As basketball fans await the opening night of the NBA season on October 29, a subset of that group is looking forward to another premiere four weeks earlier. On October 1, 2K Sports will release “NBA 2K14,” this season’s iteration of their popular NBA simulation franchise.

We’ve noted before that this version will have a lot of action featuring cover athlete LeBron James, 14 EuroLeague teams, and Golden State Warriors morale booster Kent Bazemore’s sideline celebrations. On Wednesday, they released the first trailer for the game.

At this point, the game is popular enough that the trailer doesn’t have to sell anyone on new features. It’s a known quantity, and the video game highlights here really just display players like Dwight Howard and Kevin Garnett in their new teams’ uniforms, the return of Derrick Rose, and other things that will get fans excited for the return of basketball. And it’s all scored by Nas’s 1999 hit “Hate Me Now.”

In a way, it’s as much a preview of the NBA season as anything in the game. That connection speaks to what makes the game especially popular, too: its recreation of the details of the game, right down to player tendencies and on-court styles. For some people, this game is as much a part of the NBA experience as what happens in the real season.