A couple 0-game stints captured in ESPN NBA 2K5's DLC

Hello, today, I'll be talking about something interesting, the January 11, 2005 official update for ESPN NBA 2K5 actually captures a couple players' 0-game stints with a team, one you may not even know about, let's cover them.

#1: Jim Jackson - New Orleans Hornets

On December 27, 2004, The Houston Rockets traded Jim Jackson and Bostjan Nachbar to the New Orleans Hornets for David Wesley, however, upon the trade occuring, Jim Jackson refused to report to New Orleans as he didn't want to play on a rebuilding team, therefore he was slapped with an indefinite suspension without pay and remained suspended until he was traded on January 21, 2005, along with a future 2nd round pick (Marcin Gotat was later selected) to the Phoenix Suns for Casey Jacobsen, Maciej Lampe and Jackson Vroman (RIP), Despite the suspension, the update erroneously has JJ as a starter on the Shooting Guard position instead of being placed in the IR, the game also predicted he was gonna wear #22 on the Hornets if he played, as seen in the screenshot below, It would have been interesting to see Jim Jackson in a New Orleans Hornets uniform.......in real life.



#2: Alonzo Mourning - Toronto Raptors

After getting traded from the New Jersey Nets on December 17, 2004, along with Aaron Williams, Eric Williams, and a couple future draft picks to the Toronto Raptors for Vince Carter while injured, Alonzo Mourning landed on the team's IR but after recovering, he refused to report to Toronto and instead opted for a buyout, he was later waived by the Raptors on February 11, 2005.



Screenshots captured from my modded original Xbox

Lemme know what you guys think of this.

Last edited by boxMAN29 on Sun Dec 21, 2025 12:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That's awesome that there's actually an official roster that captures those brief, phantom stints! Definitely a rarity for that time since official roster updates weren't nearly as commonplace as they'd become the following generation, but that's some fun trivia for sure.

The 2 official updates after this one (March 9 and April 26) captured another phantom stint, that is' Matt Barnes' phantom stint with the Philadelphia 76ers after his trade from the Sacramento Kings, as seen below, I also forgot to mention above how unlike Jim Jackson, Alonzo Mourning was properly placed on the IR in the official update's depth charts (lineups)

Also, I find it weird how the commentators and P.A. announcer always call Matt Barnes by his jersey number, he has no commentary speech files in the game's files.

Love it, phantom stints are some of my favourite basketball video game trivia!