Every year before the NBA regular season gets underway, NBA fans and avid gamers anticipate the announcement of player ratings.
Last year, the ratings were released by 2K Sports with some debate surrounding Kobe Bryant. Apparently, the popular sports video game franchise believed Kobe was on the decline and chose to rate other big-name players like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade ahead of the five-time NBA champion.
After Kobe lit up the scoreboards for the Los Angeles Lakers last season as the league’s second leading scorer, behind only Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant (ranked ahead of Kobe for the first time with a 94 rating); 2K Sports has shown the future Hall of Famer some love, with a 93 rating this time around, according to Bleacher Report. There’s still a good chance Kobe fails to be one of the top three to five players, but this is still a high rating for a player supposedly on the decline before last season.
Even though Kobe’s rating isn’t what it used to be in comparison to years passed ,with ratings nearing a 100, the Lakers star is still currently one of the highest rated players in the game. The recently released ratings for the upcoming version of the game for the 2012-13 NBA season has Kobe, accurately, rated ahead of Carmelo Anthony (92) and Rajon Rondo (90).
It’ll be interesting to see what the ratings are for other players on the revamped Lakers roster like Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, Metta World Peace, Pau Gasol and Antawn Jamison. It would be safe to say that Howard will crack the 90+ mark with Nash and Gasol ending up with a rating somewhere in the 80s.
Last year, Kobe (94), Gasol (86), Nash (84), and Andrew Bynum (79) all had ratings that will almost certainly change in NBA 2K13. Bynum will most likely go up while Kobe drops a point along with Nash and Gasol likely receiving lower ratings.
NBA 2K13 is set to be released on October 2.
