The opening ceremony for the Olympics is just over a week away and 2K Sports has now made it official that Men's National Teams from Rio will be featured in NBA 2K17. Four years ago both the 2012 USA team and the 1992 Dream Team were found in NBA 2K13. The latter will also be returning for NBA 2K17 as part of the game's pre-order bonus.
USA Basketball and Duke University coach Mike Krzyzewski will be found on the sidelines coaching the team - his first appearance ever in the NBA 2K series. He will also be featured in a revamped tutorial mode that will focus on teaching fundamental basketball strategies.
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There are still big questions surrounding the inclusion of Olympic teams that need to be answered. It's unclear in what capacity the National teams will be utilized, however it is known there at least will be more countries than just USA as Australia was confirmed earlier this month. In NBA 2K13 the USA teams were only there to use in "Play Now" games and that would be disappointing if it were to be the case again. The hope would be for a mode dedicated to the Olympics or at least a tournament setup, to possibly play a role in this year's story mode, and to be made available to play with online.
As far as the Dream Team goes there's no guarantee that the complete roster of 12 players will be in 2K17. Charles Barkley initially resisted being in 2K13 until Jay-Z talked him into it, and Scottie Pippen was a holdout until literally a few weeks before the game was set to ship. Those two may not be inclined to return in this instance.
NBA 2K17 will be the second-earliest an NBA licensed game has ever released (Sept. 16). Paul George is on the cover of the standard edition and Kobe Bryant is celebrated with the Legend Edition. The game will have a new feature allowing for league expansion in the Franchise modes. Amazon Prime members can pre-order any version of 2K17 for 20 percent off.
Bryan Wiedey posts sports gaming news and analysis daily at Pastapadre.com, is co-founder of the sports gaming site HitThePass.com, hosts the Press Row Podcast, and be reached on Twitter @Pastapadre .