NBA 2K Heavily Features Mavs, Doncic in 2K21 Next-Gen Preview

NBA 2K previewed their next-gen Gameplay for NBA 2K21 on Tuesday, showing major love to Dallas Mavericks’ star Luka Doncic and owner Mark Cuban in the process.

Dalton Trigg | Oct 6, 2020

NBA 2K has been the most popular basketball simulation game for as long as we can remember, despite the franchise showing minimal improvements over the last few years. With new Xbox and PlayStation consoles set to release around the holidays, however, it appears that 2K’s best product yet is on the horizon.

On Tuesday, 2K released its ‘Next-Gen Gameplay’ trailer on Twitter, which mainly featured a matchup between Luka Doncic’s Dallas Mavericks and Steph Curry’s Golden State Warriors. Before they actually show the gameplay itself, the preview begins by showing Doncic walking out of the tunnel at American Airlines Center and dapping up Mavs owner Mark Cuban.

Historically, the Mavs haven’t really ever received much love from 2K. Even when Dirk Nowitzki was in his prime, and the Mavs were making the playoffs every single year, 2K always struggled to make Dirk look like Dirk, not just with his physical appearance, but also with how his patented one-legged fadeaway looked.

The rise of Doncic to All-NBA stardom in just his second season at age 21 seems to have gotten the attention of the folks at 2K. Even Doncic’s go-to move, the step-back three, is featured in the preview and looks as authentic as ever.

The preview ends on a less Mavs-friendly note, with Curry hitting a buzzer-beating three to beat Dallas at home, but hey, we can’t expect to have it all at one time, right?

Regardless, it was nice to not only see the Mavs get some well-deserved spotlight but also that 2K has apparently put the time and effort into making its next-gen game its best product yet. We’ll be sure to give you a full breakdown of the Mavs on 2K21 once the next-gen consoles are released.

Published Oct 6, 2020

DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.