soon found a further use for it. With the combination of veterans and retired players in the roster, and the selection of retro jerseys, it became clear that a number of makeshift classic teams were viable. After compiling a list of feasible squads, Dee and I have been working our way through it.

Once again though, you may wonder why not just dust off a game that features those teams – either in contemporary rosters or as retro content – and play with them that way. The point of course is to enjoy the gameplay and atmosphere of a specific title – in this case, NBA Live 10 – while combining it with our nostalgia for another season. With that in mind, it’d be fair to point out that mods for a PC release would provide a far more comprehensive retro experience, since there are notable names missing from our makeshift classic teams. As I said, PC mods are absolutely something that I’ll use and enjoy, but there’s tremendous appeal to the minimalist approach I’m partaking in.

Quite simply, it’s the challenge and creativity of the exercise; making the most of what you have at your disposal. It’s basically the opposite of what makes mods on PC so fun. The appeal of detailed projects on PC is that the possibilities are seemingly endless. There are some limitations of course, from database sizes to the content that we can’t change or expand upon for complete accuracy, but apart from that, the only limits are our imaginations and free time. If you want to make a 1996 season roster in a game that came out years later, it can be done. Legends and Champions rosters, a roster of classic teams…they’re all feasible, with complete lineups and accurate art.

Conversely, with makeshift classic teams and other minimalist rosters, the appeal is in the limitations we face. What can you make with the players that are available in the game by default? Which teams can you create that will suit the branding, in particular the throwback jerseys? If you do feel like putting in a bit more work, just how much can you achieve with the limited number of players that can be created? How close can you get to your vision, and what are the trade-offs? And of course, how quickly can you put it together? That’s one of the best parts of Fantasy Teams mode in NBA Live 10. Pick the teams and their players, select the retro jerseys, and away you go!

Mind you, to maximise the number of makeshift classic teams that we can assemble and to streamline the process when setting up a game, I did end up creating a roster where retired players are already back on a team where we know we can find them, while changing their jersey numbers for more accuracy where applicable. I would like to polish it up further by making some ratings adjustments so that those veterans are in their prime as they should be, but our cobbled-together retro squads actually work surprisingly well as-is. However, tinkering with that sandbox roster has encouraged me to seek out the possibilities for minimalist rosters whenever I get on a retro kick.

It’s happened with the Xbox 360 version of NBA 2K6. There’s an even wider range of retro jerseys in that game, not to mention Legends and players who were still active during the 2006 season. If nothing else, creating some teams from the early 2000s is much easier than it is with rosters from the 2010 season, by which point many of the stars and role players from earlier in the decade were out of the league. To that point however, it then became a challenge to see if I could create some teams from a few years later! As it happens, there were enough players from the 2011 Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks to play a respectable re-creation of their clash in the NBA Finals.

I also ended up rolling back the rosters to the end of 2005, in order to play matchups from the previous season in the first NBA 2K game released on Xbox 360. I’ve posted highlights from re-creations of the 2005 NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and Detroit Pistons, as well as Reggie Miller’s final showdown against Kobe Bryant; an exciting game from the 2005 season that I remember watching live. Obviously I can simply revisit NBA Live 2005 or even ESPN NBA 2K5 to play such games, but there’s novelty in setting them up in NBA 2K6. I could also create a 2005 season mod or a classic team roster for NBA Live 06 PC, but there’s far less challenge in that.

That’s not to say that I won’t consider such ideas. Indeed, revisiting NBA Live 06 in the not too distant past has me mulling potential projects with the resources I have at my disposal. However, when it comes to my own retro gaming and playing titles that I didn’t spend as much time with back in the day, I’m drawn to ideas that I can put together quickly, and enjoy despite their makeshift nature. The fact that I’m revisiting several console-only releases that I didn’t play much when they were new is also why I’ve developed a fondness for this practice. Minimalist modding can be done on PC as well, but generally speaking, it’s the only option that we have with console releases.

Makeshift classic teams and other minimalist rosters are satisfying to assemble not only because of the successes, but also the failures. There have been many times when I’ve wanted to create a specific team or matchup, only to find that there aren’t enough players, or the game doesn’t include the necessary retro jerseys. Now, as I’ve said before, it’s important not to let imperfection stifle fun, and minimalist modding is all about making allowances. However, when the challenge is to create a retro team that’s as accurate as possible using only the content that’s in the game, you at least need to have a majority of the prominent players, as well as the correct uniforms to play in.

