Year 79: 2095–96

League Champion: Hawks

MVP: Monty Singleton (24.8 ppg, 7.4 rpg, 5.5 apg)

ROTY: Kevin Slaughter

Sixth Man of the Year: Homer Simmons

DPOY: Chad Grace

Most Improved Player: Paul Arnold

Misc. Notes: Shot clock is now down to 20 seconds!!!

#1 Pick: Randy Schayes (Hornets)

HOF Inductees: Steven Robertson

Year 80: 2096–97

So apparently this is where the game just starts to crash. I guess that’s all folks.

First, a recap of all the Champions:

Chicago Bulls: 8x

Golden State Warriors: 6x

Oklahoma City Thunder: 6x

Houston Rockets: 4x

Los Angeles Lakers: 4x

Milwaukee Bucks: 4x

New Orleans Pelicans: 4x

Washington Wizards: 4x

San Antonio Spurs: 4x

Charlotte Hornets: 3x

Dallas Mavericks: 3x

Denver Nuggets: 3x

LA Clippers: 3x

Sacramento Kings: 3x

Atlanta Hawks: 2x

Boston Celtics: 2x

Detroit Pistons: 2x

Indiana Pacers: 2x

Miami Heat: 2x

Phoenix Suns: 2x

Philadelphia 76ers: 2x

Brooklyn Nets: 1x

Minnesota Timberwolves: 1x

Memphis Grizzlies: 1x

Toronto Raptors: 1x

Orlando Magic: 1x

Portland Trail Blazers: 1x

Utah Jazz: 0 (like… ever….)

Cleveland Cavaliers: 0

New York Knicks: 0

We saw two dynasties form, as the Bulls won an absurd 5 championships in 6 years (2022–2027), while the current Warriors squad ended up with 5 in 8 years, from 2014–2021. The big thing to remember here is that 2k can’t account for something like the incredible infrastructure that the Spurs have built over the years, or the inevitability of KD switching to the Vegas favorite once the Warriors start to decline. One interesting thing to note is there were 5 teams who were able to repeat as NBA champions (Bucks, Thunder, Heat, Warriors and Bulls) and two that were able to pull off the three-peat (Warriors and Bulls).

As for what we can really take away from this simulation, here are a few themes I found along the way.

Lengthening the shot clock might actually ruin the NBA.

If you’re looking for a way to counter the high-flying, spread-the-floor, three- ball-oriented offenses of the 2010’s, lengthening the shot clock should be a key plank of your platform. You’d be a monster for wanting to ruin the fun for everyone, but it would work. In the simulation, the shot clock was lengthened to 35 seconds, effectively allowing defensive-minded teams to stifle the pace of play down to such an extent that the league’s leading scorers struggled to put up 20 ppg. Two things with this: 1) The shot clock will never be lengthened to 35 seconds, as the group of people pining for this rule change would be rather small and fans tend to like fast-paced basketball, and 2) Even if it did, the league would be hard-pressed to find teams that would put those extra seconds to use.

The talent in the league is geared towards fitting the current run-and-gun, three-point shooting style of the modern Warriors (and the Suns before them). This style has trickled-down to the lowest levels of competitive basketball, and young players are being groomed to fit these roles. An abrupt change in the style of play would lead to the kinds of numbers we saw players put up in the simulation during the 30/35 second shot clock eras, and would force multiple generations of players into roles they aren’t fit for. This wouldn’t help anyone, outside of maybe the Pistons with Andre Drummond, or the Grizzlies if they want to revert back to their grit and grind days. This is all to say that basically, this would never happen, but it is kind of cool to look at what might happen to the league if it did.

Apparently, the solution to the ‘hack-a’ strategy is to teach big men how to shoot free throws at a 99% clip.

In short, this also will never, ever happen. The sim saw multiple players have 99% seasons from the line, and Johan Svennson even shoot 99% over a 14-year career. (I’d like to think this happened after everyone started shooting underhand). No matter how you slice it though, this efficiency is beyond unrealistic. For reference, Jose Calderon has the best single-season free throw percentage in league history at just above 98%).

If 2k is right, it’s gonna be a rough 8 decades for Jazz and Cavs fans. Oh, and did I mention that the Knicks didn’t win either?

Sorry Utah, you still don’t have an NBA championship. For the sake of Jazz fans, I hope 2k is wrong. As for the Cavs, it’s hard to imagine that LeBron goes ringless, yet in this simulation, he spent the rest of his days in Cleveland, on teams that were always competitive, but never champions. They also never managed to have the #1 pick, which makes this all the odder. And, I can’t make this shit up… the Knicks didn’t win a title either, which makes for a 122-year drought. Statistically, it seems unlikely that any team could not win a championship in the next 80 years, but crazier things have happened, and if it happened to anyone, it’d be tortured Knicks fans.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career scoring record might be untouchable.

Two things undercut my prediction that LeBron would become the league’s all-time scoring leader: the shot clock rule change, and his earlier (than expected) retirement. For whatever reason, LeBron decided to walk away a year before he would have passed Kareem. Come to think of it, the three generated players who finished above him also retired within a good season’s point total of Kareem, so maybe that’s just not a record that any of us will ever live to see broken. Wilt’s rebound record is also in this unbreakable conversation, as no one got within four thousand rebounds of the Stilt.

We are in the midst of an incredible era for basketball.

Current players did well in this simulation. Steph dominated (as expected) finishing with 4,456 career 3-pointers made. Kevin Durant outscored Michael Jordan. Markelle Fultz made the fucking Hall-of-Fame. Current players generally held their own, even among the dominating computer-generated players. The game’s also being played incredibly fast (not like Oscar Robertson era fast, but still pretty fast), and players are shooting way more threes than ever before, upping scoring efficiency across the board. Finally, this era of players is simply bigger, faster, stronger, and more talented than any era we‘ve ever had. So yes, I think history will look back on this era favorably. Then again, that’s probably what every era says, so what the hell do I know.

In the end, the fact that one of the most accurate and thorough basketball simulators can’t give a perfect conception of what the NBA will look like over the next 80 years shouldn’t be all that surprising. Imagine the feeling you would have had if I told you in 2007 that a 7’3’’ dude from Latvia would go on to win the 2017 NBA Skills Competition — and that was only a decade ago. Now consider that there are probably hundreds of surprises just like that waiting for us over the next 80 years. So sit back, and enjoy watching it all play out.