For Memphis Grizzlies fans, a yearly tradition has officially kicked off. Unfortunately, this isn’t the type of tradition that you’ll be jumping out of your seat for. Instead, Grizzlies fans have an annual routine of having to complain about Dillon Brooks’ rating in NBA 2K.
The Grizzly wing is one of the league’s love-or-hate players, with most fans leaning toward the hate side. He’s the type of guy who is great to have on your team and extremely annoying to play against. For Grizzlies fans, he’s the heart and soul of a grit-and-grind Memphis organization.
But his value isn’t limited to his personality type — that’s far from the truth.
Memphis Grizzlies Dillon Brooks has the stats to be ranked among the league’s top wing players
In fact, the Grizzly wing had a career year on the stat sheet, averaging career-highs in every category imaginable. Those categories included all of the following.
- Points (17.2)
- Assists (2.3)
- Blocks (0.4)
- Steals (1.2)
He did this without a significant increase in minutes played, seeing just a minute more of court time per contest in 2020-21 than in 2019-20. There’s no way around it — Brooks had a career year as a scorer, which only complemented his ability to play lockdown defense.
His defense cannot be given a true number, but the Grizzly wing was capable of guarding virtually any player on the court last season. Obviously, he wouldn’t be covering seven-footers, but Brooks’ defensive assignments ranged from Stephen Curry to LeBron James. He did it successfully, too.
Here are some numbers from Brooks’ defensive performance against Curry in last season’s play-in tournament, which saw Memphis advance to the NBA Playoffs in a nail-biter.
— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) May 22, 2021
There’s only so much you can to do limit Steph Curry and Brooks did just that. Curry shot uncharacteristically poorly with the Grizzly wing guarding him and was not as much of a factor in the Warriors’ offense with Brooks covering him.
So why is Memphis Grizzlies wing Dillon Brooks rated so low in NBA 2K22?
Brooks has now developed into a solid offensive player, which complements his elite defense. His scoring average of 17.2 points per contest ranks 63rd in the NBA and he was the third scoring option on this Grizzlies team for the bulk of the season. His 1.2 steals per game was a top ten total in the NBA last season.
So why is NBA 2K so insistent on giving Dillon Brooks a low rating?
In 2018-19, his rating was 75. It would be knocked down to a 74 in 2019-20 before receiving a slight boost up to 77 in 2020-21. If anything, his ratings were completely fair in his first couple of seasons in the league. Now, not so much.
This year, Brooks was rated 78. That puts him at the 120th spot in the league, alongside players like Daniel Gafford, Jeremy Lamb, and Isaiah Stewart, to name a few. I randomly selected those names from the 2K database and surprise, surprise — Brooks averages over double the points per game of two of the listed players.
There’s no cherry-picking going on here, Brooks is better than every 78-overall player in the game. He averages more points in general than of all of the listed players — and scoring is the secondary part of his game.
At this point, it’s clear that Dillon Brooks will always receive disrespect from NBA 2K, so if you’re like me, there’s only one thing to do — go into the game and fix the rating yourself.