2K17 Classic Teams post-mortem... What's your historic wish list for 2K18?

[daveberg]

I think the term should be 'retro' teams.

Folk asking for squads that were only playing no little than a few years ago - would hardly class them as 'classic', especially seeing as they can be created in game as a large portion of the players are still active in the league as opposed to teams from the 80's & 90's.

Same situation with 2k putting in the big 3 Heat - that team could've been created by anyone in game, the entire roster was available, that slot could've gone to a proper 'retro' team instead.

Not saying my picks for teams are more important than others, just that 'retro' teams should be just that - teams from past eras, not ones from just 3 or 4 years ago that for the most part, can easily be replicated.

[antdoggydogg]

Thanks for making this thread. I'm a huge NBA history buff. I have a hunch that classic teams will be released as DLC moving forward, since they already announced that they'll be doing this with college teams. So I wouldn't be surprised to see them release a few historic NBA teams this year.

I have a lot of opinions on classic teams. First off, let's check out a breakdown of how many teams from each decade are in the game:

1950s Teams: 0
1960s Teams: 2
1970s Teams: 6
1980s Teams: 8
1990s Teams: 17
2000s Teams: 12
2010s Teams: 1

My thought process moving forward is to try and even out those decades a little more. I have two lists, one list of teams I'd like to see get added, and another list of teams I think should be removed. I would love to see any of the teams that have been mentioned in this thread. The more the merrier. This is just my own personal list of teams I'd like to see.

I tried to make this as convenient as possible for 2K by mostly choosing teams that have players that 2K already has the license to use in MyTeam, such as Tiny Archibald, Ralph Sampson, etc. I think the biggest pet peeve for a lot of us is that we don't have any access to some of these legends in any of the other game modes. And I also tried to keep the number of players on each team down to a bare minimum so that they don't have to go looking for 15 licenses for each team. Here is a list of teams I'd like to see (Players that don't currently exist are marked as "new"):

1958-59 Celtics - The problem with the 50's is theres no point in including pre-shot clock era teams. So it would have to be teams from the shot clock-era which is 1954-55 and on. This is the only 50's team I really want to see, give us access to Bob Cousy. How do we only have 1 version of a Celtics dynasty that won 11 rings?
PG - Bob Cousy
SG - Bill Sharman (New)
SF - Jim Loscutoff (New)
PF - Tom Heinsohn
C - Bill Russell
BENCH - Frank Ramsey (New)
BENCH - Sam Jones
BENCH - KC Jones

1960-61 Hawks - This one isn't a necessity and I can see it being hard to get the rights to all these new players, but it would be nice to have more teams from this era.
PG - Johnny McCarthy (New)
SG - Si Green (New)
SF - Cliff Hagan (New)
PF - Bob Pettit
C - Clyde Lovelette (New)
BENCH - Lenny Wilkens
BENCH - Woody Sauldsberry (New)
BENCH - Al Ferrari (New)

1966-67 76ers - I wanna make a strong push for this one, because how do we not have a younger version of Wilt Chamberlain in this game? All we have is the older Lakers version. I wanna see the young Stilt that was an all-world athlete and dominated his teams possessions on offense.
PG - Wali Jones (New)
SG - Hal Greer (New)
SF - Chet Walker (New)
PF - Luke Jackson (New)
C - Wilt Chamberlain
BENCH - Billy Cunningham
BENCH - Al Bianchi (New)

1973-74 Celtics - Championship squad led by Havlicek and Cowens. You realize that a franchise that has 17 championships only has 3 classic teams in the game currently?
PG - Jo Jo White (New)
SG - Don Chaney (New)
SF - John Havlicek
PF - Paul Silas (New)
C - Dave Cowens
BENCH - Don Nelson
BENCH - Paul Westphal (New)

1974-75 Warriors - We should revisit some more historic Warrior's teams as they're pretty relevant now. This championship team starring Rick Barry would be a great addition:
PG - Charles Johnson (New)
SG - Butch Beard (New)
SF - Rick Barry
PF - Jamaal Wilkes
C - Clifford Ray (New)
BENCH - Derrek Dickey (New)
BENCH - George Johnson (New)
BENCH - Phil Smith (New)
BENCH - Bill Bridges

1974-75 Bullets - It would be cool to have this big man duo of the Big "E" Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld.
PG - Kevin Porter (New)
SG - Phil Chenier (New)
SF - Mike Riordan (New)
PF - Elvin Hayes
C - Wes Unseld
BENCH - Jimmy Jones (New)
BENCH - Nick Weatherspoon (New)

1976-77 Trailblazers - Classic Trailblazers championship team.
PG - Lionel Hollins (New)
SG - Dave Twardzik (New)
SF - Bob Gross (New)
PF - Maurice Lucas (New)
C - Bill Walton
BENCH - Larry Steele (New)
BENCH - Herm Gilliam (New)
BENCH - Johnny Davis (New)

