Last year, the promise of MyGM mode was met with a dash of ice-cold VC, which all but crippled the mode and made it completely unusable for fans more accustomed to traditional single player franchise management experiences.

If your memory is foggy, just remember you had to pay VC in order to change your lineup — it was truly a hot mess.

Fast forward one year, and not only has MyGM shed the shackles of virtual currency from its mode (mostly), it has also improved and delivered one of the most compelling single player franchise management experiences available in any sports game, text-simulation or otherwise.

The first thing you will notice about MyGM is that the menus are laid out in a much more logical manner — really NBA 2K15 as a whole took a galactic leap forward in that regards this year. Finding what you want is really simple once you figure out everything that there is, which is going to be a problem initially because theres…just…so….much.

 

 

Managing Your Roster

The heart and soul of any basketball franchise are the players on the roster, in MyGM’s case that’s 13 regular players and two reserve players. Each player comes with a different personality which ranges from cocky, to laid back, to hard working, to a sloth.

Balancing each set of personalities on the team is a challenge, as you will find yourself having players come to you complaining (separately) that practices are both too hard and too easy. Say the wrong thing to your star at the wrong time, and their morale may crash and they may decide they’re leaving when they get a chance.

Trying to balance egos on your team, especially if you have two superstars, could mean there’s a situation where one player or the other is going to get extremely upset with you. You have to balance minutes, practice time, rest days, progressive season fatigue, and more in order to keep your players happy, healthy, and performing well.

Managing the OKC Thunder, I found my players getting rather tired pretty quickly with a heavy practice load while also running an 8-man rotation. I actually had to resort to running a 12-man rotation with a very light practice load for a couple of weeks to keep the fatigue from getting out of hand. Simply put, there’s so many different ways you can choose to build a team with so many possible outcomes. In the end, it’s up to you and your imagination on how your NBA Story will unfold.

You Also Have a Staff

It’s not just the players you have to worry about, but also the staff. Your coach and yourself have a rapport with each other, and you’ll have to choose to praise the coach or let him know he’s not getting the job done quite often in order to keep him in line. Considering each coach brings a specific style into the franchise, you’ll have to surround each coach with players that’ll fit his system as much as you’ll have to find a coach who fits the player personalities on your team.

I’m not sure how much it matters yet, as I haven’t played enough to find out — but your team Chemistry rating suffers if you blow up your roster or move a coach in and out. Simply put, you have to figure out a way to keep your franchise cohesiveness together through thick and thin. Everyone from the trainer, to your assistant GM, to your coaches all must be accounted for.

Welcome to life managing an NBA team.

 

Negotiating Money

 

Really, I have had negotiations which were easy and some which were quite difficult. I always offer under a players initial offer (unless that player is Kevin Durant), which typically works out. But in the ten or so contract negotiations I've done, there have been two attempts to sign players which just ended sour.

 

I'm going to have more on the financial aspects of MyGM soon, but the contract negotiations part is definitely well done on the surface.

 

 

Final Thoughts on The Roster Management

Thus far, managing the personalities and balancing players wants and needs has shown itself to be a challenge. In the different MyGM modes I’ve ran, it’s been a challenge to keep everyone happy as sometimes players will ask for incompatible things. I’ve had players mad about lack of minutes when there was no time in the rotation for them. I’ve had players mad about practices being too hard and others thinking they were too easy at the same time.

I’ll get into the rest of this incredibly deep mode in later articles, but for now — the early returns on MyGM are that it’s a must play for franchise mode aficionados. If you didn't give last year's mode a shot (understandably so), then prepare to play something new, fresh, and entirely interesting.