With 29 years of basketball experience on and off the court, Levy presents a blog for lifelong basketball fans and serious NBA 2K11 gamers including complete modded seasons to help improve your gaming experience on PC
Can you remember the day NBA2K11 came out and you tried to play it but it got you all frustrated because of the lame default settings? What about all those weeks and months you tried to change the game sliders to avoid all the bugs the game has?
Long story short, to me the original NBA2K11 wasn't playable at all. But now I managed to make the proper adjustments to the gameplay, added a few dozen of players with all their attributes made realistic so there you have it: a brand new realistic game. And not just one season but two: 2010-2011 and 2011-2012! Which comes to the payment. Unlike before, you will get two DLCs for the price of one. :) The Roster files which are 100% my work and basically load the mods are available in exchange for a $10 fee (lunch price in Europe) via PayPal.
Place your order ASAP as I plan on moving to another continent (again). I can still process PayPal payments not later than this month (May 2018). Thanks!
There are many great things to say about the whole league and the way it progressed over a few months of simulation. Obviously I played ALL my Phoenix games in this awesome Coach Mode - which makes the game look like a “general manager” basketball sim game. Why nobody really played it like this? I will tell you why. Because if you don’t have the right Roster file with properly and realistically created players plus a well adjusted lineup, trust me it won’t work too well.
As you know, my game uses real contracts and real ratings based on 36 minutes per game stats. Basically you can see some of the greats at work in your virtual reality game. I remind you, I am WATCHING my game as a coach, NOT PLAYING as a player. Seeing Kevin Johnson dunking over Hakeem in one of the recent PHX vs. HOU games this season made my heart skip a beat. It reminded me of that great dunk in the real NBA in 1994 that embarrassed Kenny Smith for playing bad defense on KJ and really upset Hakeem.
THE TRADES
What I liked most about the league was the way it handled the trades. I mean they looked REALISTIC like I have never seen before in any of those 2K12, 2K14 and the rest of the horrible future instalments of the NBA 2K that kids buy these days.
Let me give you some examples of trades the CPU teams did this season before the trade deadline. A few teams simply started signing the free agents available on the market. LAL signed GF-Dontonio Wingfield for 1 year/2.14M then they traded him to WAS for G-Lawrence Moten and a 2nd round pick; GSW signed G-Vernon Maxwell for 1 year/2.18M; HOU signed C-Loren Meyer for 1 year/2.34M; SAC signed G-Lloyd Daniels.
HOU was involved in most of the trades. They sent PG-Matt Maloney and PG-Brent Price to DET in exchange for PG-Joe Dumars and FC-Rick Mahorn. A few days later, DET traded PF-Grant Long for PG-Randy Livingston (ATL). Hawks also traded FC-Alan Henderson and a 2nd round pick for G-Tim Legler from WAS. Then SF-Eddie Johnson for PG-Terry Porter (MIN). They also wanted desperately Big Ghita who is my starting center and whom I signed earlier this season. He is having a double-double with PHX.
LAC had its own good deal of trades. They gave away a 1st round pick for G-Bob Sura and PF-Danny Ferry from CLE, and then later traded PG-Pooh Richardson and C-Stojko Vrankovic for PG-Mark Jackson (IND). After that, SG-Brent Barry went to HOU for C-Loren Meyer and F-Rodrick Rhodes. And F-Rodney Rogers went to (an imaginary but foreseeable in the future) Bobcats team for centers John Amaechi and Amal McCaskill.
CLE made a historical trade acquiring PG-John Stockton from UTH in exchange for F-Carl Thomas and PF-Cedric Henderson. Then they traded three pointer specialist SG-Wesley Person for PF-Lawrence Funderburke and G-Lloyd Daniels (SAC).
DEN traded F-Laphonso Ellis to GSW for G-Vernon Maxwell and C-Felton Spencer.
NJN traded two guards, Kerry Kittles and Kevin Edwards to LAL for PG-Derek Fisher.
NYK traded two of its guards, John Starks and Chris Mills for SG-Hubert Davis and PF-A.C. Green (DAL). And then PF-Charles Oakley and a 1st round pick for PG-Terrell Brandon (MIL). They also made a shocking trade in giving away the heart of their franchise, C-Patrick Ewing for PG-Ron Harper and a 2nd round pick (CHI). CHI also traded PG-Steve Kerr to IND for C-Mark West.
