When I was in high school, few games captivated me the way NBA Street Vol. 2 did. I loved the evolution from what NBA Jam and NBA Hangtime accomplished, bringing forward the gravity-defying, rim-rattling dunks and no-rules defensive play, and recontextualizing it through the then-current streetball craze. The result was a smash hit that bridged the gap between die-hard sports gamers and the wider mainstream audience. Both sides of that aisle ate it up. However, after Electronic Arts shuttered the EA Sports BIG label and companies like Midway went under, arcade-style sports games became fewer and further between.  Enter Play by Play Studios, a team consisting of several seasoned sports game veterans, including Mike Young, who worked on the NBA Street, FIFA Street, and the SSX series before becoming creative director on the Madden franchise for nearly a decade. In 2021, the studio began working on a streetball game called The Run: Got Next, consisting of entirely fictional characters.…