It turns out one of the great urban legends in video-game history is true.
Mark Turmell, designer and lead programmer for NBA Jam, said in an interview with Ars Technica's War Stories that the game was programmed for the Chicago Bulls to miss last-second shots against the Detroit Pistons:
Turmell said he was a big Pistons fan and that he tweaked the game code so it favored his beloved team against the Bulls.
"Making this game in Chicago during the height of the Michael Jordan era, there was a big rivalry: the Pistons and the Bulls. But the one way that I could get back at the Bulls once they got over the hump was to affect their skills against the Pistons in NBA Jam," he said. "And so I put in special code that if the Bulls were taking last-second shots against the Pistons, they would miss those shots."
Turmell said the NBA Jam arcade game was introduced at the NBA All-Star Game in February 1993, at which point the "Bad Boys" era of the Pistons was over. They missed the playoffs that season for the first time since 1982-83.
During the height of the Pistons-Bulls rivalry, they met in the playoffs four straight times from 1988 to 1991. Detroit won the first three meetings, two in the Eastern Conference Finals, but the Bulls finally broke through with a sweep in the 1991 conference finals en route to their first NBA championship.
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