To paint a picture for you, when I first loaded up NBA 2K10 I wondered to myself who the hell the Charlotte Bobcats and Oklahoma City Thunder were, and when did the Grizzlies leave Vancouver?
To answer those questions; The Bobcats came into the league in 2004 as an expansion team. The Thunder use to be the SuperSonics of Seattle and relocated to Oklahoma City in 2008, which begs the question: how does relocating from a bustling metropolis, home to such influential material as Jimi Hendrix and grunge music to a city famous for the being bombed sound like a good idea? And as for the Grizzlies, they moved in 2001. 2001! That's nearly a decade ago. That kind of shows you just how long I've been out of the NBA loop.
See, I have always been a huge fan of basketball (it's still my favorite sport to play), but as I got older I realized the NBA's "star" players focused more on how good they looked, rather than how sharp their fundamentals were. It's arguable if they even knew what the word "defense" meant. So I packed up and left the league behind, focusing instead on college ball for my basketball fix.
The NBA just lost a lot of it's appeal once legends like Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, John Stocklon, etc. left the game. Consider me a "Dream Team" die-hard. That era is my bread and butter. I could rattle off player stats like it's my job if they come from that golden age of professional basketball. But ask me to name ten players currently lacing up their Air Jordans and I lock up with a constipated look on my face.
But here I am, picking up my first NBA licensed product in years, that product being NBA 2K10; the tenth anniversary of the franchise and my personal favorite b-ball series from the days when I did dabble in video game basketball. And while I'm not going to talk about all the changes to this year's model as opposed to last's (I obviously wouldn't know the difference), what I can say is that because of this game I'm going to give the NBA a second chance when the actual season starts. NBA 2K10 has made me catch basketball fever once again, and I want more than just a video game can provide (and it isn't just because Larry Bird is in the game, though that does help a lot).
