Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 2021

This is the third rendition of this review. It is now recommended. Here is why: I'm a fanatical Football Manager player, since the nineties I've religiously bought every year's version. And I heard rumours from across the Atlantic of a similar and excellent game covering college basketball, Draft Day Sports... So when Pro Basketball 2021 came out on Steam and showed up in my recommendations I was delighted. This updated review is after over 80 hours of gameplay. The game has it's moments and if you can work through the inconsistencies and limitations it is worth it. The depth in the game is incredible, it is also realistic in the way that the dynamics of the NBA ebb and flow. Gameplay is opaque, and it took me some time to realise that was on purpose. If you play the game on the basis of having as many 'stars' (as in the 5 star scale players are ranked on) rather than seeing if players fit your coach's style and your team's culture you are not going to find success. You have to dive into the menus to compare and contrast, to understand the way your team is winning or losing, you have to understand this to make sure you make the right trade and draft decisions. This is where the thrill comes in. I was staring at the 'stars', wanting to have at least a 5 star player and supporting that with two or three other 4 star players wins you the league right? Well no... it really doesn't. As an example I present to you the fantasy drafted Knicks: Ben Simmons, James Harden, Victor Oladipo, Aaron Gordon and Brook Lopez as the starting five. What could go wrong, right? Yeah, they all want the ball in their hands and there isn't enough consistent shooting in the team. I also didn't have a bench to contribute... first round exit, embarrassing! So your roster decisions matter, trading Simmons for a less ball dominant guard would have made a difference. Relegating Oladipo to sixth man and playing Anunoby instead would have made a difference. You have to keep an eye on all these things. Once you do, this game comes to live, it is challenging, as in really challenging, and over time you really come to appreciate that. It shouldn't be easy to win the NBA with any team. That all said, there are massive negatives, the interface is pants, it is really poor, finding the relevant information involves lots of clicks and getting used to all that information and how it is presented takes a lot of time. The match-day experience is on par with watching a four year old play chess. The D-league is a pointless addition, 'managing' in the D-League is basically clicking advance until the end of the season hoping you've won. But despite all that, I have now changed my recommendation. If you are into basketball, in particular into the mechanics of building a great team? It's worth sinking your time into this. In fact, I might pick up the College variant of this as well now... I didn't think I'd say that smoe 50 hours ago!

I really do want the game to to have success. This is the only basketball management sim but so many quality of life things are missing. Cant easily navigate to a mock draft, cant send trade offer to all teams, have to go one by one, only roster screens can show player attributes, list goes on. The game to game gameplay is fun, seeing players get better, drafting well and seeing return, but UI atm is very clunky. I get its taking ideas from football manager but it still lacks alot of polish. I'll 100% be following the studio though. you can do it!

Honestly the game would be so great if the UI wasn't so clunky. For example, you can even compare between players to see differences in stats. It doesn't help that the game doesn't tell you what each stat does specifically. Seriously, there is something great here for basketball management simulation, but it still needs a lot of polish before it can be considered a finished game.

I have been playing this game for the past 15 years, i would say that this version is the biggest improvement over the previous versions. Easily the best Basketball manager simulator out there. If you combine it with the College version, you have a truly full experience. I would say that it is still a level below FM and OOTP, but it is probably the #3 best sports manager simulator out there at the moment.

I tried it. I played it. The negative comments about the UI are legit - it feels very amateurish and clunky. Viewing stats is annoying. Nothing feels intuitive at all. Maybe the game has been like this for years, but it causes a huge barrier for entry. If that's the case, it's about time to hire a UI specialist, one that knows sports and sports sim games. I can't recommend this game, even if I like seeing new sim games out there. Hopefully the devs will take this to heart and create an even better one next year.

Great game, very deep, good rosters, probably a better trade system than 2k, in terms of realism, only thing I don't like that much is players start asking for SO MUCH MONEY, causing teams to be broke and difficult to trade with, but if you just increase the salary cap you should be good, and 2k has the issue too, so I'm used to it at this point

wanted to like this, but the game will only run in a small windowed mode for me and there doesn't seem to be a settings menu anywhere to change this. This game is way too text heavy to comfortably play windowed. I'm playing on a standard 1080p display. Tried fixing this by switching my display settings to 720p but this just made the game crash on start. I tried opening a support ticket on their site, and encountered another issue there. They allowed me to make a ticket with only my email, without making an account. seemed cool, but then it won't let me check the status of the ticket without making an account. So I go to make an account, but it says "email already in use". How can it be in use if I never made an account? I can't log in because I never set a password. So THEN, I click "forgot my password" to fix this, and am hit with "you are not authorized to access this portal". Very strange and inconvenient

Being able to link the college and pro game is epic!! I've played OOTP baseball for years and I'd gladly put this series right next to it. I wasn't even a fan of basketball.. then I played this game and I get it.

Not worth the price.. UI Seems weird and outdated, load on every screen, the Trading is not good, contract negotiation is also very unrewarding.. And the OffSeason feels so... empty..

Overall i think its random bugs and constantly crashes during simulation. I can't simulate too far into a season without a crash. -A pain just to edit players, can't even edit the players in draft class. - Game bugs out just tying to sub out players -Autosave not consistent

I really love this game and this series. That said, sometimes I think I continue to buy their games as an investment towards the future, since most DDS games don't feel quite "there" yet on the level of Football Manager or the OOTP games. I've enjoyed PB 2021 a lot and see the progress from earlier versions. My biggest complaint is the challenge in modding the game with fantasy leagues. I don't mind doing a bit of work here, but there seem to be many components (even compared to the DDS Football games which are much easier to create logos for). I'll recommend this game, it is fun and playable for hours. That said, I look forward to the franchises continued development.

These games have the concepts we all need but the execution is still far off. These are all 5 - 10 Euro Quality Games all at double the price because bills need to be paid. Lets hope we get there one years because it has been quite a few.

Should've got a refund while i could smh 2/10 game surprised they even put the rosters in properly with the effort they put into the game.

It's a solid basketball simulation the price to me is fair as I've just begun to play the game which is surprisingly easy to understand and learn. A must buy for people who enjoy MyLeague in the NBA 2K series

The best sports management sim on the market. Totally addictive. Very realistic game play. Great AI. The new updated U.I. looks fantastic.

product will not launch

Great game very enjoyable with mods Definently reccomended

Very cool game in terms on managing a squad . It need some tweaks here and there but overall it's good .

Obviously not as much content as bigger management simulation titles like SEGA's Football Manager. But i really enjoy this game.

i played draft day sports for a few days and then it stop working and i dont know why

if you were some one that likes basketball simulation games you should get this game

its pretty good, however the dashboard could be a bit better

First Time playing this type of game. I like being a GM and building a team This game is excellent if you like GM games!!

good basketball manager

really fun

Very bad