How To Fix NBA 2K's Association Mode, Part II: Trade Logic

After looking at the highly flawed nature of the draft last week, today I'm going to focus on another aspect of the season that needs revamping: trades. This is an obvious step that 2k10 desperately needs to fix. While I love the fact that I can trade my 27th pick for the 24th pick, and then my 24th pick for the 22nd, and so on and so forth until I've essentially traded into the lottery for nothing, it's completely unrealistic and borderline idiotic. I'm not even going to talk about the kind of deals teams offer you most of the time, or what kinds of deals you have to concoct to get star players (or even above average ones).

Now something as complex as trade logic is almost impossible to accurately simulate, since there are so many small variances in how trades work and are constructed. But here are the five steps I would take to make the trade logic as efficient and realistic as possible.



1) Allow players to request a trade. It's not enough for a player's "chemistry rating" (or whatever that thing is called) to plummet under 25% and then the "agent" on his player card gets angry. Have players that want a change of scenery request it to you directly. The likelihood of players wanting to be moved wouldn't just be about that one rating - make it correlated to their loyalty ratings, personality ratings, acceptance of role, future with team, and other external factors (even the team's market). You don't have to honor it, sure - and in some cases, the player can retract their wish under certain circumstances (perhaps if you fulfill some goals with some players, it lessens his interest in being traded) - and it wouldn't be something that happens often. But it's wholly unrealistic to ignore that players can request their own movement.

2) Create types of trades for the trading block. This is a very simple, effective fix that would make trade logic so much more effective. Take the Carmelo Anthony situation. In real life, if they do end up making a deal there's a good chance they're not getting a true star player - more likely they'll receive expiring contracts and prospects. In 2K10, there's no way you could make a deal for a star player without offering more than that. Thus, it only seems logical that there should be expected gains from trades.

Once a player has been put on the market or requested a trade, there are eight potential trades I can think of: salary dumps, salary absorbers, prospect packages-for-stars, star-for-prospect packages, star-for-expiring, expiring-for-star, draft picks only, and equal-offers. The first six, obviously, are alternating opposites, and the "star player" designation is something I'm going to be tackling in the next article, but for all intents and purposes you get the idea. (I'm sure there are also other types of trades I didn't mention - that's not really the point right now though as that can be developed.)

Having these options requires you as a GM to be creative. If a "star player" (let's say somebody named Armelo Can't-hony) requests a trade (and there's no going back), you can sure as heck ask for an equal offer, but if everyone knows he's on the way out there's no way you're getting an equal proven star in return. If you look for a salary dump, that requires another team to have the cap space to absorb his contract for bench-warmers, low-quality prospects, and draft picks. Or say a role player/prospect/average player requests a trade. You can't attempt to construct a star-for-prospect package, but you can a) try to include him in a package if a star is on the market or b) look for an equal-offer or salaried deal. The options are endless.

3) Create "untouchable" logic. Here's what I mean: Imagine the Celtics trading Paul Pierce in 2009 against his will for anyone not named LeBron (and even then). Their fans would riot, boo at every game, and call for Danny Ainge's head. Team chemistry would plummet and the whole team would be lost in a state of confusion. Let this reflect reality as well. If a guy is a happy, loyal player, and has been the best (or second-best) player on the team over a period of time, he should have an increasing "untouchable" rating. It should be relative to skill level by position, success of team (NBA Championships should increase the rating exponentially for your team's best player), length of tenure as a member of the team, draft pick (John Wall's untouchable rating would be pretty high right now, even though he hasn't played a minute yet) and personality. For most players (and even most teams), the untouchable rating wouldn't apply - my estimate is under 15 players would really be "untouchable" - but for the ones that do, it creates a "franchise player" rating.

For what it's worth, the opposite should also be true: players can be increasingly and increasingly frustrating to fans and can ruin morale if the team isn't seeing success, and can be more and more pushed out by the fans and the front office. This will also be known as "The Joe Johnson/Amare Stoudemire Rule" by 2014.

I know this rule could be the most controversial of the five I have here, because people love making "super-teams" where they can just exploit the lack of trade logic and end up with a starting 5 of Paul/Kobe/Durant/LeBron/Howard. For those gamers, you can have the option to toggle on and off untouchable logic. I'd have it on automatically - I'm a fan of exploiting the system if the system is flawed, but this is a realistic element of trades that would increase the realistic nature of the game.


4) Don't let me trade lower picks for higher picks with no consequence. This is a simple, self-explanatory fix, and frankly just plain stupid. It would be realistic for teams to be able to offer cash (up to $3 million) for picks or as added incentive in deals (as Atlanta was reportedly offering for the 24th pick this past year, only to deal it to NJ for 27+31), but that would require the $3 million to actually mean something and I think dealing with the day-to-day finances of a basketball team is a little too much (at least for me to tackle) right now.

5) Enhance the logic that informs trade offers to you. Use the same logic from the first four steps to allow different trades to be offered to you. There are two generic offers that opposing teams make in 2k10: the "equal-offer" type (which usually stinks and isn't really equal-offer) and the "salary dump" deal. They also occasionally add one draft pick, but it's never more than a three-piece deal (their two for your one). It's inherently a highly flawed system that could easily be improved upon - just implement the trade logic necessary to make the bigger deals that you make to other teams in the first place.


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So there are the five fixes. Like I said earlier, trade valuation is a highly complex issue and there's no real way to completely fix it. However, there are simple steps that can be taken to ensure that its realism shoots forward in the 2k basketball games to come. If 2K can allow players to request trades, create types of trades (this is key), have fan logic that influences trades, stops letting us trade into the lottery, and enhance the AI trade logic, I think you'll see a much stronger, more realistic Association instantly.