The real opening night of the NBA led to plenty of exciting moments, and Kyrie Irving is the player who was focused on by 2K after dropping 50 in his Nets debut. Karl-Anthony Towns got the last laugh, but since Kyrie just dropped the most points ever by a player in his first game with a new team, he gets the Moments card.
A 50 ball to start the season?? 🤯 Grab a Diamond Kyrie moments card after he went off last night in his Nets debut. Available until Monday 10/28 pic.twitter.com/5zi7TePmBF
— NBA 2K MyTEAM (@NBA2KMyTEAM) October 24, 2019
The Moments cards have been starting off hot with two diamonds, but I would suspect that’s to make sure people get excited for these. Siakam and Kyrie are also two popular players, which is probably why the focus has just been on them so far. I can almost guarantee we’ll start to get a wider range of Moments players starting soon. As for the Kyrie card, it looks really good with 5 HOF badges (including tight handles) but I have zero interest in it since it has no defensive badges (understandably). That being said, he’s fun to play with in 2K this year so I see the appeal.
The two bigger developments have to do with the Moments Challenges and the Heat Check cards. 2K really did not stay on top of Moments Challenges last year, but so far they’re 2-2 in delivering worthwhile challenges. There are three challenges, all on Pro difficulty.
- The first challenge rewards you 8 coins for “winning the game” and you may also have to get 23 rebounds with a player to match Drummond — though it does not put that in the requirements area.
- The second has to do with getting 36 points with any player to match what KAT did dueling Kyrie. The reward is a Standard Heat Check pack.
- Lastly, the third challenge ties back to matching Lauri Markkanen and getting at least 35 points with one player for 3,000 MT.
It’s also worth nothing the Moments Challenges from the first night remain up as well, so hopefully 2K keeps older challenges up for longer periods this year as well.
As for the Heat Check cards, plenty of them got updated, with guys like Doncic, Jokic and Kyrie being the standouts so far. The crucial next step here will be how often 2K continues to track these players day to day. There were plenty of times last year where injured players would remain on hot streaks and that just shouldn’t happen this year. To keep this mode fresh day to day, things like the Heat Checks will need to be updated like Moments Challenges have been so far.
