Wayback Wednesday: Jersey Swaps for Past Stints 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 going back to NBA Live 95 to trade players and create jersey swaps that represent their past stints.
Since another trade deadline is upon us, I feel like putting some players in different jerseys! Last month, I fired up NBA Live 95 for Super Nintendo to create some jersey swaps that represented future stints for a bunch of players. As I said in that article, I really enjoy the combination of video game nostalgia, NBA history, and a challenging exercise. Furthermore, I’ve always found the jersey swaps for traded players in NBA Live 95 for SNES to be a cool feature, one that I’ve come to appreciate even more on a technical level as a solution to the limited storage space on cartridges.
So, let’s talk about past stints for players that we can trade in NBA Live 95 SNES. As someone who really got into basketball in the mid 90s, I tend to associate the players from that era with the teams they were playing for when I first started watching the NBA and playing basketball video games. Of course, I soon found out that a number of players had begun their career elsewhere. It was sometimes difficult to imagine; a retroactive familiar faces in strange places situation! We can depict some of those past stints in NBA Live 95 using jersey swaps, so let’s take a look back…way back…
Jersey Swaps With Correct Numbers
As with the previous exercise, let’s tip things off with jersey swaps in which the players are still wearing the correct numbers, since that’s something we can’t change in NBA Live 95 SNES. The obvious place to begin is reversing the Danny Manning for Dominique Wilkins trade; incidentally, a move that will break the sim engine! By the time I was hooked on hoops, Nique was in Boston and Manning was in Phoenix, but in NBA Live 95, we can put them back on the Hawks and Clippers with accurate numbers. We can also represent past stints such as Kevin Edwards in Miami (with a correct portrait), Nique’s brother Gerald in New York, and Brian Shaw in Boston.
Interestingly, quite a few of these jersey swaps not only depict past stints, but also players who later became familiar faces back in familiar places. This includes Charles Oakley in Chicago, Kendall Gill in Charlotte, Blue Edwards in Utah, A.C. Green in Los Angeles, Vernon Maxwell in San Antonio, and Otis Thorpe in Sacramento. Early stints such as Robert Parish in Golden State, Kenny Smith in Sacramento, and Jeff Hornacek in Phoenix, are overshadowed by their more famous tenures. Other stints that felt like old news by the 90s include Dennis Rodman in Detroit, Ron Harper in Cleveland, Rod Strickland in San Antonio, and Mookie Blaylock in New Jersey.
One of the surprises that you’ll encounter as you learn more about the NBA as a newly-minted fan is that some role players used to be a much bigger deal. When I got into hoops, players like Dale Ellis, Chuck Person, Buck Williams, Kevin Duckworth, and Wayman Tisdale had transitioned into smaller roles. In NBA Live 95, we can put them back in the jerseys they wore when they were more prominent players, or even All-Stars. Other throwback stints for the pool of tradeable players include Muggsy Bogues with the Bullets, Detlef Schrempf with the Pacers, Dana Barros with the Supersonics, Michael Cage with the Clippers, and Larry Nance with the Suns.
Jersey Swaps With Incorrect Numbers
Moving on to the jersey swaps that don’t reflect the numbers that players wore during these past stints, we can find further examples of the aforementioned scenarios. By the time my basketball fandom kicked into high gear, Mitch Richmond had become a perennial All-Star with the Kings. As such, it was interesting to discover that he was once the “M” in Run-TMC with the Warriors. Similarly, John Starks was an important player on the Knicks of the 90s, but as I’d soon discover, he also began his career with Golden State in 1988. There’s an added layer of retroactive novelty here, as Starks not only wore #30 before Stephen Curry did, but got the number the year Curry was born!
The past stints of Sherman Douglas and Derrick McKey are represented by undoing the trades that placed Brian Shaw and Detlef Schrempf back in their old uniforms. However, while Shaw and Schrempf were able to keep or regain the same numbers, Douglas’ #11 and McKey’s #31 were unavailable. While undoing the Jeff Hornacek for Jeff Malone trade leaves Hornacek with the correct number, Malone had to change from #24 to #25. Malone had definitely peaked by the time I got into basketball, as had Hersey Hawkins, who I knew as a solid third option for the Supersonics rather than an All-Star with the 76ers. He’s back in that uniform here, albeit wearing #32.
Meanwhile, Kevin Johnson’s debut with the Cavaliers was a distant memory by the mid 90s, along with the fact that he’d originally worn his college number of 11. The same goes for Bill Cartwright’s Knicks tenure. I knew he was a Bull from NBA Live 95 SNES, but it wasn’t until later that I learned he’d been acquired for Charles Oakley in a move that helped set up Chicago’s first threepeat. Speaking of the Knicks, Derek Harper had to change to #11 from the #12 he’d worn for a Mavericks team that was far more formidable than the laughing stock they were in the 90s. Fat Lever was a bit before my time as a fan, but here he’s back in Denver, though he’s stuck with #21.
Other Past Stints & A Tantalising Image for Magic Fans
Playing games such as NBA Jam Tournament Edition and NBA Live 96, as well as collecting trading cards, provided a crash course in the role players of the mid 90s. To that end, I came to associate them with specific teams as much as I did the superstars. It wasn’t always as surprising to hear that they’d played for another team beforehand, but it was still interesting to learn that prior to Eric Murdock lighting me up with the Bucks in NBA Jam TE (and pulling off a ridiculous shot in real life), he’d been John Stockton’s backup in Utah. Likewise, before Micheal Williams’ injury-plagued later years in Minnesota, he’d been the Pacers’ starter at point, and a champion in Detroit.
I remember it feeling weird when Vinny Del Negro joined the Bucks for the 1999 lockout season, but of course before he was a Spur, he’d played for the Kings. Benoit Benjamin was a journeyman big by the time I was a hardcore hoop head, soon to be a veteran benchwarmer latching on for short stints. With jersey swaps in NBA Live 95, we can throw it back to his more notable tenures with the Supersonics and Clippers. The late Felton Spencer’s time with the Timberwolves is perhaps best remembered for a skit with professional wrestler Curt Hennig, aka Mr. Perfect. Michael Adams is yet another player whose best days were behind him by the time I was watching the NBA.
Finally, while almost all these jersey swaps represent actual past stints, you may have noticed a couple of fake ones: David Robinson and Clyde Drexler in Orlando Magic uniforms. While they never played for the Magic, they sported Orlando warm-ups during the 1992 All-Star Game, since their Spurs and Trail Blazers gear didn’t arrive in time. As the commentators alluded to, it was certainly a tease for Magic fans! It was impossible not to reference that weird sight here. After all, that’s part of the fun of exploring NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood. It’ll be interesting to see the jersey swaps we’ll end up making in new games, as players keep moving on.
The post Wayback Wednesday: Jersey Swaps for Past Stints in NBA Live 95 appeared first on NLSC.