Your favorite NBA Jam duo
January 21, 2008
Stockton & Malone? Grandmama & Mourning? Mad Max & Olajuwon? Use the poll to vote!
NBA Jam came out in 1993. How popular was it back in the day? The console version sold over 5 million cartridges and the arcade version made over $1 billion in quarters in the first 12 months alone!!!
At first the game seemed pretty silly: 2 on 2, no fouls, absolutely ridiculous dunks, catching on fire and making shots from anywhere on the court, etc. But the game was addicting and I spent plenty of time getting my jam on. My favorite move was:
1. Shove the opponent to steal the ball (how else are you going to cause a turnover, by moving your feet?)
2. Pass down to your big man who turbos his way to the hoop to go up for a Monster Jaaa (psyche!)
3. Kick it back out to your shooter spotting up for three (he’s on fire!)
If you couldn’t catch up to your opponent to shove him to the ground, you could still rely on your big man flying across the screen for a rejection (let’s just say the NBA Jam goaltending rule was a bit more lenient than the normal violation). So it made sense to pick a team with 1 big who could block shots and dunk with authority and 1 shooter who could drain threes and get steals (shoves). Fortunately for the people who played NBA Jam but didn’t actually know anything about the NBA, you were given rating meters to show you each player’s strengths and weaknesses. Like so:
The Knicks were definitely one of my favorite NBA Jam teams. If you were disgusted with the Bulls’ dominance at the time (count me in!), then it was fun to pick the Knickerbockers and shove your way to victory over a Jordan-less Chicago team (they couldn’t secure his license). Ewing controlled the paint and Starks was a tough-nosed defender who could make threes and even dunk it from the 3-point line every now and then. And you probably don’t remember this, but Patrick Ewing was 3 times faster than John Starks! Yep, the Knicks were a quality NBA Jam duo, but I wouldn’t say they were my favorite.
The Stockton/ Malone duo was just as good in the game as they were in real life (also just as boring), so if you wanted to win a game, it made sense to pick them. When I wanted to dominate the paint I would go with the Charlotte Hornets: LJ and Zo were pretty unstoppable at the time. You also can’t front on the Seattle duo of Kemp & Schrempf. Deltef could bomb threes and Kemp could dunk from just about anywhere. Man, do you remember how dope the Reign Man was back then?
Since I’m having trouble deciding who to vote for at the moment, I’m going to wait and see if I can play the game sometime soon (my brother still has our old SNES). In the meantime, who was YOUR favorite duo?
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Where’s Ron Harper Danny Manning?
LJ and Zo ruled every time. they both shoot the 3.
Baby Maker Shawn Kemp throwing down ridiculous dunks with the German Sharpshooter hitting treys.
Yeah, I’m still deciding between the Hornets and Sonics. Zo could shoot threes? Like I said, I’ll have to play the game again before my final decision.
LJ was the shit tho. Here’s a sweet highlight reel of him back in his Hornets days.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Bo6GD-C48C8
And of course, a Grandmama clip (in English with French subtitles).
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_tF4tBsqJ2g
…sorry about the Clippers omission Dave. Definitely not the best 3-point shooting team tho.
Hardaway & Mullin get on fire and drain away my fav by miles and miles.
BTW love the new website, please make the fantasy part pay only before my fantasy competition learns why I am currently winning the league.
Ooh…this might have been a different edition, but the Magic combo of Shaq and Scott Skiles was incredible. Skiles could stroke it like nobody’s business, and Shaq would clean up the misses. Scottie and Horace were also much better than they should have been (plus they were on the halftime video.) Another quality duo (later, I’m sure) was Timmy D and David Robinson.
Yeah, Shaq was in the Arcade version only so I left him off the list. LJ and Zo are in the lead, but this is a close vote.
Is this comments section showing up in bold for everyone else?
Yo don’t forget ATL shorty lol. Nique and the Plastic Man dunks all day
No joke, Dominique was my favorite player growing up. Augmon wasn’t good for much besides tough D tho.
The Hornets are running away with this now. I wonder if the LJ vids I posted are swaying the vote…
yeah, LJ and Zo were my favorite at that game. and if anybody needs to be reminded of the dominance of MJ (probably not), just remember that he was too good for all video games. he would have been on fire at all times in this game…
Haha, I totally forgot that Starks was slower than Ewing. But they were the combo I played most (Starks was better at getting guys to the ground with the shove than anyone else, I think).
But I was also a HUGE Chris Mullin fan.
And yeah, Ted always tried to get me to ride bitch with Augmon while he raped all the glory with Nique.