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 thoughts on the duality of MyNBA Eras.
Look, I realise how annoying it can be when someone qualifies their criticism with compliments. After all, it can come across as disingenuous, or too timid to stand by critique. Unfortunately, when the discourse is rooted in finding contrarian gotchas to dunk on someone who has dared to criticise what you like, it’s a necessary evil. On top of that, when it comes to a feature such as MyNBA Eras, credit where credit’s due. It’s a fantastic concept with some great features that once seemed like a pipe dream. I don’t want to downplay that.
However, there is a duality to MyNBA Eras. It’s impressive in so many ways, and yet rather underwhelming in others. There are aspects that feel lazy and lacking, despite the fact that a ton of hard work and effort has gone into the mode. The ambition is admirable, but there are examples of putting the cart before the horse. There’s depth to the experience, but there’s also quantity over quality. In short, MyNBA Eras is indeed awesome, but there are ways that it could and should be better. Some of them may be easier said than done due to matters of licensing, but to that point, it makes the mode simultaneously comprehensive and half-baked. This is the duality of MyNBA Eras.
This column was inspired by a combination of Dee’s analysis of the historical rosters in recent years, a breakdown of the roster accuracy in NBA 2K25’s MyNBA Eras by Tropical_Wendigo over on Reddit, and my own observations having dabbled with the mode. Before I get into the rosters however, let’s talk about artwork. Again, I have to couch a criticism with a compliment here, because the historical eras do feature a lot of accurate branding. The automatic branding updates when the appropriate year rolls around is an excellent detail, and it was likely a most impressive programming feat to make it happen. It’s not as though there hasn’t been any care or attention to detail here.
At the same time, there are some glaring inaccuracies. From branding changes that aren’t accounted for to mismatched courts, jerseys, and logos, the execution of the concept could be better. I’m not talking about minor errors that are easy to overlook. As much as it would be amazing if every historical season in MyNBA Eras featured complete accuracy down to the last detail, it would mean even more assets in a game that already weighs in at over 100 GB. Moreover, when the basic design remains 99% the same for several seasons in a row, a court, jersey, or even logo can feasibly cover a span that saw very minor changes. Sometimes, close enough can be good enough!
Given how detail-oriented eagle-eyed basketball fans and gamers are, some of us may have to agree to disagree on that point. However, I’m confident that we can all agree that when the branding is completely incorrect or mismatched, then that is a much bigger issue! Examples include the Jordan Era Houston Rockets switching to their pinstripe “pyjama” jerseys while keeping their red and gold court, or the Phoenix Suns keeping their old floor as they adopt their new logo and sunburst uniforms. Similarly, it didn’t take gamers long to notice that the Utah Jazz in the new Steph Era are playing on their late 90s court. Needless to say, this does detract from the intended effect.
To echo an earlier sentiment, it feels half-baked. Again, I don’t say that to disparage the hard work that has gone into implementing a franchise mode that not only gives us historical starting points, but can actually evolve over the years to mimic changes in the league. It’s honestly incredible, especially when you throw in era-specific rules, presentation, and commentary! That’s the point, though: we know what’s possible, because it’s been done. We know that team branding can automatically change when the appropriate year rolls around, because that does happen. We’re not asking for the impossible, but rather for accuracy in an implemented feature that’s capable of it.
Those are the issues with branding, so let’s move on to the rosters. After all, they are what make MyNBA Eras a particularly ambitious concept! With literally decades of players to account for, complete rosters with zero placeholders are a tall order. Most of us do understand that, though we might prefer to see 2K make more of an effort to secure the rights to big names who are conspicuous by their absence. No one is saying that it’s going to be easy (or necessarily cheap) to feature full rosters for each team in every era, but striving to come as close as possible is part and parcel of implementing the concept of MyNBA Eras. As such, it’s fair to evaluate roster depth and accuracy.
That’s what Tropical_Wendigo’s Reddit post is all about; in his words, “combing through all of the Eras rosters, assessing each team for completeness”. His rubric here is the number of real players on each team in each era, irrespective of role or position. This allowed teams to fall into five categories: Exceptional (at least 15 real players), Excellent (at least 12 real players), Decent, (at least 10 real players), Subpar (less than 10 real players), and Unplayable (less than eight real players). It provides a solid overview of roster completeness, and to that end, playability out of the gate. From there, we can note specific absences that greatly impact the quality of the rosters.
The results are quite interesting. The Kobe Era features the most complete rosters by volume of real players, followed by the Jordan Era. The LeBron Era is below them, and generally represents the overall state/quality of the rosters in MyNBA Eras. Not surprisingly, the Magic/Bird Era has the highest percentage of teams with thin rosters. More surprising, however, is the Steph Era. As per the aforementioned rubric, it has the most teams that fall under the category of Subpar, the smallest amount of Decent and Excellent lineups, and the second-highest percentage of Unplayable squads. In other words, despite being the most recent retro era, its rosters are the thinnest.
