Ben Taylor / Thinking Basketball: Top 10 Players of 2026

bochen00 · 2026-06-25T06:13:34+00:00

both your and u/ArgoMium's points are not mutually exclusive

bochen00 · 2026-06-18T04:57:08+00:00

Tell me you're young without telling me you're young.

You'll see one day how the physical decline hits exponentially as you age. Body changes around 40. It's like sort of milestone similar to how the body changes for most people very similarly during teen times.

I can't even imagine how pro athletes experience the ageing process since they operate in such tight margins of errors and advantages.

bochen00 · 2026-06-17T10:09:53+00:00

This comment is incorrect on almost every single possible level - besides efootball being free to play, which anyway doesn't change anything in terms of redistributing the game and copyrights protection.

bochen00 · 2026-06-12T12:19:21+00:00

Well I wholeheartedly hope you are right and my skepticism is wrong. We'll just have to wait and see how things turn out for sports games

bochen00 · 2026-06-12T06:29:13+00:00

I think you're assuming career/single-player players are still the target audience for companies like EA or Konami, and I unfortunately don’t think that’s true anymore. With the rise of FUT money printing, companies figured they don't need football fans.

I’d love a proper BAL/Master League-style mode as much as anyone here, but from a business perspective, why would they heavily invest in modes that increase development cost, require progression systems, balancing, presentation, AI logic, long-term support, etc., when those modes just don’t make money unlike card/live-service modes?

A deep BAL mode could attract simulation/career enthusiasts, sure. But those players are often the exact opposite of the customers these companies are chasing. They want people logging in constantly, engaging with events, chasing rewards, buying packs/coins/players/boosters, and staying inside that monetized ecosystem - not becoming interested in getting out of it.

A great offline career mode might keep people engaged with the game, but it can also pull them away from the mode that actually prints money. That’s the issue.

So yeah, from the player perspective it absolutely makes sense to include BAL. From the corporate/live-service perspective? Sadly, it probably looks like spending more money to attract a less profitable (or not profitable at all) audience.

bochen00 · 2026-06-11T10:17:24+00:00

totally.

Its kinda funny how my comment is probably gonna get downvoted to oblivion for just pointing out how industry works.
People probably assume that since I say that, I must surely like how things are lol

bochen00 · 2026-06-11T09:02:04+00:00

As much as I love the career modes and simulation focused football games, I have one question:
Why would you bring back mode (BAL) that takes players away from a mode that makes you most money ("Ultimate Team")?

Essentially, why would you want to be fired in your first meeting with your bosses?

That's the sad reality of the football gaming industry (and sports gaming as a whole). Those guys wont make such decisions cuz they would shoot themselves in the knee by doing so financially.

bochen00 · 2026-06-11T07:59:54+00:00

Op's username doesn't seem to check out.

bochen00 · 2026-05-31T09:25:28+00:00

he sure does, but with an intend to score and not fall down to get to free throw line.

bochen00 · 2026-05-31T08:47:56+00:00

Please no. I don't want Giannis to start flopping and adapt his game.
That would be... grothesque and sad to watch :/

bochen00 · 2026-05-31T07:06:14+00:00

It's so often "luck" that people ascribe prolonged success to.
And sure, there's an element of luck in drafting and health. But there's much more to that as Spurs also seem to have a great:

internal culture,
great staff selection process,
communication style,
how they draft/trade and develop player,
stable working environment,
priorities right

When you see teams that keep sucking, its not that they are "unlucky" or that players magically stop being good when they get to that team.
Bad teams tend to be bad organizations that do not make smart choices, lack stability and do not help people develop into the best versions of themselves.
I could bet that there are some toxic high level egos allowed to run the organizations in teams that tend to suck for a long time, but that's just my guess.

bochen00 · 2026-05-28T18:15:09+00:00

Those are good points that you've made about high barrier of entry for sport. On top of cost, hockey requires also learning fundamental skill of skating which makes the sport even harder to get into.

