In this week's Friday Five, Andrew lists five more players that only appeared on certain teams in basketball video games, and not real life.

The post The Friday Five: 5 Players Who Only Appeared on Certain Teams in Games (Part 20) appeared first on NLSC.

Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is Part 20 in an ongoing series looking at players who only appeared on certain teams in video games.

At long last, we’ve reached the end of this second run of Friday Five articles looking at players who only appeared on certain teams in games, for one reason or another! The series was actually intended to finish much earlier – at least for the short term – but thanks to the help of David L, I ended up with numerous examples that were just too interesting not to discuss. As I didn’t want to scrap the articles I’d already written and the fun stories they included, this second series of articles has ultimately spanned an entire year, becoming a fun recurring topic for the last Friday of each month.

All good things must come to an end though, so this is it for now; famous last words, I know! There are definitely more examples, but I’ve basically covered the biggest names and most interesting stories; a total of one hundred players, as of Part 20! It’s time to move on to some other topics, but we are ending this second run of articles about players who only appeared on certain teams in video games on an interesting note. All five examples this time around are from NBA Live 2000 PC, with one of the players also boasting a second phantom stint in the original NBA 2K. So, let’s take a look at five more phantom stints that have been captured on the virtual hardwood!

1. Ed Gray (Portland Trail Blazers, NBA Live 2000)

Something you may have noticed throughout this series is that benchwarmers and journeymen often rack up phantom stints thanks to moves involving much bigger names. Twice during the 1999 offseason, Ed Gray’s name would appear on the rosters of teams that he’d never play for, thanks to major trades involving former All-Stars. After spending his first and only two NBA seasons with the Atlanta Hawks, Gray was part of the deal that sent Steve Smith to the Portland Trail Blazers for Isaiah Rider and Jim Jackson. Two months later, he was one of six players that the Blazers sent to the Houston Rockets in exchange for Scottie Pippen. As I said, a couple of major trades!

Gray was waived by the Rockets a couple of days later, effectively ending his NBA career following those two phantom stints. Only the first is represented on the virtual hardwood though, as Gray can be found on the Blazers in the rosters of NBA Live 2000 PC. Although it’s easy to overlook these phantom stints for a player who wasn’t in the NBA for very long, as an enthusiastic basketball fan who was getting into roster modding in the late 90s – and had previously made a 1998 roster for NBA Live 96 – I do remember Ed Gray as a bench player for the Hawks. As I always say about players like him, it’s funny how these names still stick in the back of your mind decades later.

2. Armen Gilliam (Orlando Magic, NBA Live 2000)

The NBA Draft Class of 1987 features several players who went on to success in the 1990s, such as David Robinson, Scottie Pippen, Reggie Miller, Kevin Johnson, Mark Jackson, Horace Grant, Muggsy Bogues, and – sadly for a much shorter time – Reggie Lewis. There were some other notable names including Sarunas Marciulionis, Chris Dudley, Ken Norman, Derrick McKey, Olden Polynice, Reggie Williams, and Kenny Smith, to name a few. Armen Gilliam, taken second overall behind only The Admiral, falls into the latter group. He was All-Rookie First Team and went on to have a solid career, albeit a nomadic one, never spending more than three years with one team.

I remember Gilliam as a Net and a Buck, as those are the teams he played for around the time that I really got into basketball, and began learning about all of the players of that era. It was the end of his tenure with the Bucks that produced his phantom stint, as Gilliam was traded to the Orlando Magic along with Chris Gatling for Dale Ellis and Danny Manning. Although he was the only player involved in that deal to end up with a phantom stint – the Magic waived him in November, and he signed on with the Utah Jazz in January – the Orlando Magic made a few other temporary acquisitions during the 1999 offseason that placed players on their roster in NBA Live 2000 PC.

