/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/50594691/GettyImages-520303674.0.jpg)
That yearly cornucopia of living room basketball goodness, NBA 2K17, is slated to be released on September 20 of this year, and slowly but surely over recent weeks, rumors, information, screen shots, videos and player ratings have been trickling in.
Operation Sports, a site solely dedicated to sports gaming, just yesterday printed some ratings pulled from screenshots and promo videos of the upcoming game, and while not all the ratings are final -- the developers update rosters a final time before hitting shelves -- it should give us a decent idea of where everyone stands.
James Harden comes in at a 90 rating, which seems just a smidgen low once examining other players. For instance, Lebron James is a 96, which is obviously fair, with Steph Curry coming in at a 94 and Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Kawhi Leonard all at 93s. Those all seem pretty realistic.
Harden lies in the next tier, scoring the same rating as Klay Thompson, DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis. And while I believe Harden right now is better than all three of those players, it's the association with Thompson that irks me just a tad.
We talked about some of the same items when The Beard was left off the All-NBA squads this season, while a statistically inferior Thompson managed to snag a third-team mention in what has historically been an individual achievement award, not a team one. I feel the same reasons apply here.
The only thing Thompson does better than Harden is shoot the three, so I'd like to see Harden bumped up a point or two to be above that second tier of players.
Otherwise, the game is always something to look forward to, and it appears that the 2K squad has made some significant adjustments to this year's edition. Operation Sports does an amazing job of breaking down all of this year's changes, listing a whopping 75 improvements to 2K17.
Make sure to check it out. It's pretty comprehensive.