The NBA 2K franchise has been the choice for basketball gamers for the better part of the last decade. The love and care the NBA 2K developers put in to making that game look and feel as close to real NBA basketball as humanly possible has earned them a ton of respect in basketball circles. But despite how good 2K sports makes NBA 2K every year, developing on the cutting edge of video game simulation has its inevitable drawbacks. Fortunately for the internet, when something does go wrong in NBA 2K, we’re all winners.
I am, of course, talking about of all those amazing glitches we see pop up year after year around NBA 2K’s release date. They’ve become nearly as big a part of NBA 2K‘s popularity as the quality of the game, so think of this as more of an appreciation for 2K ‘going for it’ and less of a knock on their engineers. What they do is incredible, but sometimes things break, and the results couldn’t be more hilarious.
Without further rambling, here are the ten best NBA 2K glitches of all-time.
10. Sliding Bench
Incredible. There are certain NBA 2K glitches that revolve around NBA 2K players purposefully trying to break the game, and those are great, but these instances of NBA 2K totally caving in on itself, to me, are far more hilarious. There is no way in hell the Golden State Warriors are supposed to slide off their bench like this, but they weren’t supposed to blow a 3-1 NBA Finals lead to the Cleveland Cavaliers, either, so maybe 2K Games got this one right?
BONUS!
9. Hasheem Thabeet Free Throw Glitch
Is this Hasheem Thabeet’s best contribution to the NBA zeitgeist?
8. Dead Guy At The Park
I mean, c’mon. This is excellent. The best part of NBA 2K‘s various park glitches is that with every player on screen being controlled by a real user, you know there is a person on the other end of this glitch completely suspended in time and space.
7. Dante Exum’s Incredible Footwork
This is the good stuff right here. We’ve watched enough basketball to know what NBA defense is supposed to look like, and NBA 2K generally does a very nice job making that defense look legit, but when something is just a little bit off, like Dante Exum’s twinkle-toe footwork, it warms my heart.
6. Eager Sideline Reporter
This is awesome, first of all, but secondly, ‘Eager Sideline Reporter’ is the best possible title for this amazing GIF. Well done, internet. You nailed that one. Doris Burke is good, but she’s not that good.
5. LeBron James
Yes, some monster clearly traded LeBron James to the Houston Rockets in their version of NBA 2K15, but aside from that disaster, this is some A+ glitching. Sideline reporting is a thankless job, and certainly not something you’d start an NBA game looking forward to, but if we could get LeBron On Ice relatively frequently, I’d buy stock in sideline reporting.
Insert complimentary ‘LeBron James’ Vine here, because R.I.P. Vine:
4. Shane Battier Moon Shot
Totally 100 percent realistic bucket by Shane Battier here. Nothing remotely questionable about it.
3. High Five
This is special, because the ‘glitch’ is so expertly animated that I’m not even sure if it’s a glitch at all. I could see someone like J.R. Smith or Nick Young pulling off a stunt like this, but would 2K Games actually waste development time adding it into the game? I don’t know! Is NBA 2K becoming self aware, intentionally adding ‘glitches’ for viral internet marketing? I DON’T KNOW.
2. Face Scan Glitch
One of the most iconic glitches in video game history, let alone NBA 2K history, was NBA 2K15′s nightmarish hilarious face scan glitch. The developers at NBA 2K tried to add a really awesome feature to their video game, allowing users to upload their own face onto their created NBA 2K player, but the results… well, the results speak for themselves.
1. Nightmare Fuel
h/t A.R.S. Moves
Ty Lawson looks WAY too comfortable conversing with this dude who just lost his face. Total freakshow. God bless you, 2K Games. Never change.