1979-80 Celtics - This gives us access to Tiny Archibald. It wasn't his best statistical year, but his best years were on teams that went nowhere. So it would be nice to see him in a winning situation. This was also Larry Bird's Rookie year. We have two Magic Johnson teams, but only one Bird team, so why not even that out.
PG - Tiny Archibald
SG - Chris Ford (New)
SF - Larry Bird
PF - Cedric Maxwell (New)
C - Dave Cowens
BENCH - M.L. Carr (New)
BENCH - Rick Robey (New)
BENCH - Gerald Henderson (New)
BENCH - Pete Maravich

1985-86 Rockets - This gives us access to Ralph Sampson! I would love to see this front court pairing of Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson. It would be fun playing with or against this team.
PG - John Lucas (New)
SG - Lewis Lloyd (New)
SF - Rodney McCray (New)
PF - Hakeem Olajuwon
C - Ralph Sampson
BENCH - Robert Reid (New)
BENCH - Allen Leavell (New)

1992-93 Suns - Obviously this one is a long shot. It's been mentioned many times before by everyone else so I won't bother listing the team members since only one matters if they were to make this roster. I'm not really sure what it's going to take to get Barkley into this game. His asking price might be too high at this point.

1994-95 Rockets - Similar to the team that's already in the game, but it would be great to have the Hakeem + Clyde Drexler pairing.

1999-2000 Pacers - I know Kstat mentioned the 1998 team, but personally I'd like to see the 2000 team that features Jalen Rose a little bit more.

2001-2002 Kings - Similar to the Barkley situation. This team was in the game before but its useless until they get Webber's rights.

2004-2005 Spurs - Kstat mentioned this. I totally would love to see this team with Robert Horry.

2009-10 Lakers - The revenge team that beat the Celtics. We definitely need a team from Kobe's second championship run and I'm a little surprised this team wasn't included this year given that 2K17 is basically dedicated to Kobe.
PG - Derek Fisher (New)
SG - Kobe Bryant
SF - Metta World Peace
PF - Pau Gasol
C - Andrew Bynum
BENCH - Lamar Odom (New)
BENCH - Jordan Farmar
BENCH - Sasha Vujacic
BENCH - Shannon Brown

2010-11 Mavericks - Great team filled with big names and it gives us access to Jason Kidd, even though he's an old man here. I think pretty much all the players are currently in the game in some form or another.

2013-14 Spurs - Still the "purest" brand of basketball I have ever seen played. I think pretty much the whole roster is under license as well.

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I also think the classic team selection can be cleaned up a little bit. There are too many "duplicates" or similar versions of the same teams. So for whatever reason, if the issue is they need to remove some teams in order to add new ones, here are teams that I think can be erased/replaced, but again, if they decide to release teams as DLC, this section doesn't matter:

1971-72 Lakers - They're missing key players, and there is already a younger version of this teams core in the 1970-71 version. It seems a little redundant having both of these teams, so let's just go with the younger version.

1984-85 76ers - Looks like 2K already removed them from the game. Which I was going to suggest, since not having Barkley on this roster is a huge loss and we already have a younger version of Dr. J in the 1977 roster. The only downside to removing this team is we lose Moses Malone. So why not just replace this team with the 1982-83 championship team. Which includes Moses, Dr. J, Mo Cheeks, Andrew Toney, Bobby Jones, Clint Richardson, and Clemon Johnson and Marc Iavoroni. Most of these guys exist on the 85 team anyway.

1985-86 / 1988-89 Bulls - I'm probably going to catch a lot of flak from the Jordan fans, even though I'm as big of a Jordan fan as anyone else but we currently have an abundance of Bulls teams, 6 in total. I understand the need to have a version of Jordan at each stage of his career, and a young Jordan is a must. But can we keep just one of these 80s teams? The 86 Team sucks so I would keep the 89 Bulls just cause Pippen is also on that roster.

1992-93 Bulls - Not that much different from the 1990-91 Bulls. Why not just have the younger version, it's not like we can match this team up with the 93 Suns. However if Barkley gets added to the game at some point I'd probably change my mind about this.

1997-98 Bulls - The best version of this core is in the 1995-96 team, this version is much older, and seems to only be in the game to match-up against the 98 Jazz. But given the fact that Byron Russell isn't even on those teams, its not like its an accurate matchup anyway.

1997-98 Lakers - There is now a better version of this team in the 01 Lakers. Kobe isn't Kobe yet, Fisher isn't even in the game. No point in having 2 incomplete Shaqobe teams, let's just have the better version.

1999-2000 Trailblazers - No Rasheed. Not much else to say here. Can't have classic teams that are missing one of the top 3 players on the roster.

2003-2004 Pistons - I'm hesitate to remove this one. Just cause its such a classic team and they have all the key players except for Rasheed. I would prefer that they just keep this team and add Rasheed. Please let's just get Rasheed in this game.

