How Manu Ginobili (and his bald spot) evolved in ‘NBA 2K’

The end of Manu Ginobili’s illustrious NBA career gives us an occasion to pause, take stock and look at his contributions to basketball in totality. Ginobili’s career trajectory also offers perhaps the best illustration of how far athlete likenesses in video games have come in last two decades.

Ginobili was first fully-featured in a game until ESPN Basketball, the precursor to the NBA 2K series, back in 2003. Allen Iverson was on the cover, the game was hailed for its astounding facial realism — and this was Manu Ginobili.

If you compare them over the years you can see that the game did as well as it possibly could have.

It’s easy to see the jump when looking at the facial comparison of Ginobili over the years, but while the business was in front, the party was happening in the back. NBA 2K9 was the first game to feature Manu’s bald spot, and how it changed over the years is proof of the developers trying every year to get it right.

These all make sense, but I think we really need to talk about whatever the hell happened in NBA 2K14. This year was pivotal, because it was the first year on the Playstation 4 and Xbox One. This meant that developer Visual Concepts wanted to make an impact, and show how the graphical overhaul they were capable of, and we got THIS.

The back of Ginobili’s head looks like a glazed ham that was rolled across a sofa in the home of someone who owns several Labrador retrievers. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before they delivered us from this hellscape and turned in a much more realistic bald spot effort in NBA 2K15 and 16.

But that’s the beautiful thing about Ginobili’s game. Athletically it remained largely the same. They made his jump shot look a little more realistic, and along with the rest of the league the NBA 2K team had to create more realistic animations for the Euro Step, but the most pressing challenge each year was making sure Ginobili’s bald spot was just right.

It would honestly stun me to learn Ginobili ever cared what his rating in a video game was, but for posterity ...

Ginobili’s game evolved over the years, and so did his NBA 2K style. In the early days he had handles for days and dunked at a moment’s notice, but as years progressed the series became better about showcasing his slashing style, which really found its legs starting in NBA 2K10.

YouTube channel “Video Games Evolution” did a breakdown of Ginobili’s progression from 2003-16 in video games, and its here you can see his style evolve.

Thank you, Manu Ginobili. You are a bastion of video game evolution, a future Hall of Famer, and progenitor for Bald Spot Technology.