3. Terry Davis (Orlando Magic, NBA Live 2000)

Thanks to countless hours playing NBA Jam Tournament Edition PC, I always recall Terry Davis as a member of those terrible Dallas Mavericks teams of the 90s. Davis actually began his career with the Miami Heat though, and by 1999, was playing for the Washington Wizards. To that point, he started 34 of the 37 games he played for the Wizards during the 50-game 1999 season, but had been slowed by injuries over the years, missing the entire 1997 campaign before signing with Washington. Along with Tim Legler and Jeff McInnis, Davis was part of the deal that sent Ben Wallace – yes, that Ben Wallace – to the Orlando Magic for Isaac Austin and trade exceptions.

Davis, Legler, and McInnis were essentially filler in the deal with Wallace and Austin as the centrepieces, and all three would be released before the 2000 season tipped off. While Legler and McInnis were cut in September, allowing them to move on to the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers respectively, Davis was still on the Magic’s roster until late October. That’s where you’ll find him in NBA Live 2000 PC. For the second time in his career, Davis missed an entire season after being waived, but latched on with the Denver Nuggets for 21 games the next season. Incidentally, Terry is the father of Ed Davis, who went on to have an eleven-year NBA career.

4. Rodrick Rhodes (Orlando Magic, NBA Live 2000 & Philadelphia 76ers, NBA 2K)

Selected 24th Overall by the Rockets in 1997, swingman Rodrick Rhodes played decent minutes as a rookie on a veteran team. He even started 13 games at different points in the season, usually when either Clyde Drexler or Mario Elie were absent. Cuttino Mobley and Michael Dickerson leapfrogged him in the rotation as rookies the following season though, and Rhodes was traded to the Vancouver Grizzlies, where he was stuck behind another first year player: Felipe Lopez. In the offseason, Rhodes was sent to Orlando along with Lee Mayberry, Michael Smith, and Makhtar N’Diaye, in the massive three-team, ten-player deal that delivered Steve Francis to Houston.

As it turned out, none of those four players would tally a minute for the Magic. Smith and N’Diaye weren’t included in the rosters of NBA Live 2000 PC, but Rhodes and Mayberry were, preserving their phantom stints with Orlando. While Lee Mayberry – battling injuries after being one of league’s ironmen during the 90s – called it a career following his release from the Magic, Rhodes latched on with the Philadelphia 76ers. They cut him in November, resulting in a phantom stint that’s represented in the first NBA 2K! Rhodes played his final NBA game for the Mavericks in April, following those two phantom stints that were captured in two separate 2000 season video games.

5. Don MacLean (Houston Rockets, NBA Live 2000)

Not to be confused with the similarly-named singer-songwriter Don McLean, Don MacLean was born a little over a year before his almost-namesake would release “American Pie“. While Don McLean gave us that iconic song – and subsequently Weird Al Yankovic’s Star Wars-themed parody “The Saga Begins“, a cover by Madonna, and a series of comedy films – Don MacLean’s impact on the NBA was far less profound. He was the league’s Most Improved Player in 1994 though, after he became a starter when the Washington Bullets traded Harvey Grant to Portland for Kevin Duckworth. It was the peak of his career, as he soon became a journeyman.

After ending up in Seattle, the SuperSonics traded MacLean to Orlando during the 1999 Draft. He was then part of the aforementioned Steve Francis trade, making him one of five players to end up with phantom stints as a result of that deal. MacLean’s was with Houston, as seen in NBA Live 2000 PC. After the Rockets released him, he reunited with former Bullets teammates Tom Gugliotta, Rex Chapman, and Scott Skiles (now a coach) in Phoenix. The next season – his last in the league – he became the first NBA player to be suspended for steroid use. Amusingly, Charles Barkley doubted his guilt (“I’ve seen Don MacLean naked, and he doesn’t use steroids”).

And there you have it! I won’t say that I’ll never again pick up this series about players who only appeared on certain teams in video games, but for now, I believe that I’ve covered the most interesting examples. Once again, huge thanks goes out to David L for helping out with numerous examples, and for inspiring me to go looking for a few more on top of that! I hope you’ve enjoyed this series over the years; if you remember any of the players that I’ve covered, or recall any others, feel free to comment about them below, or in the NLSC Forum. That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.

The post The Friday Five: 5 Players Who Only Appeared on Certain Teams in Games (Part 20) appeared first on NLSC.