Wayback Wednesday: The Iconic Point in NBA Live 95

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at the iconic point after a dunk in NBA Live 95.

The National Basketball Association is extremely image-conscious to say the least! Throughout the years, they’ve tried to curb behaviour by players and coaches that may harm their reputation, including taking a zero-tolerance approach to complaints to the referees after a whistle. Of course, in practice, this has usually just meant that their favoured stars still get to have their say, while role players are assessed a technical foul for rolling their eyes! The NBA has also discouraged taunting, which is why the late Dikembe Mutombo had to make a point of wagging his finger towards the crowd.

Unsurprisingly – and honestly, quite fairly – the NBA retains control over how it is portrayed in licensed products, including video games. This means that we won’t see unsportsmanlike technical fouls, brawls, or anything else the league doesn’t want to spotlight, represented on the virtual hardwood. Therefore, it’s funny to think that a blatant display of taunting was once prominently featured in an NBA video game! That is of course the point after throwing down a dunk in NBA Live 95, something that long-time hoops gamers nostalgically recall. Let’s take a look back…way back…

Much has been said about the 90s in recent years – a considerable amount of it lies by people with an agenda – but there’s no question about the vibe of the decade. As Dee succinctly put it on our podcast, it was the decade of attitude, and attitude permeated just about every aspect of sports, entertainment, and pop culture. It’s not that there wasn’t attitude in the decades before then, but the 90s really saw a rebellion against wholesomeness, while embracing brashness. It’s apparent in advertising, TV, films – the Attitude Era in WWF/E – and sports, including basketball. NBA players weren’t emotionless robots in earlier decades, but in the 90s, there was more…well, attitude!

Players like Shawn Kemp made a habit of pointing at the defender they’d posterised. The Reignman’s “Lister Blister” dunk is the classic example here! There’s no two ways about it: Kemp is gleefully pointing at Alton Lister after dunking all over him and sending him sprawling to the hardwood. The NBA hadn’t quite cracked down on taunting as hard as it would later in the 90s – when entertainment in general was ironically becoming more raunchy and edgy – so Kemp’s post-dunk demonstrations weren’t penalised. Shaquille O’Neal was also known to gesticulate after his Shaq Attacks, while Larry Johnson would flat out roar after denting the rim with a jam.

Of course, as nostalgic as I am for the 90s and post-dunk celebrations that are filled with attitude, I’ll freely admit that it went too far. It could become unsportsmanlike and frankly crass, such as the short-lived habit of players grabbing their crotches after slamming it home; again, Shawn Kemp was somewhat of a “pioneer” in this regard! While I would agree that the NBA has become soft with its taunting rules (and it has been since the 90s), not to mention inconsistent with zero-tolerance policies, I also understand the desire to cultivate a positive image and promote sportsmanship. Still, I’ll always be fond of the attitude that we saw in the NBA during that golden decade!

Thankfully, it’s also preserved in video games of the era. As I said, the point after a dunk in NBA Live 95 is truly iconic, and incredibly nostalgic to anyone who grew up with that game. It doesn’t matter which version of NBA Live 95 we’re talking about. It doesn’t happen every time, but when any player throws down a dunk, there’s a chance they’ll automatically point as if they’re The Reignman blistering Lister. Players would continue to point as we either ran back on D with them, or did a victory lap taunting any opponents in the vicinity as the ball was taken out for the inbounds. Naturally this was a big part of trash talking in multiplayer games, but we’d do to it to the CPU, too.

Even with the primitive graphics of the era, the emotion – the attitude – was apparent and brilliantly conveyed. Sure, it’s nice to have a few taunts and celebrations that we can manually trigger, as in NBA 2K and NBA Live in recent generations. However, the point in NBA Live 95 said everything we wanted and needed it to in the wake of a huge dunk: in. your. FACE! No back flips, no break dancing; just a smug point to let the opponent know that they’d just been put on a poster. I suppose it might’ve been fun to have control over when we break out the point after a dunk in NBA Live 95, but ultimately, it wasn’t necessary. It happened often enough to make slams satisfying.

