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I can understand that probably half of you do not play video games. I know our blogs demo, so I'm being conservative here. I have been playing video games most of my life, and it does not appear as though I will stop. The next version of 2K Games / 2K Sports' NBA franchise is coming out right around the corner. It releases on October 7th, and you can still pre-order a copy of you want. (It's almost worth it to do so, if you are going to pick up the title)
The one thing you really care about, beyond the fact that you have something to play with more recent rosters, is how good or bad the Utah Jazz players are. There are over 400 players in the game, and well, 8 guys on our roster are on the other side of the 200 mark.
- Dante Exum (Ranked #221, 74 Overall rating)
- Trevor Booker (#236, 74 Rating)
- Steve Novak (#263, 72 Rating)
- Rudy Gobert (#302, 71 Rating)
- Rodney Hood (#306, 71 Rating)
- Jeremy Evans (#337, 70 Rating)
- Carrick Felix (#367, 68 Rating)
- Ian Clark (#397, 67 Rating)
So, glad Ian Clark is in the game, but is Steve Novak really THIS good? He played 10 MPG last season, while Rudy Gobert just romped his way to a Bronze Medal as the starting center in the World Cup. We can argue about this later though.
The top 200 players have not yet been announced, so we can speculate on their order a bit. (Hmmm, will LeBron James be #1?) The Jazz players who will most likely be placed there will be Derrick Favors, Gordon Hayward, Trey Burke, Alec Burks, and Enes Kanter. That would put the Jazz roster at 13 players. Because the #201st player has a rating of 74 it is likely that all five of those guys will be rated 75 and above.
Since I'm a crazy person, and I had disc copies of NBA 2K11, NBA 2K12, NBA 2K13, and NBA 2K14 round I could check to see how everyone has progressed over time.
- Derrick Favors: 73, 70, 74, 77, __ ?
- Gordon Hayward: 64, 67, 68, 75, __ ?
- Trey Burke: 72, __ ?
- Alec Burks: 70, 71, 72, __ ?
- Enes Kanter: 63, 65, 69, __
If we assume some level of internal consistency within 2K15 then our top two players should be Favors and Hayward, with one or both of them approaching that 80 overall rating. Klay Thompson, of the Golden State Warriors, has an 82 overall rating. As does David Lee. Jordan Hill, of the Los Angeles Lakers has a 76 overall rating. Nick Young, also of the Lakers, clocks in at 78. So I'd expect Favors to be between those two bigs somewhere in that 76 to 82 range (if not higher). And Hayward would be between the two guards, between 78 and 82 as well -- so a little higher maybe?
I don't know where the other three will fall.
The Jazz do have a few guys coming into training camp, but I don't know if they will be on the day one release roster for the Jazz. One player who could be is former New York Knicks point guard Toure' Murry. He got a 65 overall rating from 2K last year. A 65 rating would mean he should be on that 200-400 ranked player range, but has not shown up on any of the breakdowns. (N.B. Confirmed that there is an error from 2K and 10 players are missing who will have a 70 over all rating. You are welcome.) We will only be so lucky if Kevin Murphy, Dee Bost, Brock Motum, or Jack Cooley are listed in the default Free Agency pool on the disc version.
The overall rating isn't the be all / and end all of a player, though. Kyle Korver is very good at what he does best, and in the game he has not had a very high traditional overall rating: (from NBA 2K11 and onwards) 63, 62, 65, and 64 overall. (Of course, this time around he has an overall that is greater than 74 -- big jumps can happen as the overall rating is calculated in a different way this year around) We don't have to look far for evidence of this with our own squad, Gobert went from 52 -> 71, Evans went from 60 -> 70, and Novak went from 53 -> 72 from 2K14 to 2K15.
I am interested to see how the game plays, and the internal logic for it. John Lucas III gets a +5 overall bump, and Marvin Williams went up +7 points, after having probably one of the worst seasons of his career.
For me the game is about MyTeam mode, so ratings matter a lot. And expect more and more posts on this game in the next few months. For now, though, watch this video!
Oh look! Karl Malone on the Sacramento Kings! *Barf*
Anyway, thanks to all the hard working and dedicated people who make these games and the communities which revolve around them. You can get the full list of currently released overall ratings from Operation Sports over here, or from the NBA2K Facebook page here.