Lonzo Ball Threatened To Boycott ‘NBA 2K18’ When A Teammate Got Posterized In A Ratings Release


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Getting posterized is an insult unique to the sport of basketball. Search the archives here on Dime and there are dozens, if not hundreds, of posts about a player taking another to the hoop and making them pay for attempting to defend it. Plenty of good players have had their nights ruined by a posterization, but no one takes it lightly. Not even in the world of video games.

Lonzo Ball, for example took exception to a posterization that never even happened. On Friday, Atlanta Hawks forward John Collins was pumped about his NBA 2K18 rating, posting it to Twitter on Friday with some excited emojis.

Players are sensitive about their rankings in the game, as John Wall made clear earlier this week. But Ball wasn’t a fan for a different reason — the image used to show off Collins’ rating featured him dunking on Ball’s Los Angeles Lakers teammate Brandon Ingram.

Ball quote tweeted the image and threatened not to buy the game altogether unless they changed the image.

Chris Manning, community manager for the NBA 2K series, did reply to Ball, pointed out that Collins is later getting posterized in Brandon Ingram’s 2K18 ratings release, so it’s not exactly like anyone was getting picked on here.

That got Ball to back down on his proposed boycott, though he did fall back on the common gripe that the player’s rating simply wasn’t high enough.

Collins did get to have some fun with it, subtweeting Ball and posting himself getting posterized right back on Ingram’s ratings release picture.

Video games are such a big part of culture these days, but it’s still kind of amazing to see players genuinely get upset about the cumulative talent of their digital avatars. I’m sure if they made a video game simulation for bloggers, though, I’d be just as vocal about getting dunked on in the release of those ratings, too.

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