| LeBron James | Kevin Durant |
| 100 Overall (NC) | 94 Overall (-1) |
| 85 3pt Shot (+8) | 91 Standing Layup (-2) - AKA Inside Shot |
| 75 Free Throw (-2) | 87 3pt Shot (+1) |
| 63 Block (+6) | 74 Block (+1) |
| 76 Steal (-2) | 40 OffReb (-20) |
| 54 OffReb (-1) | 82 DefReb (+4) |
| 79 DefReb (+11) | 98 Potential (+1) |
| Kobe Bryant | Chris Paul |
| 93 Overall (-2) | 93 Overall (-1) |
| 87 Medium Shot (-1) | 89 Close Shot (-3) |
| 78 3pt Shot (-4) | 78 3pt Shot (-5) |
| 83 Free Throw (-1) | 88 Free Throw (+2) |
| 92 Ball Security (-3) | 30 Dunk (-27) |
| 39 Block (+2) | 30 Block (+2) |
| 69 Steal (+3) | 93 Steal (-1) |
| 78 On-Ball Defense (-2) | 46 OffReb (+10) |
| 45 OffReb (+5) | 42 DefReb (-14) |
| 57 DefReb (+7) | |
| 85 Speed (-1) | |
| 89 Quickness (-1) | |
| 76 Vertical (-4) | |
| 84 Durability (-15) | |
| Derrick Rose | Carmelo Anthony |
| 92 Overall (NC) | 91 Overall (-2) |
| 76 3pt Shot (-1) | 89 Standing Layup (-2) - AKA Inside Shot |
| 48 Block (+3) | |
| 59 Steal (-1) | |
| 68 OffReb (-12) | |
| 62 DefReb (-3) | |
| Russell Westbrook | Dwyane Wade |
| 91 Overall (+1) | 91 Overall (NC) |
| 80 Free Throw (-2) | 72 Free Throw (-3) |
| 40 Block (+9) | 94 Layup (-5) |
| 80 Steal (+2) | 63 Block (+1) |
| 57 OffReb (+1) | 82 Steal (+2) |
| 49 DefReb (+4) | 55 OffReb (+1) |
| 48 DefReb (+5) | |
| 90 Vertical (-3) | |
| 97 Potential (-2) | |
| Dwight Howard | Rajon Rondo |
| 91 Overall (+1) | 90 Overall (+1) |
| 98 Standing Layup (+6) - AKA Inside Shot | 64 Free Throw (+4) |
| 92 Block (+4) | 35 Block (+6) |
| 66 Steal (+2) | 79 Steal (+1) |
| 83 OffReb (-12) | 51 OffReb (+2) |
| 95 DefReb (+6) | 55 DefReb (+2) |
| James Harden | Stephen Curry |
| 88 Overall (NC) | 88 Overall (NC) |
| 87 Standing Layup (-1) - AKA Inside Shot | 71 Standing Layup (-10) - AKA Inside Shot |
| 83 3pt Shot (+2) | 91 3pt Shot (-3) |
| 85 Free Throw (-1) | 29 Block (+1) |
| 47 Block (-5) | 74 Steal (-6) |
| 78 Steal (-2) | 44 OffReb (+6) |
| 89 Hands (+4) | 40 DefReb (-4) |
| 44 OffReb (-5) | |
| 48 DefReb (+8) | |
| 75 DefAwr (+1) | |
| 85 Consistency (+5) | |
| 98 Stamina (+2) | |
| 90 Durabiliy (+4) | |
| 93 Potential (+6) | |
| Deron Williams | Jrue Holiday |
| 88 Overall (NC) | 88 Overall |
| 84 Standing Layup (+1) - AKA Inside Shot | 79 Standing Layup (-12) - AKA Inside Shot |
| 85 Free Throw (+1) | 75 Free Throw (-3) |
| 44 Block (+11) | 44 Block (+6) |
| 63 Steal (+1) | 74 Steal (+2) |
| 33 OffReb (+7) | 51 OffReb (+3) |
| 35 DefReb (-9) | 39 DefReb (-8) |
| Paul George | Tim Duncan |
| 87 Overall (+4) | 87 Overall (NC) |
| 88 Standing Layup (+7) - AKA Inside Shot | 81 Free Throw (+12) |
| 82 3pt Shot (-2) | 99 Block (+13) |
| 90 Layup (+12) | 61 Steal (+1) |
| 77 Shoot In Traffic (+3) | 71 OffReb (-13) |
| 78 Shoot Off Dribble (+6) | 98 DefReb (+8) |
| 73 Ball Security (+5) | |
| 54 Block (-1) | |
| 85 Hands (+6) | |
| 84 On-Ball Defense (+2) | |
| 51 OffReb (-15) | |
| 77 DefReb (+4) | |
| 61 PostDef (+6) | |
| 90 OffAwr (+6) | |
| 84 DefAwr (+2) | |
| 85 Consistency (+10) | |
| 95 Stamina (+3) | |
| 84 Speed (+5) | |
| 88 Quickness (+6) | |
| 81 Hustle (+9) | |
| 95 Durability (+12) | |
| 95 Potential (+7) |
Every player had their Steal, Block, and Rebound ratings adjusted.
