Why Duncan and Garnett’s greatness was difficult for video games to capture

Why Duncan and Garnett’s greatness was difficult for video games to capture

the year is 2005 the NBA was a completely different landscape than it is now the Pistons were good the Bobcats existed and people took way more long twos on purpose like they would step on the line on purpose sometimes anyway 2005 was also an interesting turning point for two video games two at the time great collections that were trying anything and everything to stand out and differentiate itself from each other today I’m going to use the careers of two players to investigate this two power forwards at the height of their games Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett today we’re going to see how those two match up against each other at a pivotal time in the Video Game World welcome the most virtual [Music] [Applause] [Music] player today we’ll be breaking down the video game stature of Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett in NBA live6 and NBA 2K6 first we’ll start with a brief overview on some real life stats and accolades then we’ll talk about the differences between NBA live6 and NBA 2K 6 and why it was a pivotal moment in basketball gaming we’re then going to talk about the rating differences between Garnett and Timmy D and their teammates and finally we’ll have some experiments to see if we can really determine who is truly better before we break down Tim dunan and Kevin Garnett as video game players so when it comes to real life test we’re going to talk about the 2003 2004 season now both kg and Tim Duncan had Dynamite seasons and had a super close MVP race Tim Duncan was oh so close to three ping the award losing to Kevin Garnett Now Kevin Garnett ran away with the race earning 120 of 123 possible first place votes Garnett led the Timberwolves to the best record in the west and took the team all the way to the finals where they lost to the Shaq and Kobe Lakers now in the first season after David Robinson’s retirement and fresh Offa winning a title Tim L the San Antonio Spurs to 57 wins and a pretty good season that also lost to the Shag and Kobe Lakers now there’s no shame in losing to the Shaq and Kobe Lakers I just wanted to remind everyone of the team that did not lose to them now Garnett was a one-of-a-kind big in that era a Long mobile big that had a near unblockable jump shot and great handle for someone his size and he was a menace to everyone he guarded he is also someone that I noticed took some of the longest long twos of all time like the long longest long twos possible now Tim Duncan often operated a little bit closer to the rim than Garnett but that didn’t make him any less of a menace on the offensive side of the floor while he didn’t jump as high as Garnett Duncan used his timing strength footwork and wingspan among other things to control the paint and destroy the hopes and dreams of the opponent now even though those players dominated in different ways they were both rewarded as being one of the best players in both NBA Live and NBA 2K 6 but to figure out which one is the better video game character we also have to figure out what stands out in each video game now NBA 2K6 was a big Improvement compared to NBA 2K5 and the big reason was the implementation of the shot stick for a long time in both NBA Live and NBA 2K shooting was resigned to the buttons while the right analog stick was often reserved to crossover moves or Juke moves if it was even used at all now the shot stick allowed the users to have more autonomy over the type of shot shots a user wanted to take for instance if a player wanted to shoot a left-handed layup in a way to protect the ball or throw off the defense the player could then move the analog stick a certain way to trigger one of the animations in that category this is way better than what I call playing animation roulette which is when the video game does something that you want to do but not exactly in the way that you want to do it and it’s not really the greatest result now animation roulette will always exist in these games don’t get me wrong but the addition of the shot stick introduce the user to new helpful animations that rewarded basketball IQ with these new animations you could strategically try to avoid contact or try to draw contact and get to the free throw line you could perform Up and Under moves from the post and even decide which shoulder you wanted to fade off of this made the low and high post Mind Games a thing of beauty and in an era where a lot of the stuff ran through the post it made for a way more realistic feel to the game now when it came down to a more realistic feel for the game EA Sports had a different idea EA Sports introduced a thing called freestyle Superstars you see EA realized that some players are better than others in the game but it never really displayed visually in NBA Live every dunker more or less had the same animations and it was really split by height where a guard with a high dunk rating would be given a few different animations but there was a big overlap otherwise in my opinion now freestyle Superstars tried to emphasize a different types of ball players the freestyle Superstar types were stopper shooter scorer power high flyer and playmaker now each player had the ability to have multiple freestyle Superstar types including the ability to have one in the offensive end and the defensive end now I’m not going to lie I never really liked this system as someone that loves NBA Live I can talk about this endlessly but for the sake of this video I’ll keep it brief my main gripe with the system is that it doesn’t make for a flu or seamless style of play out of certain players in this game for example Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett are both inside scorers and Power Players however you’re only able to equip one at a time and can’t switch them mid game now imagine if the Avatar was only allowed to use one element at a time and can only switch elements after