Computers - http://maxpages.com/catzmm/NBA_Live

NBA Live 2000 is a major step up from previous versions in both depth of play and complexity. The new franchise mode adds a whole new layer of gameplay. However, just like all EA Sports products you are going to have to go into it with a few things in mind:

NBA Live 2000, just like NHL 2000, is not a hard-core simulation of the sport of professional basketball. It's at its heart an arcade game with simulation elements.

Players still miss lay-ups and dunks far too often and there is really nothing you can do to fix this. In fact, dunks have a tendency to be blocked, so don't start throwing gamepads when Rik Smits stuffs Shaq.

Lamar Odom's 5-year development chart. This guy is awesome

There is no way to zig-zag (or snake) a draft in NBA Live 2000. This really hurts the effect of a redrafted league because if you are unlucky enough to draft 29th, you are virtually screwed.

There is also no way to change ownership of a team once you have started a franchise or season. So make sure that you are satisfied with your league before you start. If a friend wants to join after you are a month into the season, he too is screwed. This also puts a damper on our idea from NHL 2000 where we drafted for each team. And it is a problem in NBA Live 2000 because the computer, when redrafting leagues, will completely ignore player age. If you were the General Manager of the Celtics, would you draft Karl Malone in the first round? I know I wouldn't.

There is no way to check player information when a computer initiates a trade. My best advice is to simply know the league before you start and to keep a list of new rookies on hand just so you know what they look like if the computer offers them in a deal.

Antoine Walker's chart isn't quite as electrifying
With these quirks in mind, there is still a lot of fun to be had with the game. Let's start with the new franchise options.

Building a Dynasty
The first thing you need to do is read the 3,000-word franchise document that is located in the NBA Live 2000 root directory. This mammoth help file was written to aid you in running your new franchise. Here are a few select items from the document:

"Solid veteran Free Agents near the end of their careers can sometimes be found for Minimum Points over 1 or 2 year contracts. They can be that final piece of your championship puzzle, and can still get valuable minutes off the bench."

The rookie draft can produce sleeper picks. Check out the Point Guard on the All-Rookie team. He was drafted 55th!
This is key. This is also especially true if your team almost made it to the finals or managed to win the title. A key free agent is more likely to sign a short-term (and cheap) deal with a contender. One example in our league was Glen Rice. The Suns had just won the title and Rice became a free agent in the off-season. Rice flat out refused to sign with any team except Phoenix. And Rice signed a one-year deal for the league minimum! It's good to be the king.

"Depending on the depth of the Rookie Draft, it is sometimes a wise idea to Forfeit a pick if you feel that your team cannot or should not commit to a guaranteed contract for an unproven rookie."

Do not take this lightly. You are not obliged to use both of your picks in the rookie draft. If you have the 20th pick in the draft, chances are that by the time the second round rolls around, the pickings will be very slim. It's a waste of cash and a waste of roster space to draft a rookie that has zero potential. Anyway, there are a lot of tips and strategies in the document, so be sure to give it a read.

Did you know?
The scouting report is crucial in drafting rookies. The strengths and weaknesses hint at what the player's ratings will look like
You can move the Legends off of their "All Time" teams and onto any team roster that you wish. Go to the Trade Player screen and select a Legend from the Legend Pool and simply trade him to any team you like. However, you must choose a team that has less than 15 players. For Jordan to play on Chicago, for example, you must first move a player off the Bulls roster and on to the Free Agent list. You cannot trade players from the Legends pool. You must move the scrub player to the Free Agent pool first, and then you will have room to include Jordan on the roster. You can also use this method to use the Legends on a redrafted league. Just save the roster and start a draft once you have placed the Legends you want to use on a team's roster.

