This past NBA offseason has been one of the most interesting and exciting to watch as a basketball fan over the last few years. There have been so many huge stories developing throughout the 4 month break including multiple star players being traded. By far one of the biggest stories though was when Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star Kyrie Irving requested to be traded from his team after having made 3 straight NBA finals appearances.
On August 22nd, the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers announced that they were in a deal together to have Irving moved for assets which included Celtics two time All-Star Isaiah Thomas. Over the next few days though, reports started appearing in relation to Thomas’ health, and speculation begun to mount as to whether or not this deal would go through.
Whoops https://t.co/dwja1rN0dL
— NBA 2K 2K18 (@NBA2K) August 22, 2017
Meanwhile over in New York, I was about to attend a preview for NBA 2K18, and although we were advised there would be NBA talent at the event; but not told who – we were all fairly confident we would not be seeing the NBA 2K18 cover athlete Kyrie Irving due to all the news surrounding him. Less than a day before the event was to kick off, it was announced that the Irving-Thomas trade had been officially completed after more assets had been thrown into the mix to sweeten the deal. The very next day I was getting hands on time with NBA 2K18, and selected my favourite team – the Los Angeles Lakers, to go up against their classic rival the Boston Celtics. To my surprise the roster had already been updated, with Irving taking point for his new team wearing the green uniform.
When asking Visual Concepts Senior Producer Ben Bishop about the Irving whirlwind that had been ongoing over the past few days, he had the following to say.
“It’s been really interesting because in some ways it was a little bit scary for us, but in other ways it was kind of cool because nothing like this has ever really happened and it got a lot of people talking about the game which was neat,” Bishop said.
“What we ended up doing is we’ve got a new Celtics cover which will be coming out later. Initially you’re going to be seeing Kyrie on the cover in the Cavaliers uniform, but a little bit down the road you’ll see some Celtics ones coming out. Eventually there will be some of both in circulation. In the end it’s still Kyrie, and Kyrie is his own brand in a way, so the timing was a little bit tricky for us but I think we’ve made the best of it.”
While on the topic of NBA players, I also spoke to Senior Producer Rob Jones about the player rating system, and how passionate some NBA players do get about their rating.
“The thing about it is we are not subjective, it’s mostly on numbers. Things that can affect your rating is how we think you might fit in with a new system, a new coach, or a new team. But for the most part what they see, is what they perform like,” Jones explained.
“The NBA is tracked more than any other sport, so we know exactly what you do, how effective you are at the smallest thing. I know that it might be unpopular, but we are not trying to be unpopular, and prove us wrong with your stats and we’ll adjust it anyway. Nothing is permanent. “
That is all for our NBA 2K18 interview coverage. If you missed past articles, they are detailed below:
- NBA 2K18: Visual Concepts on improving MyCareer
- NBA 2K18: San Antonio Spurs’ Danny Green on 2K18 and the NBA in Australia
- NBA 2K18: Visual Concepts on The Neighborhood, its new open world
NBA 2K18 is out now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Nintendo Switch releases mid October.
Stevivor was flown to New York to preview NBA 2K18 as a guest of 2K Games.
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