a fight that doesn’t sound fun right I didn’t even get to more complicated players like LeBron James Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady so this is system tries to make the players more creative and reflective of their games but it kind of just restricts them more instead now NBA Live 07 tries to combat this issue and I’ll get to this at the end of the video either way Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan had similar player animations at their disposal even though their play Styles aren’t completely the same now the freestyle Superstar benchmarks are determined by having certain benchmarks to certain attributes which is a good time to talk about the individual attributes of each player in both NBA live6 and NBA 2K 6 the attribute categories are sometimes a great way to tell what each game prioritizes when it comes to gameplay and what makes the good players great now I made this video because Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett are 99 overalls in 2K but they’re not in NBA Live Kevin Garnett is seen as the best non- legend player in NBA Live with a 96 overall but Tim Duncan’s overall is a 91 Kobe and LeBron are both 95s Grady is a 93 and Tim Duncan shares an overall with cover athlete Dwayne Wade who is a 91 in NBA Live the biggest difference between them is the jumping ability where Kevin Garnett has 29 Points on him for the most part when it comes to the rating differences a lot of these aren’t close enough to affect the gam play in my opinion they are pretty close when it comes to dunking rebounding and blocking some of the core Staples of a video game now the main interesting thing is that Tim Duncan is a 99 inside scoring while while Kevin Garnett is an 88 also Tim Duncan is an 85 field goal while Kevin Garnett is an 80 now there’s not really much information to go off of but I have to guess that the difference between inside scoring and field goal scoring is inside scoring is probably low post at the basket Etc while field goal I guess has to be everything inside the three-point line like everything inside the three-point line including on the line I feel like field goal being such a vague overall leads to some very misleading ratings throughout the game in my opinion now there is one big difference across the game and before I go into it I want to ask you a question is Tim Duncan a good dribbler think about it for a second is Tim Duncan a good dribbler in NBA live6 Kevin Garnett is given a 59 dribble rating that allows to handle the ball with some great speed for a big Tim Duncan on the other hand is given a 46 dribble rating which leads to slower ball handling moves and often even losing the ball when he crosses over too much however Garnett’s 59 overall seems to be enough to have that problem significantly less often I think that this is a big deal and after getting a little bit curious I changed Garnett’s handle to 46 as well and he still doesn’t lose the ball this tells me that other factors are at play here I turned both the speed and quickness down to match Duncan but that didn’t work so not really seeing anything else attribute wise I had one more Theory Tim Duncan does outweigh kg by 40 lb there’s no way right right NBA Live 06 does This Thing Called body type now 240 lb is the border between medium and thick this can’t be changed it’s tied to weight and since I can’t change Kevin Garnett’s weight in the game I had to create a player and give it Kevin Garnett’s exact attributes to test it out mirroring Kevin Garnett’s stats our creative player did not lose the ball when I changed it to Tim Duncan’s dribble speed quickness and weight that did work I was losing the ball with ease now the next thing I did was change the body type to medium and I only lost the ball once but it took so much longer to do it I think this allows me to make a conclusion that NBA Live early NBA Live said that thick boys just can’t dribble I think tying the dribble moves to wait really speaks to the lack of individualism in early basketball games yeah Tim Duncan wasn’t Kevin Garnett with the dribble moves but I really don’t think he was in the realm of quame brown rookie year Andrew bogot or Zaza pulia either on the other hand MBA 2K6 does seem to agree with me as Kevin Garnett has a 75 dribble and Tim Duncan is a 7 overall dribbler this gives them both access to the quicker animation threshold which really unlocks how to use them in NBA 2k you didn’t lose the ball as often as an NBA live but you were a heck of a lot easier to pick and you weren’t able to maneuver as well in NBA 2k 6 Duncan and Garnett’s ratings are a little bit more even the main differences are how Duncan was the best shot block artist while Garnett was better at stealing the ball as well as being a better passer but all in all I think the two attribute gaps are closer than the NBA Live ones we’ve gotten some of the mild differences out of the way let’s start the trials to see who really is better the first trial is going to be three games of one-on-one in each game games to 21 no make it take it the next trial will be three team matches against each other in each game then we do the three team matches again with Garnett and Duncan swapping teams then we’re going to do three full season Sims of Garnett and Duncan swapping teams to see if it really makes a difference going to the one-on-one stats starting with 2K6 Tim Duncan won the best of seven series you can see from the animations and how the ball carams around the rim how much Duncan’s presence around the rim really affects Garnett even though they were only playing in 21 all of Duncan’s wins came in convincing fashion winning all of his games by at least eight points Kevin Garnett’s biggest win margin was Five Points Tim Duncan holds Kevin Garnett to a whopping 25 point .6% from the field while shooting 37.8% himself now Duncan gets the win in 2K but does his dominance on defense translate to NBA live6 nope this time it’s Kevin Garnett who shoots 57% from the field throughout all seven