When Blake Griffin broke his hand on a Los Angeles Clippers equipment manager’s face, the reactions to this darkly comedic situation were predictably great, but NBA 2K16 might have topped them all by hitting Blake where it hurts: his rating.
Latest #NBA2K16 Roster Update includes Blake Griffin going from 97 to 77 rating in Hands
— Ronnie 2K 2K24 (@Ronnie2K) January 28, 2016
Man, that’s savage. If we know anything about pro athletes, it’s that a lot of them care deeply about their videogame ratings. I mean, if you want to look at it technically, it would make sense that a man with a broken hand would see his Hands rating drop precipitously. What, you expect a man with the use of one hand to have 97 hands? Get outta here.
Of course, when Griffin actually returns to play, we’re sure his hands will be fine, and hopefully NBA 2K will do the right thing and bump him back up. But if they’re going to rip their stats from the headlines, then Paul George’s Shot IQ might go down, as will the Emotion ratings of LeBron James, Jeremy Lin and everyone else skewered by Vince Staples’ fashion criticism.
But you know what would really be sick? If they programmed the virtual Clippers to have mismatched socks and dirty uniforms to reflect the reality of the equipment staff being shorthanded. Then we’d really start to approach the uncanny valley.
