Expectations for how much can be done to a franchise between seasons just went up.

I have to give Sony credit for trying something quite new in NBA 06. Instead of producing a cheap cash-in, you get The Life, which works a lot like a simulation/RPG for a sports game. You create a character, assign a Jersey number, and work his way up from lowly trainee to being drafted into a team, and then you proceed to carry your character onto the championships. There are actually bits and pieces of this format that work pretty well, but there are quite a few places where it falls flat on its face.