Sixers

Joel Embiid is Not Happy About His NBA 2k18 Rating

By Kyle Scott

Published: Jul 18th, 2017 · 8:47 AM EDT

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Joel Embiid will be an 86 in NBA 2k18, and as you can tell by the video, shot during a 2k Sports commercial shoot, he’s not particularly happy about it and thought he deserved a 95, which would put him on-par with LeBron James.

So just how far did his 31 games in which Embiid dominated the league take him? Not very far. He was a 77 coming into last year. An 86 puts him on-par with the likes of Kyle Lowry, Paul Millsap and Blake Griffin (from last year)– not exactly shabby company, but still well under his ceiling.

Other ratings that have been released: Isiah Thomas (89), Paul George (91) and Kryie Irving (90).

Here’s the thing about sports video game ratings: It’s all how they fit together. Last year, Embiid, quite frankly, stunk in the game. Something about the overall package didn’t match his skill set. It can be hard to replicate a dynamic player in a video game, especially if, according to their ratings, they don’t excel in any one area. Speed is a big factor. Joel’s athleticism were way too low. Now, compare him to Thon Maker, who is one of the greatest video game athletes of all-time in NBA 2k17. Thon sucks in real life and his ratings are lower than Embiid’s in the game, and yet he’s borderline unstoppable. He’s like the early-oughts Milan Hejduk or High Heat Tim Hudson. For real, if you play NBA 2k17, do whatever you can to get Thon on your team or play with him. I was playing against an 11-year-old online last week, and he was so blown away by my use of Thon that he declared that he was stopping everything and getting Thon’s card for his team. Am I proud of that sentence? I am not. But Thon can handle, shoot, score and block– basically all the things that Embiid should be able to do in the game.