Furthermore, three of the most prominent players in both the LeBron and Steph Eras are Andre Iguodala, Blake Griffin, and John Wall. Considering that Griffin and Wall were battling it out for Rookie of the Year in 2011 – the first campaign in the LeBron Era – and Iggy was a key player on Steph’s champion Warriors, their absence is most unfortunate. And, since this is where anyone who wants to throw down a verbal poster dunk with an “um askually” may chirp up to explain why they’re absent…I know. We all know! There’s no confusion over licensing rights. Rather, it’s bewilderment over not securing the rights to key players from two eras that MyNBA is spotlighting!
Mind you, it does point to an interesting phenomenon with licensing players who are no longer in the league. It would appear to be easier to license players who played years or even decades ago, rather than players who were still in the league far more recently. Indeed, older video games bear out this theory as well. If you go back and look at the All-Decade squads in mid 2000s titles, you’ll see stars from the 90s that retired circa 2003 begin disappearing from those rosters, before signing on to appear again towards the end of the decade. Between retirement paperwork and players who have left the NBA but haven’t retired, clearly there are a few hurdles to deal with here.
Nevertheless, it still isn’t a great look for MyNBA Eras. A reasonable explanation doesn’t mitigate our disappointment, after all. It also raises the question as to why the Steph Era was introduced when it was clear that some very notable players were set to be absent. Granted, there may be some preliminary agreements in place and we’ll see those players added in a roster update. That has happened before, and it’s certainly better than not ever having those players in an official roster. It does still affect our first impressions of the mode, though. It also does little to dispel the notion that 2K won’t fairly compensate players despite raking in record profits in recurrent revenue.
Completeness is an issue, because it affects our ability to jump straight into a retro season in MyNBA Eras and enjoy the rosters as-is, with minimal placeholders. That is important of course, as a flawed but complete roster is at least a better starting point. However, the problems with the historical rosters in MyNBA Eras run much deeper than that, and also predate the mode. I’ll refer back to the lengthy Twitter/X thread that Dee posted in 2020, in which he spotlighted a number of inaccuracies with the historical players in NBA 2K21. As he noted, his examples represented a miniscule percentage of errors that were found throughout the classic teams. Let’s look at a few.
Big men known for their play in the paint, like Artis Gilmore and Karl Malone, had high three-point tendencies. Craig Ehlo’s defensive tendencies made him less of a threat than Terrell Brandon. Bob Cousy was more likely to dunk than Derrick Rose. Jason Williams’ dribbling and passing tendencies were atrociously inaccurate. Glen Rice wouldn’t take threes, while Gerald Wallace wouldn’t dunk. Andrei Kirilenko didn’t get any proper ratings at all! Copy-and-paste jobs meant that Tracy McGrady played like Brandon Roy, while Isaiah Rider and Billy Cunningham had LeBron James’ and Blake Griffin’s animations respectively. The list could go on and on.
As Dee has pointed out when we’ve discussed this issue on the NLSC Podcast, it’s both disrespectful to NBA history, and undermines the quality of the gameplay when using historical teams and rosters. Considering that MyNBA Eras is intended to be a celebration of history and authentic representation of it on the virtual hardwood, I’d suggest that accuracy should be a priority! And look, as someone who has worked on numerous rosters over the years, I understand that oversights happen. Ratings can also be fudged for a number of reasons; some benign and even beneficial, others less so. This isn’t about being rude, or nastily bashing the historical content in NBA 2K.
Still, imagine a community-made a roster that was full of mistakes and copy-and-paste shortcuts. The feedback it’d receive would reflect that. Indeed, even a well-made roster mod that’s provided voluntarily and at no cost may receive way harsher (not to mention far less accurate) critique than what Dee posted; I can attest to getting a few snarky messages over the years! And so, while I’ll certainly advocate for being polite, it’s more than fair to point out shortcomings in an official roster. Then again, when 2K is willing to push through silent fixes and then have Ronnie 2K mock the criticism as being inaccurate in his usual slimily pompous way, a bit of snark is understandable!
The duality of MyNBA Eras is that there’s a plethora of content, but there’s an issue of quantity over quality. The systems are in place to do some incredible things that we could once only dream of, but they’re not utilised to their full potential in terms of accuracy. There’s clearly effort, but also lazy corner-cutting as well. It’s a mode that appeals to basketball gamers with a love of NBA history, but stops short of truly providing the experience that it advertises. It’s ambitious, but it also jumps the gun. It’s been expanded with new eras and content, but they’re undermined by the lack of completeness, authenticity, and quality control. It has great ideas, but key flaws.
It’s not my goal to insult or downplay MyNBA Eras, or the good things that it has achieved to date. However, it’s entirely fair to criticise the shortcomings, so I’m not heeding any apologists who’d rather we all just shut up and accept what we’re given. There will always be quibbles over ratings and players who are difficult to license, but that doesn’t mean we can’t and shouldn’t push for improvements. This isn’t us “hating” on the mode. We’ve seen what it’s capable of, and want to see it get even better; to be all that it can be. In that regard, the duality of MyNBA Eras is that it’s already given us something we’ve long dreamed of, and yet, it’s still left us wanting so much more.
The post Monday Tip-Off: The Duality of MyNBA Eras appeared first on NLSC.
