Orlando Magic: Recognition In NBA 2K16 Rankings

This time of year is great one if you’re both a basketball and video game fan, as NBA 2K16 is set for release next week. For some, this signals the true start of basketball season once more, as the launch, combined with training camps opening soon, means the regular season is back on the horizon again.

Now NBA 2K16 may be just a game, yet for years now fans and players alike have taken their ratings in the game very seriously.

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I never really did. I just enjoyed the games for what they were (I do have a confession though, and that is that I only made the jump from the NBA Live series in 2009, and wish I’d done so a lot sooner). But as the games become more and more lifelike, it seems the ratings of the players takes on extra significance as well.

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Which is why it was nice to see the Orlando Magic get some recognition from the developers ahead of the new season.

Make no mistake though, it’s not like people will be fighting over who gets to play as the Magic anyway. But the ratings of two players in particular reflect that this is a franchise that may be close to having a couple of All-Star level players on their roster.

This is because center Nikola Vucevic, the best player on the team statistically, was given an overall 83 while Victor Oladipo came away with an 80.

Again, we need to stress that this is just a game. But it is one that tries as hard as possible to mimic real life, right down to the photobombing of player interviews in this year’s edition.

The developers have no personal agendas against anybody, and try to accurately reflect what they see a player do on the court and assign them as accurate a score as possible (Kobe Bryant does have an 85 overall though, and that’s sure to divide opinion).

So to see Vooch score so highly is cool. If you watch him play regularly you know it’s a score he deserves. He led the team in scoring (19.3 ppg) and rebounds (10.9 rpg) last season, and offensively was elite on many nights for his team.

Defensively he has work to do, but if traditional centers were still required on All-Star teams, you have to think he could have snuck onto the Eastern Conference team as recently as last year.

He does so much for this team, and at times he’s doing it with only average help around him. So while it’s great to see Vucevic get some recognition despite playing for a rebuilding team that a lot of casual fans wouldn’t pay attention to, it’s also a nice exercise to compare him to players who play the same position as him. Like DeAndre Jordan for example.

He spent much of the summer in the news, as the Los Angeles Clippers and the Dallas Mavericks took part in a tug of war for his services.

The Clippers ultimately won, and many observers feel that had they lost Jordan, they wouldn’t have been a true contender in the tough Western conference. That may be true, and Jordan is absolutely a better two way center than his counterpart down in Orlando.

His rating of 84 is by no means bad, in fact it might even be a tad low when you consider all that he does for that fantastic Clippers team. But Vucevic is right behind him, and to know that the developers of the game were felt comfortable putting them in the same bracket is a nice thought for Magic fans.

Keeping with that theme, Vucevic also scores higher than or the same as the sought after Greg Monroe (82), highly rated Hassan Whiteside (81), the nearly acquired Paul Millsap (83) and the dominant Andre Drummond (83).

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That list could go on for quite sometime, but when you see Vucevic in the conversation with some of these guys, it makes you feel good about where this team can go in the future.

One final note on Vucevic and his ranking in the game, and it’s one that brought a smile to my face. Houston Rockets center Dwight Howard, who famously split from the Magic in messy circumstances, has a rating of 85.

Since leaving he’s never been the same player he was in Orlando, and I also think the team actually cut ties with him at the perfect time because injuries have slowed him down somewhat. He’s still dominant, more so than Vucevic, but the gap between the two is closing both in real life and in the game, and it’s kind of nice to see.

For Oladipo though, that 80 rating is another nice boost. It puts him level with Andrew Wiggins for example, although even I would have to admit if I could only pick one, it’d be the former first overall pick from the 2014 draft.

Nevertheless though, Oladipo looks like he could be on the cusp of a true breakout season in year three, to the point where next season it wouldn’t surprise me if he was the highest rated player the Magic have.

Oladipo now has a chance to become a top five shooting guard in this league, and I think that rating is a reflection of that. After all the All-Star game he averaged more than 20 points a game last season, and he looked like a guy who was beginning to figure things out and have the game slow down for him.

The point guard experiment with him never truly worked, but he has at least proved his versatility.

He’s getting close to elite status, and this rating feels like it could actually be his lowest for quite some time as he kicks on from here. A brief word on point guard Elfrid Payton as well.

His 76 rating is fair given his lack of a jump shot, while Tobias Harris and his score of 79 may hopefully provide motivation from him to prove that score is a little low off the back of signing a new deal this summer. Of all the players on this team, you could argue his score could take the biggest leap over the next 12 months.

So there you have it. For those who aren’t into the NBA video games, this will mean little to them. After all it’s not real life and so the scores should not be taken with much truth to them. But there’s a reason players ask for and read into what their scores are in the game, and that’s because the people at 2K games know what they’re doing, and are right a lot of the time.

It’s cool for me too, as I know I won’t have much competition trying to select an overlooked but pretty good Orlando Magic team.

Next: NBA: Complete Offseason Grades For All 30 Teams

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