Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five plays that had a profound impact on gameplay design in basketball video games.

Since the aim of sim basketball games is to depict the NBA in a realistic manner, it goes without saying that events in the real league have had an impact on those titles. Likewise, our enthusiasm for real basketball makes us want to imitate NBA highlights on the virtual hardwood. It’s something that the games have allowed us to do with increasing accuracy over the years, as new animations, controls, and mechanics are added. Our desire to see certain plays accounted for in video games can be traced back to wide trends and specific moments alike.

Quite often, they’re the memorable plays that are assured to make all the highlight reels for decades to come; the iconic moments in NBA history. When we see them happen in real life and can’t replicate them in games, we immediately develop a keen interest in seeing them made possible in future releases. While it may not be entirely accurate to ascribe a particular gameplay addition solely to a single highlight, there’s no doubt that memorable plays have had an impact on gameplay development. After all, the developers are basketball fans too, and are just as eager to perform those dazzling plays on the sticks. Here are five plays that impacted gameplay design!

1. Tayshaun Prince’s Chasedown Block of Reggie Miller

Chasedown blocks were not a new phenomenon in 2004. In fact, one of Michael Jordan’s trademarks as a defender was catching players from behind for crafty steals and blocks alike. Of course, fast forward to 2023, and the chasedown block that gets brought up the most often is LeBron James’ rejection in the 2016 NBA Finals. Before that however, and after MJ had hung up his sneakers for the final time – one year after it, in fact – Tayshaun Prince’s chasedown block on Reggie Miller became a Playoff moment for the ages. Prince’s hustle prevented a game-tying basket and preserved a Detroit Pistons victory. They went on to win the series, and the 2004 championship.

Just as we’d seen other chasedown blocks before that in real life, they were possible to perform in video games as well. Prince’s big defensive play did increase interest in seeing them better-implemented however, from the contact and blocking animations to pinning/swatting the ball off the glass and being able to catch up to players on the break. NBA Live 2005 made some strides in those areas, though it was now too easy to chase down defenders for a rejection. NBA Live 06 had much better tuning and catch-up logic here, and subsequent NBA Live and NBA 2K titles alike have featured some immensely satisfying chasedown blocks, with impressive ball and glass physics.

2. Steph Curry’s Long Three to Beat OKC in OT

Did you know that – as of writing – while Steph Curry has eight game-winning shots over the course of his career, it wasn’t until 2022 that one of them came with zero left on the clock? Even more surprising for one of the greatest shooters in NBA history – if not the greatest – Curry is 0-for-12 on potential go-ahead shots in his Playoff career. We can debate the stats and their relevance as to his clutch ability, but I’m certain that many fans would still pick Curry to take the shot when the game’s on the line. They’d likely be comfortable with that pick no matter where he was on the floor, especially after that ridiculous three against the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2016 to win in OT.

Obviously, Curry’s jaw-dropping range from downtown has influenced the real NBA, with “logo threes” in particular becoming far more common plays. Needless to say, gamers wanted to be able to pull up and drain those long, long bombs on the virtual hardwood as well. Not that it was impossible, but Curry’s uncanny knack for it wasn’t accounted for. That changed with the introduction of the Limitless Range Badge in NBA 2K17, which boosted the ability to shoot from beyond the hashmark. Since then, Badges have become far too influential in my view, but the theory behind them was originally solid. Limitless Range helped capture Curry’s game-changing plays.

3. Vlade Divac’s Flopping/Drawn Charges

Alright, so this isn’t entirely fair. Vlade Divac wasn’t the first (and certainly not the last) player to, let’s say, embellish contact to draw an offensive foul. It was perhaps only a matter of time before the controls in basketball video games expanded to allow us to attempt to draw a charge, or indeed, to flop. Vlade’s flopping/charge-drawing acumen received a lot of attention during the controversial 2002 Western Conference Finals though, by which point he already had a reputation for the strategy. To that point, it was no surprise that NBA Live 2003 introduced a Take Charge button. It wasn’t the only way a charge could occur on contact, but it gave us control over it.

The ability to get players into foul trouble through flopping resulted in a night and day difference between playing defense in NBA Live 2002 and NBA Live 2003. It wasn’t the only change in mechanics – Freestyle Control played a huge role as well – but it was an extra tool to use in the paint. In NBA Live 2002, Shaquille O’Neal was a beast, almost guaranteed to score 50+ in the hands of the CPU on a tougher difficulty level. In NBA Live 2003, I held him to six points, suckering him into a charge on multiple plays and taking him out of the game with cheap fouls, as the Lakers insisted had happened in Game 2 of that infamous series. Since then, it’s become a staple control.

4. Derek Fisher’s Game Winner with 0.4 Seconds Left

Even though the referees’ use of instant replay has its problems – such as when they seemingly can’t make an obvious call without watching it back over and over again for at least five minutes – I think we can all agree it’s helpful in getting calls right in crunch time. Before the adoption of instant replay rulings and the addition of lights on the backboard to clearly indicate that time had expired, the league saw a number of controversial buzzer-beaters. In fact, if we were talking about plays that affected the future of the real NBA, Reggie Miller’s clutch shot in the Pacers’ 2002 first round series against the Nets is a great example of the need for instant replay rulings.

There was no such controversy when Derek Fisher made his famous game-winning shot with 0.4 seconds left against San Antonio in 2004; just heartbreak for the Spurs and their fans! As for the virtual hardwood, it emphasised the need to be able to get off quick shots, giving us a chance to replicate miraculous plays like Fisher’s dagger. It’s something we wanted to see before that memorable moment, but it gave us a great example to point to. In the years since, some games have definitely been better about not locking us into a long catching animation, allowing us to get an attempt up with less than a second left. We can also finish quickly at the rim thanks to inbounds lobs.

5. Any Plays Involving Masters of the Bank Shot

Yes, yes, I’m cheating once again by including an array of plays rather than a specific one. If you would like me to narrow it down though, I’ll say Kobe Bryant banking in a game-winning three-pointer over Dwyane Wade back in 2009. Of course, Wade was himself a master of the bank shot, as was Tim Duncan. The push for more and more realism in basketball games meant that we wanted to see players who frequently used the glass replicate those plays on the virtual hardwood. Not only that, but we wanted to have control over shooting a bank shot as well. Various games have allowed us to shoot bank shots, and included a tendency so that AI-controlled players will do so too.

NBA Live 10, set during the season of Kobe’s impressive three-point bank shot, let us go off the glass by holding the left stick in any direction while shooting a jumper. In NBA Live 14, the Modifier button (L1 on PlayStation 4, LB on Xbox One) plus Shoot would attempt a bank shot. NBA 2K’s Pro Stick also offered control over bank shots for many years by holding the right stick up or towards the backboard (depending on whether you were using Absolute or Camera Relative control). Recent games have dropped that control, which is disappointing. Still, seeing those masters of the bank shot made us want to mimic their style in the games, so it was fun while it lasted.

What are some other plays – be they a specific moment, or something that was in vogue throughout the league – that had a noticeable impact on controls and gameplay on the virtual hardwood? Have your say in the comments below, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.

The post The Friday Five: 5 Plays That Affected Video Games appeared first on NLSC.