POR gave away their PG-Kenny Anderson for a 1st round pick and C-Derrick Coleman (PHI). They also traded C-Arvydas Sabonis for C-Dean Garrett and SF-Eric Williams (DEN). And later SG-Isiah Rider went to SAS for SF-Monty Williams.
SAC traded two of its aces: shooting extraordinaire PG-Abdul Rauf for PG-Tyus Edney and PF-Roy Rogers (BOS), then SG-Mitch Richmond for one of the best rebounders in the league in PF-Carlos Rogers (TOR). Later TOR sent GF-Walt Williams to WAS for PG-Rod Strickland and PG-God Shammgod. WAS also acquired guards Bimbo Coles and Brian Shaw from GSW.
SEA gave away all-around player F-Detlef Schrempf for PF-Terry Cummings and a 1st round pick (PHI). They also get rid of the bad mouth of PG-Gary Payton a 1st round pick and PG-Michael Williams from MIN which surprisingly traded F-Kevin Garnett to VAN Grizzlies for a player in a hot shape by the name of Shareef Abdur-Rahim.
THE INJURIES
Some of the NBA teams were less fortunate this season because of injuries. Some of those happened early in the season as well. I remember ATL losing PG-Mookie Blaylock one or two weeks into the season… Then VAN Grizzlies losing their starting PG-Lee Mayberry. Next was TOR Raptors losing C-Marcus Camby. FOR THE SEASON!
The other teams and their players were luckier. They usually missed 1 or 2 weeks, in some case a month or two (Rodman was one of them but CHI still won during his absence).
I strongly believe some of these injuries influenced the way the teams played this season and their win-loss ratio. This is perfectly REALISTIC!
This season coming to a close, I decided to reduce the effect of injury so from now on my sliders have Injury Frequency at 5 and Injury Severity at 0. Players still get injured quite badly sometimes. It might be a 2K bug like many others…
(A 2K11 Association Mode based on
Levy’s 1997-98 DLC and future updates)
THE TEAM
Every
franchise needs a few great players so I decided to get my hands on the big
guns especially since my team lost more games than it won.
The first
addition to the team was PG-Brook Thompson who is an average player but a much
needed backup point guard whom I assumed I could use later if one of my main
guards gets injured. He was signed as a free agent for 1 year at 1.96
million/year with the player’s option in the 2nd year. I am at the middle of
the season when I post this and B. Thompson didn’t do much except playing a few
minutes per game as a substitute in the fourth quarter when the team was
already losing. Later in the season, I traded him along with C-Charles Jones
(whom I acquired from Houston) for a 1998 2nd round pick and G-Vinny
Del Negro who was on San Antonio’s trade list.
Most of the
trades I’ve done were offered by the teams controlled by the CPU. I never
forced any trade on the CPU teams in order to keep the realism level high in my
game. As a lifelong Suns fan, I wanted to stay loyal to the real life Phoenix
Suns but some of these offers were too good to be refused. On 26/11 Milwaukee
offered me Ray Allen in exchange for FC-Antonio McDyess and a 2nd
round pick. At that time my starting SG (Rex Chapman wasn’t doing great), so I
took the offer. Who wouldn’t want a pure shooter on his roster?
The next trade offered to me was on
the 16/12 by the Houston Rockets who wanted a young guard-forward desperately
so they offered me PF-Charles Barkely and FC-Charles Jones for GF-Marko Milic
and my other starting power forward and really great FC-Danny Manning. I was
sad to see Manning leave but couldn’t resist to the idea of a “back to the
future” Phoenix Suns from 1993. I already had PG-Kevin Johnson and SF-Cedric
Ceballos on my roster so Chuck was the missing link, right? Or was it
Majerle…because the next thing I did on 14/1 was to trade SG-Rex Chapman back
to where he came from, the Heat, for none else than GF-Dan Majerle. Now my team
was about to bring back some sweet memories with Danny Ainge as coach who also
played in the 1993 NBA Finals against Chicago.
Another
trade I made was very subjective. My favourite Suns player of all time, Steve
Nash wasn’t very happy as the 3rd point guard behind Jason Kidd and
KJ so…I decided to part ways with my starter PG-Jason Kidd in exchange for a
player I always admired on and off the court, FC-Brian Williams aka Bison Dele from
Detroit Pistons who in real life died in mysterious circumstances in Tahiti
being probably killed by his money hungry brother – which was really a modern
Cain & Abel story.
And one last
notable acquisition was signing a giant who was a novelty in the NBA at the
middle of the 90s, the tallest player at 7’7’’ C-Gheorghe Muresan who in
reality was born not far from where I was born. He fit in perfectly and started
to dominate the boards and collect game MVPs one after another.