Kobe (Medium) and Paul (Close) were the only players who received changes to non-Inside/3pt/FT shooting ratings.
Paul George (and to an extent Kobe and Harden) were the only player(s) to receive a full-blown edit.
Derrick Rose went untouched.
It's clear that Block, Steal, ORB, and DRB were edited globally, so let's see how well these hold up to scale.
| Name | Block | BLK% |
| Tim Duncan | 99 | 6.4 |
| Dwight Howard | 92 | 4.9 |
| Kevin Durant | 74 | 2.6 |
| LeBron James | 63 | 1.9 |
| Dwyane Wade | 63 | 1.9 |
| Derrick Rose | 40 | 1.4 |
| Paul George | 54 | 1.3 |
| Carmelo Anthony | 48 | 1.1 |
| James Harden | 47 | 1.0 |
| Jrue Holiday | 44 | 0.9 |
| Deron Williams | 44 | 0.8 |
| Kyrie Irving | 43 | 0.8 |
| Russell Westbrook | 40 | 0.6 |
| Kobe Bryant | 39 | 0.6 |
| Rajon Rondo | 35 | 0.5 |
| Chris Paul | 30 | 0.4 |
| Stephen Curry | 29 | 0.3 |
We can see that leaving Derrick Rose's ratings alone simply because he missed all of last season actually hurts continuity because he was out of scale dating back to 2012. He's a pretty good shot blocker for a guard.
Big men seem to have a different scale for block rating than perimeter players. Dwight Howard blocks nearly twice as many shots as Kevin Durant (2.3% differential), yet the gap between he and Durant (18 points) is the same as the gap between Durant is much closer than Durant and Carmelo Anthony (26 points for 1.5% differential). This study is limited by the fact that there are only two big men (Howard and Duncan) among the league's top 16 players in NBA 2K14. Perhaps if players were held to the same global scale, this would not be the case.
| Name | Steal | STL% |
| Chris Paul | 93 | 3.8 |
| Dwyane Wade | 82 | 2.8 |
| Russell Westbrook | 80 | 2.6 |
| Rajon Rondo | 79 | 2.6 |
| Paul George | 78 | 2.6 |
| James Harden | 78 | 2.4 |
| LeBron James | 76 | 2.4 |
| Kyrie Irving | 75 | 2.3 |
| Jrue Holiday | 74 | 2.2 |
| Stephen Curry | 74 | 2.1 |
| Kevin Durant | 70 | 1.9 |
| Kobe Bryant | 69 | 1.8 |
| Dwight Howard | 66 | 1.6 |
| Deron Williams | 63 | 1.4 |
| Derrick Rose | 62 | 1.4 |
| Tim Duncan | 61 | 1.2 |
| Carmelo Anthony | 59 | 1.1 |
If you're thinking the ratings seem kind of high, you're not alone. 50 steal rating is the absolute lowest rating given to ANY NBA player who played last season (Ryan Hollins and Meyers Leonard, each with 0.5 STL%). Of course, this didn't stop 2K Sports from giving out steal ratings under 50 to FIVE rookies. Alex Len and Rudy Gobert are the new lows with 38 Steal, which would translate to ZERO STL% going with this scale. I doubt whoever came up with the rookie ratings was the same person responsible for implementing the ratings changes to NBA players, else they would have followed scale. All this does is confirm what we've known for years - that 2K Sports is majorly confused when it comes to their player ratings. Having multiple editors who aren't on the same page is a probable cause.
