This week marked the 25th anniversary of hit video game NBA Jam being released.
Ironically, the NBA held their inaugural draft for their NBA 2K gaming league with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announcing the first pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. Silver, now in his fourth year as the league’s commissioner, has worked for the NBA in other capacities for 26 years and remembers NBA Jam when it was released in 1993.
“I was involved with that game,” he said. “That’s a historic milestone.”
Silver also recounted his fondest memories of playing video games.
Also, we learned that while in college at Duke University and in law school at University of Chicago Law School, the commish passed the time playing games like Pac-Man!
“I think my early gaming–do you remember a game called Asteroids?”, Commissioner Silver asked Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson.
“You know, that was sort of…a little bit of basic Pong, too, and Pac-Man. I think as an undergrad in college, I spent a fair amount of time playing those games, and for the younger people here, those were standalone games that you lined up for and you put your quarters on the game to get in line in order to play. But yeah, I was an enthusiast at the time. I think I never scored high enough where I got my initials up sort of in the top category, but I spent a fair amount of time playing those games. And to this day, I mean, one of the things that — in terms of our NBA 2K game, I’m a big fan of the iPhone edition.”
