Kobe narrowly beat out LeBron James (96) and Dwyane Wade (96) to earn that honor. This marks the first time from NBA 2K6 until 2010 that the NBA 2K team had its cover athlete as the highest rated player in the game. Tiebreaker goes to the NBA Finals winner and MVP, Dwyane Wade. Considering Dwyane Wade’s herculean - and an often scrutinized and under-appreciated performance because of the reffing - NBA Finals performance, the folks at 2K gave him the highest rating in NBA 2K7, tying him with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant at 98 overall. Shaquille O’Neal landed the cover of NBA 2K7, this time as an NBA Champion with the Miami Heat. Quick shoutout to the days when the NBA 2K franchise used to run the same cover athlete on their game in back-to-back years. A good NBA 2K post player could certainly utilize the 99-overall talent from both Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett, but for most players, a 99-overall Kobe Bryant from 2006 is nearly impossible to beat. Life after Shaquille O’Neal turned Kobe Bryant into a bit of a chucker, but the kind of chucker that resulted in a near-impossible-to-stop NBA 2K player. It’s hard to argue against those numbers, as Kobe would go on to average a career-high 35 points per game on a - also a career high! - 27. The 2K folks rated Kobe Bryant 99 overall, tying him with Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan for highest overall rating in the game that year. Shaquille O’Neal graced the cover of NBA 2K6, but his arch-nemesis Kobe Bryant gets the nod here. For those constantly screaming at the folks behind NBA 2K about favoritism in player ratings, you’d think the “cover athlete rating bump” would be the most egregious offense, but as you’ll soon learn, that just isn’t the case.
In doing research for this project, I found it fascinating to think about which NBA stars the NBA 2K franchise deemed some combination of “most marketable” and “we can afford him.” It’s also interesting to see just how frequently the cover athlete wasn’t the highest rated player in that year’s game. Think of the following list as a history lesson.
They dropped “ESPN NBA” from the title, launched on a new platform (XBOX 360) and never looked back. NBA 2K6 is where the NBA 2K franchise really took off. That game came out on November 10, 1999, as a Dreamcast exclusive. With NBA 2K17 dropping September 16 for pre-order customers, and on September 20 nationwide, I thought it’d be a fun history lesson in virtual basketball to take a look at the highest rated players in each NBA 2K game dating back to NBA 2K6.įirst and foremost, finding NBA 2K player ratings dating back to the original NBA 2K is nearly impossible.