NBA 2K2

The game received "universal acclaim" on all platforms except the PlayStation 2 version, which received "generally favorable reviews", according to video game review aggregator Metacritic.

Tokyo Drifter of GamePro's January 2002 issue said that the Dreamcast version "rectifies all other gripes about the previous two incarnations and officially achieves a top ranking in its field." Two issues later, he called the PlayStation 2 version "the game to get for PlayStation 2 basketball simulation fans, even if it seems like a warm-up for a fully revamped return next year. That's still a long way off, and it's hard to resist the total package of pretty graphics, solid controls, and a challenging game of b-ball that you can pick up today." Another issue later, he called the Xbox version "the complete package for basketball on the Xbox." Still another issue later, he said that the GameCube version "may be the last of the various incarnations of Sega's hoop franchise to appear this year, but it certainly was worth the wait."