With 2K23 looming around, I've thought about releasing this thing I've been working on in my spare time. Been chipping away at this for about a few months. When I was still playing 2K22 a few months back, I had a blast playing MyNBA with retro draft classes (made by other users of course, not the crappy 2K defaults) where I in true Hinkie and Presti fashion, stockpiled on picks and ended up with a team of Olajuwon, Stockton, Rodman and Dumars on the same team. In an older 2K game, I had massive fun having Bird and Magic on the same team.
With 2K23’s new features involving past eras (which I will be sinking a lot of my time into), as much as it's a huge step forward, it's going to be expected there will be a lot of missing players. Particularly some legends and bench players or even existing players will have inaccurate signatures. Instead it will likely be filled with hideous random 2K generated players and just make the experience a little sour.
This project should serve as a guide so anything here shouldn't be the end-all-be-all. Hopefully this can be used not only for this game but maybe for future games so those looking for a deeper experience with the game have something to refer to when editing. I used my draft class sheets from this retro roster I helped out with in 2K19/2K20 (forgot which one) for 1992-1997 as base.
I present to you the NBA Draft Class Compendium!
*This project is still very much incomplete with plenty of holes to fill, and with a new game coming in, the badges will also have to be changed. For now, I only have the 90s I'm working on. Debating on if I should extend to the 2000s or go back until 1984. But I'll see how I go.
Things you’ll find on the sheets:
- Now this took quite a lot to do since most of it was manually inputting vitals straight off of Basketball Reference. I based potential on their draft position but to those who were more familiar to what their perception/potential was prior to their drafts feel free to let me know so I can change/adjust. With Bust, Avg and Boom numbers, you can make the numbers random or just put 50 in those if you prefer player development to be less predictable.
- Attributes and Tendencies
- Credits to Sonicmage, skoadam and Hawk23. Some are personal edits sprinkled in.
- Very difficult to edit. Especially since I don’t know most of these players and haven’t watched enough basketball games with them in it, it's hard to pin down on what badges they may have. Footage is also difficult to come by, especially for older games so if people can help out with this aspect I would highly appreciate it.
- I had a particular focus on lesser known players for signatures. Tried my best to edit them using a combination of watching full games and highlights or others’ edits (credits given). I’ve added sources to pretty much all my edits. Any help in this regard is also appreciated (with sources).
- Not available in all draft classes as it is from Sonicmage’s edits.