Kyrie Irving is among the top point guards in the NBA and is widely considered the best ball-handler in the league. Irving earned the honor of being the cover athlete this year for NBA 2K18 and the Cavs’ star was hoping that by being chosen to be on the cover, he would earn a little bit of a ratings boost.
In the last NBA 2K17 ratings update, Irving was a 90 overall, tied for fourth among all point guards. Even after a strong Eastern Conference Finals and Finals, Irving won’t see his rating go up for 2K18. The ratings are slowly being revealed on 2K’s social media accounts, as they record players reacting to being told their ratings for the first time. Joel Embiid and Paul George were the first unveiled on Monday, and then they moved on to the cover man himself.
Irving was hoping for a 95 overall, but when told he was still a 90, he was disappointed, but vowed to cause that to rise significantly over the next season.
Athletes are always looking for some kind of edge to drive them to be better, and maybe Irving can look to his virtual self to push him to be even better in 2017-18. Kyrie posted a career-best 25.2 points per game in 2016-17, but that was still barely enough to crack the 90 overall mark.
It’s clear that NBA 2K holds its overall ratings in high esteem and doesn’t just hand out 90s to anyone, so, while he might be a bit disappointed, he’s still one of a very few to land that high of a rating. At least Irving got his 90, because Joel Embiid was also hoping for a 95 and only landed an 86.
We’ll continue to get player reactions to their ratings as they slowly release them prior to the full ratings unveiling later this summer, and it seems as though we’re destined for a lot of players being disappointed to learn what their video game selves are rated.
