Analysis: What Six Players and the Pre-Set Combine Times Mean for the NBA 2K League

The league dropped a big bombshell Thursday afternoon after a day of teasing excited fans. Let’s take a look at the biggest nuggets and consider some things that might not be initially apparent.

6 Players on Each Roster

This is a a great move here by the league, allowing for 17 more players to make it and giving teams some room to breathe — and saving the league lots of potential headaches in the long run.

Will teams be allowed to use all 6 during the game if all are physically available? Will one player be “inactive,” or only allowed to come in as an injury replacement?

What the heck is an injury even going to be?

Nonetheless, this decision is a good one, showing the league’s confidence in its scouting ability and in its financial backing.

Pre-Set Combine Times

This is another hugely important piece of news. Perhaps a more questionable one, too. There are three general timeslots: 8pm-12am, 2pm-8pm, and 4pm-10pm Eastern.

The former is essentially the timeslot for weekdays, the latter for Sundays and Saturdays, respectively.

Here’s the issue: for several international regions, those times aren’t terrific if you have, say, a 9-5 job or classes to attend. The 8pm-12am timeslot corresponds to 12pm-4pm in Eastern Australia, 2am-6am in Germany, and 9am-1pm the next day in China.

The weekend ones are more manageable, as the league no doubt made sure, but they’ll still require some early mornings or late nights from non-Western Hemisphere regions. Here are all the times, listed in Eastern Time:

2/2 – 8pm to 12am ET
2/3 – 2pm to 8pm ET
2/4 – 2pm to 8pm ET
2/7 – 8pm to 12am ET
2/9 – 8pm to 12am ET
2/10 – 4pm to 10pm ET
2/11 – 2pm to 8pm ET
2/14 – 8pm to 12am ET
2/16 – 8pm to 12am ET
2/17 – 4pm to 10pm ET
2/18 – 2pm to 8pm ET
2/21 – 8pm to 12am ET

Gameplay

At least 40 games played—not won. There are 60 hours available. Use your time wisely.

Each player can only play one position per game, and will be forced to select from one of five archetypes available.

Standard Pro-Am rules will apply for 6-minute quarters. All games, it seems, will be walk-on with other qualified players. Your gameplay, however, will likely change (even subconsciously) based on the knowledge that “the NBA 2K League will measure high-level statistics such as points, rebounds and assists, as well as more in-depth statistics such as shot release time, pass to assist and block efficiency.”

It will be interesting to see how the league balances quantitative and qualitative scouting.

You Still Need 50 Wins To Get To This Point

Once again, the online application will only become available in February. Just get your 50 wins by February and wait for the NBA 2k League Combine tab to pop up on your menu screen. If you’ve already made it to 50 wins, don’t forget to keep practicing! You don’t want to follow in the footsteps of A.I. and look like nothing more than a replacement AI player to the scouts who’ll be analyzing you at the next level.