You get to challenge any player in the league, and only a few players are a little under-rated, including Kobe Bryant. The franchise mode is the best. You can play 25 seasons with your team starting with the 99-00 season. Every year the rating of the players changes according to how they did last year. For example, if Duncan missed a lot of 3-pts.
Many players retire at the end of a season, and many new ones are created.
Another good option in the franchise mode is the At A Glance option, where you can keep up with the news about the League, injuries, trades, winning or losing streaks, Player and Rookie of the week or month awards. My favorite feature is that you can not only create your own players but your own teams which can consist of new players or old legends. There are a couple of things that bother me though. One that you can't make a custom stadium. If you make a custom team, there home satdium is a place called the EA Sports arena.