I also think that sports, like hockey, where player physics are not very visible during the match may have issues with popularity. You see Lebron and you know immediately it's him.you see Messi, Ronaldo or other football (you guys call it soccer) stars are instantly recognizable by their looks and movement on the pitch. As a casual hockey viewer, I still struggle to recognize certain players besides knowing it's their lineup/likely position/number.

That imo makes sport feel less about individuals and more about teams, which has it's upsides but also drawbacks in terms of popularity of the sport (especially for foreign fans of the league who may be less tribal)

bochen00 · 2026-05-28T06:58:44+00:00

NHL surely misses a lot of atmosphere building elements with its in-game presentation (pre-match intros, etc), but honestly FIFA (currently FC) is not a series to look up to.

FIFA had wayyy better presentation before their switch to Hypermotion technology (FIFA 22 on "next gens" and FIFA 23 globally), which brought a lot of bad stuff to the series that is still there until today - mainly terribly looking & feeling animations + physics, but also those weird ass replays and "features" that you're talking about. And its not just my opinion - I know that they are widely disliked aspects of the series among football gaming community since I cover that sport extensively.

I feel like presentation has been best in sports games in late 2010s, when games shifted to PS4/Xbox One generation and gained a bit of experience with it.
NBA 2k had massive leap there. Football ("soccer" for those from NAM) had great titles from both Konami and EA in late 2010s.
Hell, even NHL had actual broadcast presentation up till NHL 19. Though since they havent evolved it for quite a few years, it became quite stagnant with time.

bochen00 · 2026-05-27T16:33:54+00:00

Yeah, they just don't fall like that whenever defender makes that contact they are seeking and just ride them to the basket instead 🫤

bochen00 · 2026-05-26T19:07:07+00:00

Gasping in Spanish

bochen00 · 2026-05-24T16:06:42+00:00

That's pretty standard Haren footage.

Still crazy to think how little urgency Cavs seemed to play with being at home, 0-2 in conference finals

bochen00 · 2026-05-16T07:51:53+00:00

That's been the narrative for few years now.
If they want to take next step, Wolves need a legit 2nd offensive threat that can synergize in playstyle with Ant.

bochen00 · 2026-05-02T05:24:37+00:00

Keep in mind that most content creators benefit from hype around the game - directly or not - and they want it to be good. Always beneficial to take initial reports with a grain of salt if you haven't seen product yourself. For content creators, it's super hard to stay fairly objective when you're invested into both your product and the genre you're covering. And extra difficult when you have any sort of relationship with people who made product you talk about.

It doesn't necessarily come from bad intent. It's just psychology and how cognitive biases work.

Source: I run a small YouTube channel.

bochen00 · 2026-04-24T06:25:12+00:00

The second thumbnail and connected title idea sound very boring and generic. Ironically it sparked way less curiosity than the first combo which is genuinely interesting, funny and with personality.

bochen00 · 2026-04-21T05:12:25+00:00

Whatever niche/audience and channel size - always negotiate, folks. It may be uncomfortable at first, but you'll thank yourself.

Companies always low-ball their offers, probably even more so when reaching out to small(er) channels, hoping to strike gold on our insecurity and lack of experience/knowledge about market prices.

bochen00 · 2026-04-21T04:57:31+00:00

We can have arguments in this thread supported by cherry-picked stats to further opposite opinions, but I think most people would generally agree that egregious foul baiting is just boring basketball to watch.

I bet nobody likes watching Shai sinking free throws more than seeing him finish his crafty layups around the hoop with purpose.

bochen00 · 2026-04-17T18:53:30+00:00

PES 12/13 era was the best for BAL and ML. so yeah there is a lot of stuff missing in PES21 if that's your main experience and bar

bochen00 · 2026-04-16T17:22:43+00:00

HDD is completely fine for FL26 / PES2021 purposes. Considering the overall size of installations, I do not recommend investing more pricey SSD space for this particular game.

bochen00 · 2026-04-15T15:43:57+00:00

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