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Some of you might remember my True Rating calculations from last year. Some of you might have zero idea what it is. What ever happened to that?

In case you didn't know, they never left! True Ratings are calculated on 2KDB and possibly somewhere else... (stay tuned). True Ratings are a calculation based on the attributes of a card, weighted on importance per position (passing accuracy matters a lot for a PG, but not as much for a center, rebounding vice versa).

For example, here is DM Jayson Tatum's:

@jdealla and I really want to push this even further to get other factors involved, like badging, animations, height, etc. Those are a little tricky because some of them are subjective (e.g. 6'3" is too short for a PG? 6'10" too short for a center?) but I recognize that purely attribute-based calculation leaves out some important details. However, it is a great baseline to see past the overall rating / card tier that 2K assigns as they can be incredible misleading (in both ways -- cards are underpowered for their tier or are budget monsters who play like opals/DM's).

I just wanted to get the conversation going again and give you a hint of things to come. For now, based on the traditional True Rating calculation, here are the top 5 cards per position as of today:

Point Guards

Russell Westbrook - 99 - IDOLS Series II - 98.07
Stephen Curry - 99 - Warped Reality - 97.29
Derrick Rose - 99 - Retro - 96.42
Grant Hill - 99 - Out of Position - 96.39
John Wall - 98 - All Star Spotlight Sim Completion Rewards - 96.18

Shooting Guards

Michael Jordan - 99 - Pantheon All Star - 97.39
Tracy McGrady - 99 - Radioactive - 96.5
Carmelo Anthony - 99 - IDOLS Series II - 96.03
J.R. Smith - 99 - Season Ultimate Rewards - 95.91
DeMar DeRozan - 99 - Glitched - 94.45

Small Forwards

Larry Bird - 98 - IDOLS Series II VIP - 93.95
Jayson Tatum - 99 - Boston Celtics - 93.93
Billy Owens - 98 - IDOLS Series II VIP - 93.91
Rudy Gay - 98 - Warped Reality - 93.87
Chris Webber - 98 - Out of Position - 93.16

Power Forwards

Zion Williamson - 99 - Pantheon All Star - 96.54
Giannis Antetokounmpo - 98 - Radioactive - 94.26
Paul Millsap - 98 - Glitched Market Reward - 91.45
Anthony Davis - 97 - IDOLS Series II - 91.35
Rui Hachimura - 98 - IDOLS Series II VIP - 91.33

Centers

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 99 - Radioactive - 97.02
Blake Griffin - 99 - IDOLS Series II VIP - 96.88
Shaquille O'Neal - 99 - Warped Reality - 96.83
Wilt Chamberlain - 99 - Glitched - 96.66
Kevin Garnett - 99 - IDOLS Series II - 96.13

In this quick and dirty look, players are only categorized in their higher True Rating position, so someone like Zion who is the best SF, is only listed in PF because his rating is higher there. Which is why Larry Bird, generally not considered an elite card, is the #1 rated SF.

Let me know your thoughts, if you have any questions or comments about how to think about the best ways to calculate the True Rating, we'll be building this into something even better in the near future

I wish I was kidding

But in the past 6 days or so

My girlfriend finally said “you’re playing too much 2K”

Part of me wanted to explain the whole glitched market thing

But then I realized I would be better served saying “you know what? You’re right.”

Then I proceeded to play 6.5 straight hours of Outriders.

My take on all these new cards announced on a scale of 1-5 MEH's, 5 being the MEHHEST

Isaiah Thomas: 4 MEH's. Would be 5 but at least it's a Celtics card, no grind needed and I enjoyed watching him play those years with Boston.

Out of This World PROMO: 4.75 MEH's until we hear more. AD, Klay, Lillard, LBJ all have DM's already, these aren't invincibles, so who cares. Slight bonus if we do actually get Toon Squad jerseys.

GOAT cards: 4.5 MEH's. Rehashed cards we already have. Narrowly misses 5 just because they could give us a KAJ at PG with a better jumper.

INV DR. J: 3.5 MEH's. Won't be a terrible card but way too many alternatives that can be had for BIN or less.

Kukoc: 3 MEH's. Might actually be the most 'meta' of the reward cards. But still, who's running him over the better options.

Ray Allen: 4.75 MEH's. People really gonna grind MTU for him? Lame

Rodman: 4 MEH's. Personally I like using his cards and he'll be able to shoot so maybe we'll get lucky and it will be usable.

Grant Hill: 3 MEH's. Plenty of alternatives but should be one of the better ones, although I doubt he'll be another PG. If it's SG it could be usable

Jerry West: 5 MEH's. Next

Westbrook: 4.95 MEH's. If it was a quick easy grind to get him I wouldn't mind him, but personally I'd have to grind 430 (!!) TT Offline for him. Makes ZERO sense. Only way I MIGHT even remotely consider it is if they juice the fuck out of the Vault which I really don't see happening. This would be a 25 hour grind regardless and I just can't imagine it.

Hakeem: 4.9 MEH's. His DM is pretty much the same, his jumper isn't meta and way too many cheap/free options that are better. I was going to write 4.75 MEH's but had to bump it up because even if you have 1 token GO (like me), you're still 4000 tokens away from him. Fuck 2K, Fuck that. You'd have to spend millions locking sets for that. BS

Vince: 4.5 MEH's. Yet another card with too many better options affordable, his jumper isn't it, he doesn't have great size really at PG or SG, it just doesn't do anything. I like Vince cards but he's not super meta this year.

Iverson: 4.7 MEH's. I don't mind having an AI card to mess around with, but for ANY kind of grind at this phase of the game this is such an L, sorry.

Pierce: 4.34 MEH's. Ok obviously for me I'm excited just to even GET another Truth card, but looking at the circumstances.... not invincible... 11 hour grind. For most people this is a massive L. I hope to the 2K gods that he's juiced.

Thank you for coming to my MEHD talk

Paul Pierce 1
Everyone else 0

GOT HIM!

Is this LeBron a card that someone building a squad from scratch should target as the main scoring option? Or just sell him to build more

@12th yeah just starting out in MyTeam, trying not to buy any VC, earning XP is slow as fuck, any cards that are actually decent require a crazy grind which I'm also trying to avoid, honestly this mode is sort of tired to me. Last year the XP grind, the reward cards, everything just felt like I HAD to do it, and as of right now I'm just sort of bleh with things here.

I got a KAT. Would this be an auction card or BIN

@jdealla Makes sense

I’ll probably be jumping into Rec soon, lmk what kind of build can help the crew

Something else MyTeam related maybe someone can answer, I am confused about the shoe system. What is the point of it? Is it basically so you can make shoes to be what you want visually and boost wise? Which is kind of cool but I guess the +4’s for critical stats are expensive then?

And for the non-diamond shoes you build, once the number of games is used up, they disappear from the player as usual, right? Thought it would be cool if they could keep the shoe for aesthetics even if the boosts expire but I doubt it works that way.

@jdealla Oh, I should be good then

What's the best way to get open looks. People just spamming screens? Or are plays a big thing so far? Feels like dribbling isn't as cracked this year, harder to create space for yourself. Or are there some dribbles that I'm not seeing yet

I don't even know what I should be excited about here, no idea what the meta is yet.

I'm really behind on whatever the impressions have been so far

One thing - TT Offline graphics look horrible on XBSX am I crazy?

+4 passing vision shoe boost

An attribute that literally does nothing

2K still be scamming

I didn't get the pack(s) from the signature challenge in 2K21, is that common?

@jdealla I think you're right. It's a principle thing, though. I will think about it. MyPlayer, when you actually get a crew together that's active & consistent, is way more fun & rewarding than MyTeam