games Garnett also wins the rebound category but loses to Duncan in both blocks and Steels I will say that steals and blocks are way closer in NBA Live than an NBA 2K6 I want to say that these are pretty close games as well Garnett’s offensive prowess really shines here despite having a lower field goal rating than Duncan it’s clear that with his handles he’s able to get into his spots easier also Garnett’s use of the freestyle Superstar ability seems more seamless than Duncan’s now I’m glad that we’re seeing some differences in each video game but it’s time to see how they both play in a team setting but we should talk about teammates first now it’s well documented that Tim Duncan had better teams than Kevin Garnett and it’s mostly thanks to mon job and Tony Parker in NBA Live Manu is an 88 overall while Tony Parker is only a 77 overall Kevin Garnett’s second best player is a 75 overall Eddie Griffin in NBA 2k 6 The rosters do look a little different Eddie Griffin is still the second highest rating at 79 overall while on the Spurs Manu is a 90 overall this Spurs 2K team is tied for the second highest overall in the game trailing only the shack and Wade Miami Heat the Timberwolves aren’t the worst overall team in two 2K that Crown goes to the 55 overall Toronto Raptors in NBA Live the Spurs are only behind the Pistons and Suns for the best team in the league while the Timberwolves are still bottom of the pack so while in every trial the Spurs were going to be favored to win knowing how basketball video games can work and anything can happen I went in with an open mind on 2K 6 in the three games where they went head-to-head on their original teams the Spurs won two of the three games we had six-minute quarters Garnett had a pretty rough go at it while Tim Duncan was able to play great with great efficiency now in NBA Live the Duncan LED Spurs swept the Timberwolves I will say that only one of these is a double digit loss but the Spurs pretty easily have these games under control the entire way in this Sim Kevin Garnett was clearly the best player on the court outplaying Tim Duncan in most categories unfortunately for him it didn’t matter as Duncan Spur’s teammate shouldered the score responsibility so you can see that these two video games emphasize way different basketball philosophies NBA Live is what I would consider the more arcade style basketball out of the two there is defense in the game but it’s not as effective as NBA 2ks from what we can deduced from the one-on-one contest earlier it seems easier to contest in Ultra shots in NBA 2K6 while in NBA Live the shooting and freestyle controls give offensive players many animation angles and opportunities to knock down more shots also it’s pretty clear that the supporting casts are a huge factor in each game as the Timberwood were looking more towards Kevin Garnett to make all the plays while the Spurs were able to switch between Duncan job Parker and all the other weapons Kevin Garnett getting a win in 2K over the Spurs is not something to overlook either it shows that it’s possible to pull off the upset now let’s see if Duncan can do the same thing the great thing about Duncan and Garnett being the same position is that I can swap their teams without really messing up the rotation on either side which is a win in the reverse battle Tim Duncan actually got a win in NBA live6 with the Timberwolves whereas in NBA 2K6 the Garnett Spurs swept kg and Tim Duncan had more identical stats this time around what isn’t close is the rest of the team’s Point totals in NBA 2k 6 the Timberwolf Supporting Cast gave Tim Duncan 25 points per game in the three losses while the Spurs averaged 38.6 points which is needed because Kevin Garnett only scored Four Points in every game but he had 10 rebounds per game his scoring just wasn’t needed again there is something that must be said about the additional help of Parker and jobble in NBA 2k there are only three other teams that have two players with 90 overalls or higher The Shack and way Miami Heat the Nash and Amari stmy Phoenix Suns and the Jason kid Vince Carter New Jersey Nets the Spurs also have eight players that are 80 overall or high the Timberwolves again have W it’s just Kevin Garnett in NBA Live Manu jino is the 16th best player in the game on top of that San Antonio has five freestyle superstars in the game Minnesota has you guessed it one and it’s just Kevin Garnett now it’s one thing not having that much help in the real world but I would argue that it’s another thing entirely to not have that much help in a video game in my opinion across every Sports video game game a fun video game team needs at least two fun players hockey basketball football baseball it’s always more fun to have more than one fun player to play off of the only other team in NBA 2k 6 that doesn’t have over two players 80 overall is the 58 overall Atlanta Hawks and if you’re wondering why the Timberwolves are this bad it’s because they did it to themselves but in a funny way in 2000 the Timberwolves were caught trying to dodge salary cap regulations by trying to pay Joe Smith a secret deal and they didn’t lose just one first round pick for it they lost five now the NBA eventually softened that a smidge but the damage was already done we have a Timberwolves collapse video on the entire Timberwolves downfall because you know us we always make bangers it’s time to get to the full season simulations with Garnett and Duncan on opposite teams we did three one season simulations so we could cover the tracks for injuries and whatnot in the 2K season Sims the Garnett lead Spurs averaged 54 wins while the Tim Duncan Timberwolves averaged only 36 wins surrounded by better teammates Kevin Garnett was able to win MVP twice while Duncan won Defensive Player of the Year all three years Duncan and Garnett were all NBA first and second team respectively for two of those three years now I will say that Garnett was not able to get the Spurs team to a championship as they fell short every year in the NBA live