The game's franchise mode (called The Association) is pretty solid and surprisingly deep. Taking a page from EA's Madden series, you can drill players in specific categories such as quick shooting, post moves, etc. Team chemistry also play a role, and assigning a weekly practice schedule to get everyone on the same page is vital to your franchise's success. In addition to the practice schedules and training, you get to do year round rookie scouting by hiring three scouts and checking out the incoming rooks on a weekly basis. Is it a bit too much? Yeah, maybe. If you aren't interested in digging this deep a lot of this stuff can be automated.

It should be noted that there is a lot of CPU trade activity. When looking at the news screen, you see a good number of trades each week right up to the trade deadline. The trades aren't completely insane like they were in NFL 2K5, but still there is a lot of wheeling and dealing. Usually the trades will be for players around the same skill level but players bounce around more in an NBA 2K6 franchise than they do in real life. It's also important to point out that NBA 2K6's Association mode is for single player use only; if you have a bunch of friends that want to run teams in the same league, they are simply out of luck. It's a very strange omission.

On the whole, NBA 2K6 is a very good game. It should be an instant classic, but the bugs and design oversights keep it from reaching its lofty potential. If you're a fan of 2K Sports, it's a trend that is becoming all too familiar. - William Abner