When doomscrolling through X (formerly known as Twitter), is Luka Doncic hitting a clutch three against this year’s Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert present for more than a day? No. Oh, but maybe people are still celebrating Jaylen Brown winning the Eastern Conference Finals MVP over Jayson Tatum. No? Despite the NBA Finals being in full swing, it is not the NBA who are dominating social media for days with the most exciting and, to some, divisive play. It is Caitlin Clark and the WNBA.
The growth of the Women’s National Basketball Association this year is staggering, to say the least. Just to throw out a few numbers, according to Time, 2.45 million viewers (more than four times the previous record set in 2004) watched this year’s draft, which featured a talented pool of rookies like Angel Reese, Kamilla Cardoso, Cameron Brink, and most notably Caitlin Clark. The Indiana Fever, who drafted Clark with the number 1 pick, has already broken their 2023 attendance in just five home games; last year saw 81,336 attended, while this year has already seen 82,857 attendees. If that wasn’t enough, the Las Vegas Aces, Dallas Wings, and Atlanta Dream all announced they had sold out of season tickets for the first time ever.
With that being said, it cannot be denied that the WNBA is growing rapidly. And you know what, it’s awesome. Women’s sports in general are always shadowed by their male counterparts. So, it is welcome to see that the talented players, especially these incredible rookies, are drawing in such an amazing crowd. Now that all eyes are on the WNBA, I think it’s time for the NBA 2K franchise to spotlight the league through a 2K Showcase mode.
While the terminology “2K Showcase” is primarily used in the developer’s popular professional wrestling franchise WWE 2K, there are modes in NBA 2K that put the spotlight on certain players. However, I think the direction Visual Concepts takes with WWE 2K’s spotlight mode might be a better approach.
In NBA 2K’s most iteration of its showcase, the Kobe Bryant-led Mamba Moments mode, is great for NBA fans who want to relive some of Kobe’s greatest moments. Some neat presentation changes are themed for the time, including some grainy filters and most importantly, the “Roundball Rock” theme. But if you did not have the pleasure of seeing Kobe on TV, there is nothing there to really educate you on why these moments were important apart from showing clips from the actual games.
On the other hand, the WWE 2K showcase almost acts as an interactive documentary for those moments. Not only will you get real footage of iconic matches, but you’ll also get interviews from the wrestlers who participated, as well as some who were inspired by those moments. It really is one of the reasons to check out a WWE 2K game, even if you are only somewhat interested in wrestling.
It makes sense to educate people about the WNBA. Especially for a lot of the newcomers who are starting to watch this season. While the league is still young (it was established in 1996 with the first games starting in 1997), there are plenty of talented women from the past and present who have influenced the game.
I’m not going to pretend I’m a WNBA expert; I am far from it. The reason I am writing this is because this is a mode I would love to see implemented so I could have a fun way to educate myself on women’s basketball. But some household names I think would be great additions would be Lisa Leslie, Candace Parker, Sue Bird, Sabrina Ionescu, A’ja Wilson, and Cameron Brink. Presenting this proposed mode like a documentary, getting interviews from these great players to share their experiences, and replaying those moments with all the presentation flair the NBA games have would be a step in the right direction.
The addition of a WNBA showcase mode in NBA 2K is just the beginning of improving the overall quality of the WNBA content. If you’ve played any WNBA game in NBA 2K24, you know how patched together it seems. The overall presentation is just bad. Everything about it feels empty. Just expanding the commentary to some more personal stats for some star players or the arena’s location would go a long way. Heck, even making player models that looked remotely like the actual players would be good.
These improvements could then extend to the game’s most popular mode MyTeam. There really isn’t a good reason for WNBA players to be excluded from the mode. We’ve had J. Cole and Lil Wayne overall 89 cards in NBA 2K. Heck, we have an overall 100 Devin Booker card about to be released very soon. Are we going to pretend Devin Booker is actually a 100 overall player in any shape or form? No. This mode is about making fun teams with players who wouldn’t regularly play with each other. This is the mode where you can step away from the simulation NBA 2K attempts to be. Let Lisa Leslie dunk on Shaq. Get Caitlin Clark to shoot a 30-foot jumper over Steph Curry. Adding WNBA players to MyTeam would be a great way to get more WNBA fans engaged with NBA 2K for more than just a potential showcase mode and a bare-bones franchise mode.
There are so many parts of NBA 2K that can be improved on. Namely, it’s terrible practices with MyTeam and microtransactions. It’s absolutely atrocious. Beyond that, with the WNBA growing at such a rapid pace, it just makes sense to expand that facet of the game. A spotlight mode can kickstart that while simultaneously educating people on a league that has been around for decades.
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