What also doesn't make sense to me is that block rating seems to be using the full 25-99 scale while steals have been kept from 50-99. Under block rating we see Stephen Curry (0.3 BLK%) at a paltry 29 block rating having an 11 point rating difference from Russell Westbrook (0.6 BLK%) despite a largely neglibible 0.3% difference. For steals we see a 15 point difference between Carmelo Anthony (1.1 STL%) and Stephen Curry (2.1 STL%) for a full percentage point.
| Name | OffReb | ORB% |
| Dwight Howard | 83 | 10.4 |
| Tim Duncan | 71 | 7.3 |
| Carmelo Anthony | 68 | 6.1 |
| Russell Westbrook | 57 | 4.8 |
| Dwyane Wade | 55 | 4.7 |
| LeBron James | 54 | 4.4 |
| Rajon Rondo | 51 | 3.7 |
| Paul George | 51 | 3.4 |
| Jrue Holiday | 51 | 3.3 |
| Chris Paul | 46 | 2.8 |
| Kobe Bryant | 45 | 2.5 |
| James Harden | 44 | 2.4 |
| Stephen Curry | 44 | 2.3 |
| Derrick Rose | 48 | 2.1 |
| Kyrie Irving | 41 | 1.8 |
| Kevin Durant | 40 | 1.8 |
| Deron Williams | 33 | 1.2 |
2K Sports did well to reign in the offensive rebound ratings of many players like Melo and Durant who were clearly out of scale. In NBA 2K13 Kevin Durant (60) had an ORB rating higher than LeBron James (55) and Russell Westbrook (56) which obviously made no sense.
Leaving Derrick Rose as is continues to hurt the continuity, as he's the only player out of scale.
| Name | DefReb | DRB% |
| Tim Duncan | 98 | 29.6 |
| Dwight Howard | 95 | 27.4 |
| LeBron James | 79 | 20.8 |
| Kevin Durant | 82 | 20.3 |
| Paul George | 77 | 19 |
| Carmelo Anthony | 62 | 15.9 |
| Rajon Rondo | 55 | 13.6 |
| Kobe Bryant | 57 | 13.1 |
| Dwyane Wade | 48 | 12.6 |
| James Harden | 48 | 11.9 |
| Russell Westbrook | 49 | 11.8 |
| Kyrie Irving | 41 | 10.8 |
| Chris Paul | 42 | 10.5 |
| Jrue Holiday | 39 | 9.5 |
| Stephen Curry | 40 | 9.1 |
| Deron Williams | 35 | 8.5 |
| Derrick Rose | 45 | 8.4 |
The scale for defensive rebounding is considerably murkier than it was for offensive rebounding, as a few players are clearly out of order. Dwyane Wade most notably is within 0.5 percentage points of Kobe Bryant but trails him by 9 points, while Russell Westbrook trails Wade by 0.6 percentage points and actually has a rating one point higher.
Ignoring Derrick Rose hurts again since he should rank as the worst defensive rebounder on this list, but instead is comparable to Wade and Westbrook.
While it's nice that 2K has been paying more attention to stats, it would have been great to see them globally adjust more than four attributes for the entire league. With the regular season concluding mid-April, they've had five and a half months to be working on player ratings. That's nearly half a year spent on the sidelines doing very little. The baby steps are welcome, but in this rapidly evolving age of technology, NBA fans expect much greater advances than what we've been given thus far.
1 comment:
How Kyrie Irving was given a higher block rating than Westbrook is beyond me.
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