Advertisement

Important news: You can now play 'NBA Jam: Tournament Edition' with today's players

The past plus the present equals the future of wasting your time playing basketball video games on your computer. (Screencap via Hogs with a Blog)
The past plus the present equals the future of wasting your time playing basketball video games on your computer. (Screencap via Hogs with a Blog)

As you know, we here at Ball Don’t Lie are deeply committed to hard-hitting works of serious journalism that benefit the public and serve the greater good of society. It is with this in mind that I would like to inform you of the following critical information: You can now play “NBA Jam: Tournament Edition” with today’s players.

[Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Basketball contest now | Free NBA Yahoo Cup entry]

This gift from the digital basketball gods comes to us from Ethan Miller of Hogs with a Blog, who decided that in these troubled times, what the world needs now is love, sweet love an updated version of the 1994 “Tournament Edition” of one of the 1990s’ most important entertainments, allowing gamers to go 2-on-2 in a dunk/3-pointer/block-fest with players culled from the rosters of the NBA as it exists in 2017. Yes, the team logos and graphics in the mod are planted firmly in 1994, but the selections — LeBron James and Kyrie Irving on the Cleveland Cavaliers, Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins on the Minnesota Timberwolves, Joel Embiid and Nerlens Noel on the Philadelphia 76ers, and so on — are as present-tense as it gets.

[Follow Ball Don’t Lie on social media: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Tumblr]

Just download a Super Nintendo Entertainment System emulator, grab the ROM and fire it up to start playing with all 30 current NBA teams and 117 of today’s players, as well as legends like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Scottie Pippen and Larry Bird … and, because this is born of the internet, “secret” characters like Hillary Clinton, who appeared in the original “Tournament Edition” back in ’94, and deceased gorilla Harambe, who did not. And hey, if you do so, dig it and are so inclined, maybe consider kicking a few shekels toward Miller’s efforts to raise $10,000 for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and run the 2017 Boston Marathon. Seems a fair price to pay for the chance to control Russell Westbrook, clad in green and gold of the late, lamented Seattle SuperSonics, and knife through the lane to cram a dunk down the throat of the (ahem) “b****-a**” Kevin Durant-and-Stephen Curry-led Golden State Warriors, all from the comforts of your home keyboard.

Hat-tips to Kotaku and former BDL editor/current host of “The Starters” J.E. Skeets.

More NBA coverage from The Vertical:

– – – – – – –

Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!