version the Spurs averaged 56 wins while the Tim Duncan Timberwolves averaged 44 wins a season in that game neither of them won MVP while Garnett was all NBA one time and defensive player of the year once Tim Duncan was first team all NBA twice but never won defensive player of the year now there was a part of me that just wanted to do the reverse season simulations because it would give me a nice parallel to what happened in real life but then I remembered that’s just not how it works so for the final experiment the bonus experiment I decided to put them back back on their original teams just out of curiosity and do full season Sims in NBA Live the Spurs averaged 55 wins over three tries while the Timberwolves averaged 40 wins Duncan and Garnett again posted nice stats except for the second go round where Duncan only averaged 10 points and 10 rebounds despite starting and playing the same amount of minutes Duncan was able to find more postseason success winning the NBA finals and finals MVP in his third go round now now when it flipped over to NBA 2K the Spurs won an average of 49 games while the timberwol averaged 37 while Duncan wasn’t able to keep up with Garnett’s regular season success he also won a championship in the third go round of this video game but something weird happened each year Kevin Garnett won MVP and defensive player of the year in real life only Michael Jordan Hakeem Elijah won and yanis aen kmo have won it in the same season Garnett averaged over 27 points per game and 14 rebounds per game over four assists over 1.8 Steals and over one block per game I’m impressed that Kevin Garnett won the MVP and defensive player of the year but I have to say that it’s weird for the video game to give him this award on one hand I can’t remember the last time an MVP award has been given to someone whose team finished under 500 now with that all out of the way it’s time to pick who was the better video game character now I would think back in the day when I would do fantasy draft for franchises where I would pick Kevin Garnett the versatility that Kevin Garnett could bring was more appealing to me in terms of his offensive game it was so fun to draft Kevin Garnett and then use the Player Development drills to help improve him it always felt like with him you could get a three-point shot over the course of two seasons or improve his game in other facets but if you wanted to play The Players as they are and not who they could be then Tim Duncan was also a great pick the ability to block shots on defense pair with his postgame made it so so fun to dominate now me personally I pick Kevin Garnett but if you finish this video and you go oh I think Tim Duncan’s the better player I’m not going to argue with you there whichever one you choose Garnett or Duncan are two players that perfectly reflect the state of basketball video games back then reflecting two Video game titles that were each trying to accentuate the individuality of basketball players in NBA 2K7 the Xbox 360 version had signature jump shots for a lot of NBA players which meant Garnett and Duncan had more unique looks to them 2K7 also had different types of post move animations added to them Garnett was given an agile move set while Duncan was given a big skill set Kevin Garnett was given his jumper with a higher release Point while Tim Duncan was given a more grounded skill set now it’s harder to quantify how this affects their overall rating but I will say it feels like Garnett shots on 2K7 is harder to block than when you had the standard animations in 2K 5 and the earlier iterations NBA liveos 7 expanded on freestyle Superstars by added two or three levels to each skill type depending on what console you had the Xbox 360 game had three levels bronze silver and gold Tim Duncan was a silver scorer and post player while Kevin Garnett was a silver high flyer a bronze playmaker a silver scorer and gold post player now I’m not saying all this to try to make an extra point in this debate I really only wanted to talk about NBA live6 and NBA 2K 6 in this video but I do want to stress the the importance of a video game’s true reflection of a skill set in the titles before this Garnett and Duncan were basically given the same animations and skill sets even though they played so differently nowadays NBA 2K has so many different animations for almost every move you can think of even creating a player today you can make a unique combination of skill sets and truly create a generational talent I would like to think that these early developers looked at all the different play Styles between players of the same attribute and started getting to work on what actually differentiates them when I see Kevin Garnett versus Tim Duncan I don’t just see two awesome and incredible basketball players I see two interpretations of the same position I see just two branches of an Ever growing basketball tree while these video game companies were just trying to start a forest thank you for watching to the end of the video if you want more top secret exclusive content feel free to check out our patreon page also thank you to our $10 subscribers that are listed here we have brand new content on the page every week so feel free to check that out and I hope you have as much fun enjoying the content as we do making it also I want to say shout out to Tyson for making the charts for this video he makes these videos look way better than I can and if you have any ideas for MVP feel free to hit me with them in the comments or you know how to reach me you know how to reach me

Kofie (@KofieWhy) investigates the Video Game Version of San Antonio Spurs legend Tim Duncan and Minnesota Timberwolves legend Kevin Garnett. Today we’re going to look at NBA Live and NBA 2k at a very pivotal time in gaming through the lenses of these two players

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Timberwolves Collapse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3WHIJqza5I&t=2s

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