Also, while it clearly wasn’t hidden by any stretch of the imagination, it was one of the cool little details that you discovered organically while playing hoops titles of that era. That may be close to impossible to appreciate now considering that NBA 2K and even NBA Live have had so many authentic animations, but in a time before that was possible, anything that didn’t absolutely need to be in the game, but was nevertheless included, was undoubtedly special. It would’ve been sufficient just to have an array of simple and spectacular dunks as NBA Live 95 did boast, but having a player point in triumphant celebration after rocking the rim made those moments even more exciting.

Granted, such theatrics didn’t necessarily suit the personality of every single dunker in the league, and I do enjoy the fact that modern games feature signature celebrations for a variety of players. I’m not suggesting that the point is all we need or should have in newer titles! When there was only room for one celebratory taunt though, the point in NBA Live 95 got the job done. It was instantly recognisable thanks to Kemp and other players who pointed at and stared down defenders after throwing it down over them, while still being a generic enough reaction to work for everyone. Again, the attitude was the whole point of the point, and it added enough of it to NBA Live 95.

Looking back, it’s interesting that the league was comfortable allowing players to taunt like that in a licensed video game, especially as they were becoming stricter about it in real life. Then again, it was a fairly mild expression of triumph compared to some of the edgier demonstrations by real players, and video games were also still a relatively new medium. To that point, a year earlier the league had given the green light to NBA Jam, a game in which players can knock each other down without any penalty. Mind you, they also forced Midway to remove Mortal Kombat characters from later versions of NBA Jam Tournament Edition, so there certainly were limits!

That may be why the post-dunk celebration was toned down slightly in NBA Live 96 onwards. Instead of pointing, players in NBA Live 96 raised one or both of their arms in triumph; notably, the PC version only included the former celebration. As with the point, we could still move around as the player gestured. This was better than nothing and still added some emotion after performing a big dunk, but it wasn’t quite as impactful as the point in NBA Live 95 had been. These celebrations carried over to NBA Live 97 and the 16-bit versions of NBA Live 98, while the PC and PlayStation versions of the latter featured post-basket cutscenes with more elaborate gestures.

It’s not until you go back and play NBA Live 95’s immediate successors that you realise just how short-lived the point after dunk was! Obviously, players continued to celebrate in the wake of a jam, but the point is the one that we remember best. Of course, that’s often how it goes with short-lived features and details in basketball video games. They make us feel something, enhancing our enjoyment in a way that guarantees they’ll become nostalgic. It also helps that the point came first and is more memorable than a double or single fist pump, but the fact it ended up being unique to NBA Live 95 undoubtedly helped cement it as an iconic virtual hardwood memory.

Once again, we don’t have a definitive answer as to why the point was changed to a different celebration after NBA Live 95. It’s possible that the league asked EA Sports to tone down the taunting nature of those animations as it began to crack down on such gestures in real life. Alternatively, it might’ve just been a design choice to add something new that was more animated than a static point. Whatever the reason, I can’t honestly say that losing the point ruined the releases that followed NBA Live 95. It’s conspicuous by its absence, sure, but those games boasted new features and other improvements, while still being all about replicating the NBA as best they could.

The point will always be an iconic virtual hardwood celebration, though. Whenever we post footage or screenshots of NBA Live 95 on social media, there’ll always be comments fondly reminiscing about throwing it down and pointing at the opponent afterwards. As simple as the animation was, it was packed full of emotion, and again, attitude. Like I said, when video games and other media can make us feel something, we remember that, and it becomes part of our nostalgia for them. After all, the point didn’t just celebrate dunks, but dunks that cut into leads and won games, gave us fuel to trash talk our friends and family, and reminded us of watching real basketball.

All these years later, the point after a dunk in NBA Live 95 reminds us of a simpler time, when a nifty little detail that captured the excitement of basketball was enough to get us hyped. That’s not to say that newer basketball games can’t blow us away with their overall depth and quality, but in my view, seeing a player throw down a 360 and tauntingly point is more exciting, memorable, and nostalgic than any seasonal live service content drop! Thankfully, retro gaming allows us to tap into that 90s attitude three decades later. They may be pixels, but that point in NBA Live 95 will always be personal, making dunk animations from the 16-bit era satisfying to see even today.

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