Not knowing who Mel Counts is (his Lakers career was well before my time) I assumed he was the correct player shown on his Lakers Historic Card. Apparently it is not.
This is how I discovered the honest mistake by NBA 2K17. I played Mel Counts for the first time and to my surprise his player looked nothing like his card image. So I did some research. NBA 2K17 has correctly illustrated Mel Counts in his actual gameplay version but they used the wrong image for his Historic card. I believe this is how it happened.