It’s a bummer to start moving players around and seeing a makeshift retro squad come together, only to realise that a couple of key players are missing and you don’t have the right jerseys. That’s when you need to pivot to a new idea though, and hopefully, it’ll be just as fun to put on the floor. Sometimes it works out even better, proving that your first idea isn’t always the best one. Also, if you do go to the trouble of creating a few missing players, it’s always a delight when the in-game customisation works even better than you had anticipated. My created Michael Jordan in NBA 2K6 doesn’t have a proper face or all his bio data, but it’s fun to hear the announcers call his name!

There’s another reason why I’ve come to really enjoy this particular activity with my retro gaming. I’ve made countless roster updates and a handful of retro roster mods for the community over the years, but I haven’t always been able to enjoy them myself. The makeshift classic teams rosters I’ve created are usually rough and incomplete, and definitely not worth sharing with the community, but they’ve been fun for me, keeping me hooked on a game that’s become a retro kick. I’m also still eager to use games as interactive almanacs, stepping back in time with rosters from the season they’re set in. There’s plenty of nostalgia in that, but minimalist modding is able to keep them fresh.

Working out which makeshift classic teams I can create, and other fun things I can do with a mixture of contemporary players and available Legends, is scratching multiple itches for me. It’s been a way of satisfying an urge to mod, to create something new, without the pressure of a public release or needing to worry about all the details. It’s indulged my nostalgic memories of a variety of teams, players, and eras. It’s allowed me to jump around and revisit different eras while continuing to play a specific game that I’m currently hooked on. It’s creative, it’s challenging, it’s quick, it’s nostalgic, and above all, it’s been fun. It’s become a staple of my retro gaming because I enjoy it.

For far too long, I was doing the opposite: playing basketball games in a way that I no longer enjoyed, simply because it had become a habit. It’s why I’ll advocate for low-stakes basketball gaming. When you’re not on the grind, worrying about levelling up and agendas and progress and keeping up with your fellow gamers, you’ve got more time to just mess around, set up fun scenarios, and spend time with some classics. It’s also another way to celebrate the NBA of yesteryear, including players, teams, and even eras that I perhaps didn’t appreciate enough at the time. It’s made one of my favourite hobbies more enjoyable, and that’s what we should seek from our passions.

That goes for real basketball as well as the virtual hardwood. While I do look at my preference for retro gaming as a positive, it’s also a response to disappointment with both recent NBA 2K releases and the current NBA. As much as I’ve tried, it’s been difficult for me to get as invested in the regular season as I used to be. I find the All-Star Game to be unwatchable now, which is a tremendous shame as I used to love the All-Star Weekend festivities. I’m turned off by the utter lack of defense, the phoney narratives, and the disrespect for the greats of the past. I still consider myself a huge basketball fan, but sometimes, I do feel like I’m trying to rekindle a lost love for it.

Playing games from an era where I had more enjoyment for real and virtual basketball alike, when great players weren’t disrespected in the name of propping up the current stars, and when publishers weren’t trying to shake us down for recurrent revenue, is an undeniable sign of that yearning. The inane bleating of talking heads and pushiness of microtransactions has done little to change my views of both basketball and basketball video games. It’s disheartening to feel so disillusioned with them of course, which is why I’m seeking more positivity through classic highlights and retro gaming. Call me out of touch and stuck in the past, but I’d rather enjoy what I like than hate-watch!

And again, isn’t that the whole point of our passions and hobbies: to actually enjoy them? Frankly, as I inch closer to 40 with every day of 2024, I don’t care about being trendy. I do want to enjoy my leisure time though, so I’m going to keep revisiting old favourites, discovering new favourites, and seeking out different ways of enjoying both. I’m also going to indulge my nostalgia for an NBA I prefer. There are multiple ways of doing that on the virtual hardwood, and I’ll keep them all in mind. Right now though, cobbling together makeshift classic teams and other minimalist rosters is how I’m getting my fix. I have no doubt that it’ll remain a staple of my basketball gaming.

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