Utilizing the time during freethrows better in basketball games - KyotoCarl's Blog

KyotoCarl's Blog

Utilizing the time during freethrows better in basketball games

Posted on September 20, 2010 at 05:48 AM.

This is my first blog entry and it's about a subject I think should be paid more attention to.

First, a little background:

I've played basketball games since the 80's starting with Double Dribble for the NES and Cinemaware's TV Sports Basketball for the Amiga. I later played the Lakers vs Celtics and Bulls vs Blazers games. I was really excited when I read about NBA Live 95. It was a basketball simulation game which is something I've always wanted!
Since NBA Live 95, I've played all version of Live through NBA Live 08. I took a year off and then switched to 2K10.

Since I've transitioned to 2K and don't play the Live series anymore, my comments will mostly include 2K references and what I'd like to see from them in the future.

Now, to what I wanted to address: one area of basketball games which has been truly ignored is the time during freethrows.
TV uses this time to show you stats from the game and to show replays of previous plays during the game. Basketball games have never used this time as efficiently as TV does.

Some older NBA Live games showed what the player shooting was averaging for the season, FG% and FT%. Then, suddenly, it was gone from later games. Why couldn't this be expanded upon? There's a bunch of things you can do here. Why not show more stats for the player for the game he's actually playing in? Points scored, FG made/attempted, FT's made/attempted?

Even more ignored is the time between the two freethrows. Why not have the commentators talk about an earlier play in the game and show a replay from it? 2K does a great job of having the commentators chat and talk about players and I have confidence that they would do a good job in having the commentators talk about specific plays in the game.
Show us a replay of the foul leading to the freethrows, or show us a replay of a play the shooting player made earlier in the game. You could have the substitution menu as an overlay over the replay, that way it wouldn't intervene with the replay or the subsitutions.

I've seen that 2K has implemented an overlay before the first freethrow showing the players stats for the season and career but I'd like to see them expand on this.

Comments

# 1 ffaacc03 @ Sep 20

Totally agreed ... I would love them to ramdomly switch overlays about career, current season and current game stats ... I would also love to hear them talking about of how well or bad is a player from the FT line and if they happen to say something like Nash is an all time leader % from the line and he misses, I would like them to say something like "WOW, ouch!, we just spooked him" ...

# 2 Dazraz @ Sep 20

Scores from other games around the league would be nice.

# 3 Blak_Baki_Hanma @ Sep 20

Good ideas... and it would only add to the presentation.
Good blog.

# 4 stlstudios189 @ Sep 20

I am a stat freak give me anything possible.

# 5 rudeworld @ Sep 20

all great ideas...

# 6 Scriptures22 @ Sep 21

I like the idea of doing more with this time. More audio would be nice, or cutscenes of the player who committed the foul or the coach, mouthing to the ref. Regardless, there should be SOMETHING here. Good blog.