NBA Live 2000 uses a player "cap" when creating players from scratch. Thus, it is impossible to create a player that is good at everything, you must balance things out a bit simply because you only have a certain number of points with which to work. But there is a way to get around this. There is a program called LiveEd that allows you to edit pretty much everything in NBA Live 2000. You can grab it here: http://www.heidelberg.edu/~trobison/nbalive/liveed/LiveED-Exe.zip

The mid-air pass is a very effective weapon. Here, Iverson pulls up for a three..
There is a file located in the NBA Live 2000 root directory called salary.ini. With this file you can change the settings for the salary cap, minimum salary, maximum salary, the salary ranges as they correspond to player ratings, and other salary related tidbits. So, if you are a true hard-core fan, you can go in and change these settings to reflect the real NBA salary structure. EA Sports was not allowed to create a realistic salary system but this file, once you get the hang of using it, adds a bit of realism to the mix.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was not left off of the Legends rosters simply because EA Sports "forgot" to include the league's all time leading scorer. They were unable to include him for legal reasons. He just wasn't part of the package of Hall of Fame players available for license from the NBA. If you know anything about Kareem, this should not come as a shock.

NBA Live 2000 Questions Answered
..but decides to throw it down low at the last minute
Josh Holmes, Assistant Producer of NBA Live 2000, was nice enough to lend us a helping hand in writing this article. There are a few things that are not mentioned in the game's documentation and instead of merely guessing at what they mean, we thought it a good idea to go to the source.

Q: What is the difference between the Field Goal skill and the Inside Scoring skill? If a player has a low inside skill does that mean he's more likely to miss 5 footers? Or does it have to do with post ability?

A: The Inside Scoring skill represents a player's ability to score in traffic around the basket. So if there is a defender close enough to challenge the shot and is close enough to the basket (say within eight feet) then Inside Scoring is more important than Field Goal shooting. It also affects how the defense reacts to the ball carrier (likelihood of double team, etc.).

Q: Does the game favor any rookies more than others? For example, does the game like Brand more than Odom or is rookie progression random?

Big Daddy Abner finishes off the play by scoring over Shaq. Yeah baby!
A: The way we handle player development is always randomized in certain ways, but it is weighted differently for different players. This ensures that players do not always develop in the same way for each franchise game, but also makes it more likely for certain players to develop as compared to others. We rate each player based on what we feel his potential is for development. For NBA veterans and rookies alike we take into account where the player is in terms of his basketball development potential. Some players have discovered the game late (example: Michael Olawakandi) and have a lot of room for improvement. Others have refined their games to a point where exponential improvement is less likely (example: Tim Duncan). Some players have extraordinary athletic ability that raises their chances for accelerated development (examples: Tracy McGrady, Cory Maggette). For some players development is limited; you are never going to see Cherokee Parks suddenly "blossom" into the Second Coming of Hakeem Olajuwon. And of course development is all tied to player age; the younger a player is, the longer he has to reach his peak and therefore the higher that potential peak may be.

Q: What is the most important factor in drafting rookies? Player progression or overall skill, or is it a mix of both?

The pump-fake is the single most effective way to get past a defender. Here, Jason Williams gets two Knick defenders to jump
A: Well it is really a mixture of both, and it comes down to what your personal team strategy is. If you plan on keeping and developing the player that you draft, it helps to have a decent starting rating (at least a 68) and high development potential. That way he will have a chance of becoming a superstar over time. If you need immediate impact, then skill is obviously more important than potential since you can't afford to wait several years for a player to develop. Also, if you want to find a talented veteran to trade for you will need a rookie with considerable skill to start with, otherwise you won't be able to get much in return. Sheer potential usually isn't enough to attract quality trade offers. If I personally had to pick just one I would say player progression (development potential), simply because if you draft an outstanding rookie who comes into the league at a high level of skill but then deteriorates over time, then he really won't help you at all down the road. However, I tend to be a patient General Manager who looks at the long-term picture; others may disagree with my philosophy.

Q: What does the computer look for when offering and analyzing trades? Is it strictly a matter of player skill? Or will a team try to fill a team need?

A: There are a large number of trade scenarios that the AI will use when evaluating trades. Each scenario has certain rules associated with it, and if the trade makes sense according to those rules and doesn't violate some "cardinal sins" that we have outlined, the computer may accept the trade. Some of the trade scenarios are:

Balancing team depth. This makes sure that the team is two deep at each position and/or upgrading the bench significantly by degrading a starting position.

