In Honor of NBA Live 1995
Cedric + Cliff + Harold Miner
For Christmas, I got an Amazon Fire tablet, and it’s an upgrade over my 3-year old iPad because I don’t know how to do iPad updates. I put two games on there. One was Sonic the Hedgehog and the other was NBA Live. I know NBA Live has been surpassed by NBA2K but it was free on the app store and whatever I’m nostalgic from the 90s. Because the only video game I’ve ever played consistently is NBA Live. I’ve had 2001, 2003, 2005, 2011, I don’t know why I always bought the odd years. But the one that reigns supreme? NBA LIVE 1995.
Get this straight — I played this on a computer. Yes, a computer in the unheated converted garage at my parent’s house. All I know is that I pounded the arrow keys, a lot. Like you never grow past the music of your formative years, I’m not sure how I can get past this game.
My fav player at the time was Cedric Ceballos. Yes, Cedric Ceballos was my favorite player. He won the Slam Dunk Contest before coming over to the Lakers, but still he did this:
Huge fan of the Nick Van Exel, Eddie Jones, Vlade Divac and Cedric Ceballos teams. You know, post-Magic, before Kobe. That’s the sweet spot.
Not to brag, but I’ll brag: I was way ahead of my time with lineups. Like me and Don Nelson are surfing the same waves. My best teams only featured small forwards. Not only Cedric, but Detlef Shrempf, Clifford Robinson, Scottie Pippen, Grant Hill. There’s no way that team is getting beat.
And it’s true. I never got beat (I don’t think, but I did). I don’t even think this computer program from EA Sports could believe what I was doing so the only thing they could do was make Hakeem, David Robinson, Karl Malone and Shaq so good they would dunk every time on Clifford Robinson, my defacto center, who was Karl Anthony Towns before people knew what to do with Karl Anthony Towns. Yes, here’s the requisite grainy clip:
Here’s a better shot of my boy Cliff:
LOOK AT THOSE FIERY CLAW MARKS!
That’s the type of passion I looked for when constructing my All Small Forward NBA LIVE teams.
Really, NBA LIVE 1995 was such a bridge between worlds. I mean you had Shaq, but then you also had the old-school guys like Stockton and Barkley and Drexler. At the same time, it was the weird in-between MJ years, so that adds a little mystery and too much Harold Miner to the mix.
Even though he was the slam dunk champion. Let’s just relive this:
I think I threw Harold Miner on my All Shooting Guard teams, you know with Joe Dumars, Tony Dumas (off the bench / short cameo above), Allan Houston, some Jim Jackson and Clyde Drexler, yep. Maybe toss in some Rex Chapman. They weren’t as good as the All Small Forward teams, but then I’d add Cliff Robinson and they’d be great.
HOOPS POWER ON FIRE!
