One team had NBA MVP Steve Nash playing the best basketball of his career with teammates Shawn Marion and Amar'e Stoudemire in their prime. The other squad touted Shaquille O'Neal and a 24-year-old Dwyane Wade as the best one-two punch in the league, being crowned NBA champions.
Both the 2004-05 Phoenix Suns and 2005-06 Miami Heat were revealed Thursday (September 3) as the latest throwback teams available for NBA 2K16 as part of its weekly Throwback Thursday announcement.
Two new teams playable in #NBA2K16 are the '04-'05 Suns & '05-'06 Heat! Who is excited to use yet more classic teams?
— NBA 2K 2K16 (@NBA2K) September 3, 2015
Fresh off his fallout with Kobe Bryant on the Los Angeles Lakers, O'Neal helped power the Heat to the 2005 Eastern Conference Finals, where they fell to the Detroit Pistons in seven games. But the following season, 2005-06, O'Neal and Wade were on a mission...and they wouldn't be denied.
After getting over the hump and defeating the Pistons in six games of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Heat overpowered the Dallas Mavericks in six games of the NBA Finals. Wade was named Finals MVP after averaging a ridiculous 34.7 points per game. The title marked O'Neal's fourth and final league championship.
Meanwhile, the season before, in 2004-05, had Nash posting 15.5 points and 11.5 assists per game for that Suns' team en route to leading Phoenix to a 62-20 record and earning his first of back-to-back MVP awards. That Suns' squad, which also had Marion and Stoudemire combining to average just over 45 points per game, made it to the Western Conference Finals, before losing to the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs.
One would be hard-pressed to name a bunch of players who did more with a marginally-athletic build than Nash did. Both those Suns and Heat squads could go head-to-head with some of the NBA's greatest teams of all time.
Great throwback additions to the upcoming NBA 2K16, which is slated for an October 27 release.
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