Improving a starting position by trading away unnecessary depth. If the CPU is really weak at Point Guard but has two studs at Power Forward it may trade one for a similarly talented point guard.

Balancing age. This makes sure that the team has enough youth and veteran leadership; different teams will have different strategies here based on the team's goals.

Dumping contracts. In other words, trying to free up point cap space for use in signing Free Agents by offloading a player with a large contract.

Then it's clear sailing to the hoop for a nifty two points
Some things to keep in mind is that the CPU will almost always accept trades that are deemed to be overwhelmingly in its favor, and will not accept trades to fill needs if it feels it is giving away too much value in return. The CPU also determines player value by looking not only at the rating of the player, but also the value for point ratio. So for instance, it might feel that a player with an overall rating of 78 with a contract of 300,000 per season is worth less than a player rated 74 overall with a contract of 60,000 per season. Also, a losing team is more likely to make trades that are even or in the user's favor than a team that is winning.

Q: Does the Offensive Awareness skill factor into games that you play? I know that this skill equates to the number of shots that a player takes when a game is simulated, but what does this affect when you are controlling a player?

A: It does come into play in some situations in terms of how a player will move without the ball, and how the defense will react to him both with and without the ball.

Q: What general tips do you have for those that are just learning the game?

A: First of all, I suggest using the Call for Pick command to request a screen from a teammate. Wait for the screen to be set before rubbing off your defender. You can then try for the open shot before he recovers, or drive to the hoop, which causes the defense to collapse.

This brings me to another suggestion: penetrate and pass off. If you are able to get by your defender and drive to the hoop you will often find the CPU will bring help defense to prevent the easy lay-up. This usually leaves another player wide open. If you can feed the ball to that player he will have an easy shot, or perhaps even a dunk. This is best accomplished using Direct Pass, so I recommend you master that control if you haven't already.

In our redrafted league, the Suns are a true dynasty
Another tip is to try using mid-air passes. This is a little more risky and can result in turnovers due to bad passes if you attempt this with a player that has a low passing skill. But it can also result in some spectacular plays, and is very effective in confusing the defense, particularly when playing against a human. Basically, go up for a shot, holding down the shoot button, and without releasing the button, press the pass button and a direction to pass the ball off. The cool part about this is that the defenders nearest the shooter almost always jumps to contest the shot once he leaves his feet, so they are up in the air at the time of the pass. If you use this technique after driving to the hoop, you will find you can make some pretty sweet looking passes, and rack up assists in the process.

Another general tip is to rotate the ball when you have lots of time left on the clock. You will find that as you work the ball around the floor, your teammates will run cuts and off-ball screens that will sometimes result in an open look for one of your players. You just have to be quick in anticipating the opening, and are able to feed the ball to that man for the shot before the defense recovers. This is another reason why Direct Pass is so important.

Also, try to penetrate and kick. If you have a hot scorer who is demanding a double team, either pass the ball into him as he posts up, or penetrate with him going towards the basket, then wait for the defense to collapse and bring the double team. Now (before he is stripped by the double team defense), pass the ball out to the open man for a long-range jumper. Remember that for this to be effective, the player shooting the jumper has to be a good shooter and within his range, or else you will just be firing up bricks all game long.

My last comment is just to always make sure that you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your players. Try to always shoot from within a player's shooting range. You may find you have a wide open shot with Alonzo Mourning, but if it is from 19 feet, chances are it won't fall. That might be an obvious an example, but you get my point. If a guy doesn't have a high Inside Scoring rating, don't continue to try to score with him from in close. Know the players you are using and learn their strengths and weaknesses.

Final Thoughts
NBA Live 2000 is a fun game, and while not a hard-core simulation, does provide solid arcade gameplay with a few simulation elements tossed on for good measure. Hopefully these tips will aid you in building a dynasty of which Red Auerbach would be proud.

mmorphon00@yahoo.com

Visitors: 00049

Page Updated Mon Feb 28, 2000 8:25pm EST