Despite having one of the best season’s of his career, LeBron James wasn’t named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player. But is he still the best player in the league?NBA 2K19/2K Games
The NBA regular season doesn’t start until Oct. 16th. But with the launch of “NBA 2K19,” fans will get a chance to roll out their favorite teams with this season’s rosters for the first time in video game form. Part of the fun is seeing how well teams and players stack up against each other in the world’s most meticulously-crafted basketball simulation.
A new season means new ratings for more than 350 NBA players, and developer 2K Gaming has slowly been revealing individual player ratings for months in the lead-up to the worldwide release of 2K19 on Sept. 11.
Basketball fans and players alike have always had a strong response to the 2K ratings, which take player tendencies, consistency and overall efficiency into account to come up with a final number. Players are given an overall rating on a 0-100 scale based on 30 different attributes. During the season the ratings are regularly adjusted to match the real-life performance of the players, to keep it as close to real life as possible.
While the players at the top of the overall rankings are household names, things start to get a bit more unpredictable as the list goes on. Without further ado, here are the 10 best players in the NBA, according to “NBA 2K19.”
8) Kyrie Irving, Boston Celtics – 93 Overall
Despite missing most of the 2017-18 season due to injury, Irving remains one of the most explosive offensive players in the NBA, and will return to a Celtics team that reached the East Conference Finals without his help. While the star has struggled to stay healthy over the course of the last three years, he has shown that he has what it takes to push a team into championship territory.
6) Anthony Davis, New Orleans Pelicans – 94 Overall
Anthony Davis has developed into one of the most versatile players in the NBA, making the All-NBA first team three times over the last four seasons. Last season, his efforts propelled the New Orleans Pelicans to their first playoff series victory since 2008, when the team was still known as the Hornets.
1) LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers – 98 Overall
At age 33, LeBron had one of the best seasons of his career, playing in all 82 regular season games for the first time and leading the league in average minutes per game. James pushed an under-performing Cleveland Cavliers team through the playoffs to reach his eighth consecutive NBA Finals. The 20th anniversary cover of “NBA 2K19” celebrates James as a once-in-a- generation player, and perhaps the greatest of all time.