Sarcasm isn't always readily apparent when written. In this instance in particular, quite a few people do say things like that and not mean them facetiously, which is ridiculous hyperbole.
As I said, I didn't catch the tone of your post, and it reminded me of some rather silly hyperbolic opinions I've seen expressed by other people. No harm done.
Live '95 was the greatest bball ever. Shaped how we all thought about bball games. Was the first 5-on-5 sim to capture the speed & excitement of the NBA
Well...I'd say it has been surpassed, within the NBA Live series and otherwise, but it still holds up surprisingly well. If you break out DOSBox (or an old console) and give it a go, and try to play a realistic style of basketball, it'll definitely try to be sim. It can't quite match recent releases in that regard, but for its era, it's impressive. A huge improvement on NBA Showdown.