A huge portion of the entire NBA 2K21 experience is building your own player that you can use throughout the game’s campaign, the MyCareer mode, and the currency-earning The Neighborhood facet of the game, too. It can be tricky to get started in what is arguably the game’s most popular mode – MyCareer – thanks to the wall of stats and options you’re faced with when you boot it up.
Below, you’re going to find some of the best general tips for the mode that will help you be the successful, consistent player that you know you can be before you end up leading your chosen team to a national championship.
More than anything else, you should make your player in a build that you’ll enjoy playing more than anything else. If you love going for the bucket all the time, build towards offense. If you prefer being in control of the court, make a player that’ll excel in the middle of the action. Just bear in mind if you don’t purchase VC separately, it’ll take about 170,000 VC to get your rating from roughly 60 to 85 – and that can be a grind. Research builds and invest your hard-earned currency wisely.
2. Get off to a good start
Damian Lillard celebrates after a victory on the court
© 2K
NBA 2K21’s MyCareer story stars in high school, where you play a few games to attract the attention of major college programs after a weirdly emotional start to proceedings. From here, you have the option to play in more and more professional matches and eventually make it to the big leagues. Play well in the college games – if you’re at least the second overall pick, you’ll be rewarded with a very lucrative salary. Complete challenges, be a good teammate and win games – that should sort you out. Harper Dell should be your agent pick if you want to get out of the starting gates as quickly as possible.
Stephen Curry is a strong addition to any team
© 2K
Pretty much everything tied to meaningful progression in the game is tied to VC (Virtual Currency). Every stat upgrade you need is purchased via the in-game currency, and it’s actually pretty tricky to come by unless you know where to look. NBA games within MyCareer is a decent place to earn the elusive cash, and completing sponsorship challenges can help you out, too. It’s also worth signing in to the game once per day in order to check on the Daily Spin – that can be easy VC if you get all the questions right.
4. Learn how the new mechanics work
The developers really make you work for your shots in this game – practically every aspect of shooting has been made manual this time around. Learn the court, get to know how it feels to shoot from different places in the arena, and be aware you’re never making the same shot twice. Your own custom character will play and shoot unlike any other player in the game, so learn where you’re best to shoot from and then build the rest of the team around how you position yourself and play. The game will do very little for you this time around, so learn to shoot for yourself properly.
Focus on Shooting badges – these increase your Shooting ability without messing with stats too much and can quickly stack up to give you a strong operational advantage over your opponents. Even if your overall rating is a bit lower than you’d like, you can still dominate higher-ranked players if you have a good set of Badges. Every MyCareer game will progress you in some way or another towards a Badge – so make those jump shots, gain possession, and unlock training drills to really start making meaningful progression and getting these Badges to modify your stats.
