Some of the best players in NBA history are centers. Whether it was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Moses Malone, or Hakeem Olajuwon, the center position has seen immense talent. And that continues to this day with Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid seemingly battling it out for MVP year in and year out. Even a player like Giannis Antetokounmpo is a towering seven footer who could easily play the position.
But one name that always comes up as being purely dominant in general is Shaquille O’Neal, who conquered opponents with raw strength and thunderous dunks. Not only the power in the paint, but Shaq was also quick for his size and could hit you with a little crossover when you least expected it on his way to an easy dunk.
So why are we talking about Shaq and other great NBA centers? Because in one of the Courtside Reports for NBA 2K24, there was a short portion of it that mentioned paint play and how much more realistic it will be. In the report, they mentioned how strength will play more a pivotal role in the paint and good rebounders will have greater success grabbing boards (for all you Rodman, Russell, and Malone builds out there).
Post fades are also supposed to be more effective too if you’re trying to shoot for a Dirk Nowitzki or Tim Duncan sort of build. With this improved paint play comes better interior defense as well so there’s a nice balance. We may truly see some epic battles in the paint in Park games and Rec games among others.
And with the MyPlayer Builder being revealed, this will now give you a bit of an idea of how you want to strategize your creation process. The builder looks similar to 2K23’s but there’s also an interesting new feature called Templates which will allow you to choose preset builds with attributes that replicate that of NBA players. This sounds basically like a replacement for the Replica feature from 2K23. So, going back to Shaq, there’s a good chance we could see a template for the Diesel.
The nice thing about the templates is that you can customize them. So if there was a Shaq template and you aren’t totally satisfied with the max attributes, you should be able to tweak things around to your liking in NBA 2K24. With the Replica builds, you have to have the attributes exactly right or have the most minimal of changes to secure the build. Here, there seems to be more flexibility.
Now, although post scoring bigs will be able to get their points, paint defense is supposed to be improved as well so there’s going to be a nice balance overall for paint play. So perhaps you have a dream Dikembe Mutombo build for defense as opposed to the dream Shaq build for offense, then you can go that route as well.
On the offensive side, a new badge called Post-Fade Phenom will be available to help boost your abilities in the post and the Hook Specialist badge makes its return. So aside from using raw power in the paint, you can use these badges to your advantage when inside the three-point line, depending on your attributes.
Guards are usually king in NBA 2K when it comes to the Park and Rec, but I have a feeling that we may see a few extra bigs this year — although guards will likely be the most popular as usual. It’s going to be interesting to see how the center position is played this year both on offense and defense. We should see some fun interior battles (especially in The Rec) whether it’s Shaq builds, Dikembe builds, Hakeem builds, or a completely unique build altogether.
