Utah Jazz: Gobert, Mitchell NBA 2K20 ratings revealed (and they rock!)
By Ryan Aston
The first batch of player ratings for the NBA 2K20 video game have been revealed and a pair of Utah Jazz players received sterling evaluations.
Forget the underdog status and small-market stories — the Utah Jazz are moving up in the world. In spite of that stuff, the team has averaged 50 wins a season for three years running and won multiple playoff series. Also: Rudy Gobert is pulling down year-end hardware on the regular and Donovan Mitchell is becoming a mainstream star.
But the good vibes don’t end there. The Jazz and their star duo of Mitchell and Gobert are breaking out in the virtual world, too. Specifically, in basketball video games.
In a live stream event on Monday featuring 2K guru Ronnie Singh (better known to gamers as Ronnie 2K), hoops host Alexis Morgan and 2K TV’s Chris Manning, the first batch of player ratings for the upcoming NBA 2K20 video game were unveiled on Twitter.
Spoiler alert: both Mitchell and Gobert made the cut as top 20-ranked players across the Association in terms of overall rating.
Both players received an overall score of 88; Mitchell was ranked as the 18th-best player overall, while the Stifle Tower came in one spot later at No. 19.
On the stream, Singh and Manning praised Utah’s franchise cornerstones, while also giving props to the Jazz for their offseason acquisitions of Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdanovic.
The top-rated players in the game shake out as follows —
1. LeBron James, 97
2. Kawhi Leonard, 97
3. Giannis Antetokounmpo, 96
4. Kevin Durant, 96
5. James Harden, 96
6. Stephen Curry, 96
7. Anthony Davis, 94
8. Paul George, 93
9. Damian Lillard, 92
10. Joel Embiid, 91
11. Kyrie Irving, 91
12. Nikola Jokic, 90
13. Russell Westbrook, 90
14. Klay Thompson, 89
15. Karl-Anthony Towns, 89
16. Jimmy Butler, 88
17. Kemba Walker, 88
18. Donovan Mitchell, 88
19. Rudy Gobert, 88
20. Blake Griffin, 88
All things considered, I’d say there’s nothing overly egregious with these ratings. However, I think one could make a pretty easy case for Gobert rating higher than Karl-Anthony Towns and Nikola Jokic.
Doubly so in the case of Towns, who essentially plays on only side of the floor and ranks below Gobert in just about every catch-all analytic, i.e. real plus/minus, box plus/minus, win shares and VORP.
Meanwhile, Gobert has led the Jazz to the aforementioned 50-win campaigns and postseason series wins; Towns has essentially led the Wolves nowhere, but I digress. #ShotsFired
Other noteworthy ratings revealed during the live stream include Zion Williamson as the top rookie (with an 81 overall rating), Stephen Curry as the best shooter with a 99 in that department and LeBron and AD as the top duo with an average rating of 95.5.
Next. Utah Jazz: A look at the roster following the summer fireworks. dark
NBA 2K20 will be released on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Windows, iOS and Android on September 6, 2019.