If you dont have any friends, then dont buy this game. You'll only pull your hair out...
This basically sums up the single player of NBA Hangtime. Even on the hardest difficulty, it is a very easy game, as long as you keep your lead small and get lucky in the fourth quarter. If your lead gets too big, the computer will start to magically come back. Oh, and turning off computer assistance doesn't ACTUALLY turn off computer assistance for the computer. It only turns it off for you. That way, if you're down by 20 points, you'll only continue to lose, whereas the computer would come back and win in the most unrealistic fashion.
However, if you were expecting any kind of realism, I doubt you'd be playing NBA Hangtime. The game is obviously not supposed to be realistic, but that cant be used as an excuse as to why the computer is able to do things which are not possible by you. It's this which the developers obviously used to create some challenge, but it failed miserably. They should be able to figure out other ways to make the game challenging while still fun, as opposed to just being frustratingly unfair.
However, if you're not looking to play single player, the game isn't that bad. In fact, it IS enjoyable. With the main flaw being the computers cheating out of the way, you are free to trash-talk with your friends and do a cannon-ball slam dunk right in their face.
The graphics have been criticized heavily, but when you compare it to NBA Live '97 on the SNES, which was made the same year, you'll really appreciate how good they are. In fact, Games like this age much better than the 3D games made at this time, such as Kobe Bryant's NBA Courtside - which by todays standards, just looks like lego crap.
The Audio in the game is great, with an incredibly enthusiastic announcer and his classic lines like "Baseline Leaner!" and "Stolen!" giving you something to laugh at, and good background music during the game. Besides that, there is a rapper included to add some basketball-related rap songs that really suit the theme and can be rather catchy.
If you have friends that would want to play, then get the game because in multiplayer, it really is a blast. Just dont expect too much from the single player mode.