Here is what my count total would look like after these changes:
1950s Teams: 1
1960s Teams: 4
1970s Teams: 9
1980s Teams: 9
1990s Teams: 16
2000s Teams: 14
2010s Teams: 4

The decades are a little bit more balanced, over time maybe we can build these collections up more. The NBA has a rich history and it would be great to one day have a great library of these teams.

Here is another breakdown showing how many historic teams would exist for each Franchise after the changes I mentioned above:

Celtics - 6 ('58-'59, '64-'65, '73-'74, '79-'80, '85-'86, '07-'08)
Lakers - 6 ('64'-'65, '70-'71, '86-'87, '90-'91, '00-'01, '09-'10)
76ers - 4 ('66-'67, '76-'77, '82-'83, '00-'01)
Rockets - 4 ('85-'86, '93-'94, '94-'95, '07-'08)
Bulls - 3 ('88-'89, '90-'91, '95-'96)
Trailblazers - 3 ('76-'77, '90-'91, '99-'00)
Hawks - 3 ('60-'61, '70-'71, '85-'86)
Spurs - 3 ('97-'98, '04-'05, '13-'14)
Knicks - 2 ('71-'72, '94-'95)
Pistons - 2 ('88-'89, '03-'04)
Bucks - 2 ('70-'71, '84-'85)
Cavs - 2 ('89-'90, '06-'07)
Warriors - 2 ('74-'75, '90-'91)
Mavericks - 2 ('02-'03, '10-'11)
Suns - 2 ('92-'93, '04-'05)
Heat - 2 ('05-'06, '12-'13)
Hornets - 1 ('92-'93)
Nuggets - 1 ('93-'94)
Magic - 1 ('94-'95)
SuperSonics - 1 ('95-'96)
Jazz - 1 ('95-'96)
Raptors - 1 ('99-'00)
Timberwolves - 1 ('03-'04)
Bullets/Wizards - 1 ('74-'75)
Pacers - 1 ('99-'00)
Kings - 1 ('01-'02)

[Dangerous10K]

They need to add the paul westhead 79-80 Lakers and the 90-91 Nuggets (90 Nuggets mainly for playbook purposes) And with the 79-80 Lakers ya get young Magic etc

Sent from my LG-H631 using Tapatalk

[Kstat]

FYI: Rodney McCray is in the game already on the 93 bulls.

The 93 bulls and 72 lakers should be superior versions of the 71 lakers and 91 bulls, respectively. It's a shame the 72 Lakers are missing Happy Hariston. They won 33 in a row and should be better represented. The 93 Bulls had superior versions of every 91 player except Paxton and Cartright. When in doubt take the better Jordan/Pippen.

I disagree that the 98 Lakers are redundant. You get NVE and Eddie Jones, two really good players in their prime. They play very differently than the 01 team. If anything the 01 team needs to be removed for 00 to add Glen Rice. It's a way more fun group on paper.

The 1981 Celtics would be much more appealing than the 1980 version as well. Yes you lose out on Cowens but you get to use Parish and McHale and you still retain Tiny Archibald.

The 1978 champion Bullets are probably more appealing than 1975 because you get to use Bob Dandrige instead of their crappy 1975 perimeter guys.

00 pacers vs. the 98 pacers to me comes down to options. 98 version you get the last good version of Mullin, plus you can use Antonio Davis instead of 00 where you'd have to add Jonathan Bender instead. Lesser version of Rose in 98 yes but you get better versions of practically everyone else (all-star Smits is the biggest draw).

I think the goal here should be to push teams that have appeal. Lesser knowns are fine but we should be aiming for teams with as many "fun" guys as possible. On that end I like the 97 rockets to the 95 version because of Barkley in addition to Clyde/Hakeem.

The 93 Nets are a great example. Ultimately mediocre team but featured three all star caliber guys in Comeman, Anderson and Petrovic. They'd be a popular historic addition.

[Kstat]

How about the 1990 Knicks? Ewing's best season on a fun up tempo team:

Patrick Ewing
Charles Oakley
Johnny Newman
Gerald Wilkins
Maurice Cheeks
Kiki Vandeweghe
Trent Tucker
Kenny walker

5 of those 8 guys are already in the game.

[Wolf Ticket]

Any Wizards team with Gilbert Arenas.

[Kstat]

I think the NBA wants no connection with Gilbert Arenas ever again. He's burned that bridge to the ground. Also Gilbert could be in jail for fraud soon and I don't think 2K wants any part of him either.

I'd love the 05 Wizards but fact is Gilbert Arenas has made that impossible.

[alecast]

1992 Jazz:

Mark Eaton
Karl Malone
Blue Edwards
Jeff Malone
John Stockton
Thrul Bailey

That is a very nice six piece team, plus one of the most beautiful courts ever.