There were a
few minor injuries happening to my players this season: Marko Milic, John
Williams, Horacio Llamas-Grey, Chapman, Thompson, Ray Allen were all on the
injured list for 1-2 weeks. During SG-Ray Allen’s two weeks injury, my team had
the longest winning streak (8!) which can hardly make sense. Ray-Ray is my 3rd
best scorer and my team owes him the recovery at the beginning of the season.
But while he was out, other players stepped up.
(A 2K11 Association Mode based on Levy’s 1997-98 DLC and future updates)
We all remember the 2006 NBA Live basketball PC game which came out in the autumn of 2005. That’s when I played a ‘dynasty mode’ last time. So this year it’s been exactly 12 years since then! All this time I craved for a decent game to exercise my itchy fingers to play something similar – and that is happening NOW with NBA 2K11, still the best basketball videogame up to day. ;)
I remember I liked the NBA Live series by EA Sports but they were missing some visual aspects that nowadays the market is oversaturated with. Unfortunately the NBA 2K series has taken a step back starting with NBA 2K12…which is why I enjoy using 2K11 and have modded the shit out of it too. :)) If you followed my work on the infamous NLSC website and Moddingway, you know I am talking volume here. :)
So let’s get going with what seems to me to be the biggest NBA gaming experience so far over the last 20+ years (I started playing basketball videogames in the late 90s).
I am huge Phoenix Suns fan since I watched the Suns playing for the first time in 1991-1992 and then of course my basketball world was shaken in 1993 when Barkley & Co. lost to the UnstopaBulls following an injury of Cedric Ceballos who was a starter and possibly a Scottie Pippen stopper. Therefore I always chose Phoenix when playing NBA games no matter if it was on PlayStation 1 or 2 or PSP or PC.
This year I thought of trying something new. I got tired of screwing around with the controller settings because the game always evolves. Actually the game is a code and it doesn’t evolve only adapts to us. The gamers evolve by becoming better at controlling the players in the game. That means we end up changing the game settings and sliders every now and then to make it more challenging. Well, you might like to do that every second week but I got bored of it!
Another aspect of basketball I like is coaching and managing. I did that in real life for a short time too. Because there is NO decent basketball manager game on the market although I tried pretty much all of them, I decided to try the Coach Mode in NBA 2K11 (which stupidly enough doesn’t exist in the newer instalments of NBA 2K!). And this is when the biggest surprise happened. With all the adjustments to the gameplay and the realistic player attributes I made over the years, with this mode on the game looks completely different. It is so good that beats the real NBA games on TV nowadays. You should try it sometimes but don’t forget to use my DLCs if you want realistic results! :)
Enough said. I will dedicate the following pages to write about the evolution of my Phoenix Dynasty game. And I will start by saying I was so busy having fun with it that I didn’t have time to even write about it. I only saved some in-game print screens and kept some important moments from several games I managed this first season.
The starting year is 1997 to be exact which was a great time to watch NBA as opposed to what is going on these days. Of course the whole 90s decade was dominated by Chicago with the exception of 1994 and 1995 when Michael Jordan decided to focus on his personal life and Houston had a great champion calibre team which brought them two trophies in a row.
Before I go any further, I have to share some tips with you about the game settings so you understand why things happen the way they happen in my game.
The general rule if you want my DLC to work is let the game handle the player skills I adjusted with REDeditor. As you might know, I used some formulas to insert realistic values in the Roster file based on real NBA stats taken from Basketball Reference website. I used the 36 minutes factor – that’s why we got high values for players who maybe never had the chance to play many minutes in real life but their skills are absolutely impressive. An example on the Suns is Horacio Llamas-Grey who’s rating is 80(!) but…his stamina and durability are extremely low. That means he will score and rebound at will if you let him unguarded but will play only a few minutes before being substituted for another player who’s durability is higher. And believe it or not, that is all realistic!
Oh, and players will get injured too based on those attributes! This is how I lost a couple of players on my roster to minor injuries this season for example John “Hot Rod” Williams who was at that time the starting center. But that opened my franchise to a new level because I started trading players. I will get into that soon.
Now, if you want to see realism in your – alas, simulated game – you will have to use my settings and sliders along with the “universal” Coach Profile (they all come set up and delivered by email if you ordered any of my DLCs). You can read about them and find them in the How To Play The Game section on my blog.
