Who could have guessed the NBA players themselves would be huge 2K nerds?
Kevin Durant is a basketball legend who needs no introduction. In this case, we will reveal something that you may not have already known before.
The man is a huge fan of the NBA 2K video games. As it turns out, he actually knows the ins and outs of the video game, maybe almost as much as he knows the actual courts.
Durant played with Houston Rockets player Amen Thompson in the virtual courts of NBA 2K26 in a feature for Durant’s own online media outlet, The Boardroom.
In a new video clip from that video feature, Durant dropped some knowledge on Thompson on a crucial element of 2K Sports’ gameplay; their athlete’s rating systems.
Before we get to Durant’s knowledge drop, though, we need to understand why the NBA 2K’s rating system matters.
How NBA 2K’s Rating System Works
As they explained in Complex, the 2K Games staff use hard statistics to determine the Player Ratings for NBA’s athletes. However, they also make changes to fit things like what looks like makes sense, or to compensate for intangibles.
They even sometimes interview the players themselves. So ostensibly, this system is build for accuracy.
But this is where Durant’s surprising insight comes in.
Kevin Durant’s Knowledge On NBA 2K’s Rating System
As shared by Durant himself on Twitter, he said this:
I would say the biggest misconception is that you don’t need a high rating to do certain things.
Like, to be able to shoot good, you don’t need like a 80, 81, 82.
…Like it’s players like that on 2K if you know how to play that are like cult legends in the game.
Like Rudy Gay, Gerald Green, Jeremy Lamb, like real 2K players will know that how good they were in those games.
…Especially Rudy. Yeah, he had the easiest jump shot to use. He didn’t have the highest rated jump shot in the game, but you couldn’t miss with him, you know?
So that’s what that’s the misconception like
Yeah, you can have all these high ratings and get a 99 in the park. But you still might be trash but you don’t know how to play the game.
How Does This Relate To Real Life NBA?
We don’t mean to drag NBA’s top athletes here. But we have seen that even the sport’s greatest players, from the Golden State Warriors to LeBron James, can have off games and even off seasons.
NBA 2K’s player rating system can’t quite fully incorporate the human factor that athletes face. But that seems to also be the reason Durant found this observation in their games.
In any case, now you know that mastering NBA 2K26 is about more than picking the highest rated players every time. You have to learn how to play the game well, and also study the meta, just like most of any other competitive games out there.