NBA 2K23: RELEASE DATE LEAKS, RATINGS NEWS, COVER ATHLETE PREDICTIONS, AND MORE
July 4, 2022
Next up for the long-running Basketball sim is NBA 2K23 and fans will no doubt be keen to know what Visual Concepts are planning to help push the game to the next level.
It’s safe to say that the changes to NBA 2K22 were fairly well-received with fans, notably the welcome revamp to MyCareer and The City hub which has improved over the course of the year. As for the gameplay, it was a strong year for the game, but we’re still hoping for a few innovations to take it up a notch.
Clearly microtransactions continue to be an issue for the game (at least for players), but we don’t see them changing much in the future. Although, it would be nice if they weren’t quite so prevalent.
For everything we know so far about the game, including the all-important details on when we can expect to see it launch and who the cover star could be, read on.
Latest News
June 30, 2022 - Devin Booker the new cover athlete?
June 30, 2022 - NBA 2K23 Updates Coming Soon
June 4, 2022 - NBA 2K23 Release Date Leaked
NBA 2K23 Release Date
At the time of writing 2K and the development team at Visual Concepts have not announced a release date for NBA 2K23.
However, we already have a pretty solid idea of what we can expect to see NBA 2K23 release this year.
If you want to get an idea of when the previous games have released, take a look at the table below. As you can see, the game has typically launched in September for quite a number of years.
We expect the team to do the same this year, which would suggest another early September release normally on the first or second Friday.
Assuming 2K follows a similar pattern, NBA 2K23 will be released on September 9, 2022.
| Reveal Trailer | Release Date | |
| NBA 2K19 | 5 June 2018 | 7 September 2018 |
| NBA 2K20 | 1 July 2019 | 5 September 2019 |
| NBA 2K21 | 11 June 2020 | 4 September 2020 |
| NBA 2K22 | 14 July 2021 | 10 September 2021 |
When will the NBA 2K23 Trailer be revealed?
As noted in the table above, in more recent years we’ve normally seen the game’s first official reveal trailer released in June or July, a few months ahead of the game’s eventual release.
At the time of writing, it’s slowly approaching the start of July, which would lead us to believe the reveal will not arrive in June 2022. So keep your eyes peeled for an official reveal in the coming weeks.
NBA 2K23 Ratings: Who will be the highest-rated player?
We’re still quite far out from the release of NBA 2K23, but we usually see an opening flurry of ratings revealed over the course of the summer in the lead-up to launch.
However, in a bizarre move the American betting company BetUS (Via GamesRadar) opened a specific betting market predicting NBA 2K23 player ratings towards the end of 2021.
Essentially customers were able to bet on whether a specific players would end up with a rating higher or lower than the overall scores suggested by BetUS.
Obviously, there’s no way to know how close these ratings are to what the players eventually get in NBA 2K23, but it’s an interesting talking point for the time being. Here’s a look at the BetUS predictions:
- Kevin Durant (Brooklyn Nets) – 97 OVR
- Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks) – 97 OVR
- LeBron James (Los Angeles Lakers) – 96 OVR
- Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors) – 96 OVR
- Kawhi Leonard (Los Angeles Clippers) – 96 OVR
- Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets) – 96 OVR
- Joel Embiid (Philadelphia 76ers) – 96 OVR
- James Harden (Philadelphia 76ers) – 96 OVR
- Luka Doncic (Dallas Mavericks) – 96 OVR
- Damian Lillard (Portland Trail Blazers) – 94 OVR
NBA 2K23 Cover Athlete Predictions
UPDATE - As Per Shams Charania - Senior lead NBA Writer and Analyst for The Athletic - Devin White will be the new cover athlete for NBA 2K23.
Another hot topic for the NBA 2K community is who will grace the cover of the game. This is slightly tricky to predict, not least when the game normally releases three different editions with different cover stars on each.
For the sake of clarity, we’re going to focus on the standard edition which is normally the one which gets the most attention on marketing materials. In our opinion when it comes to the NBA 2K23 cover athlete. a solid bet is Nikola Jokić.
The Denver Nuggets center was named the 2021-22 Kia NBA Most Valuable Player, and surprisingly this was Jokić’s second MVP award have also earned the accolade the previous season.
It means the Serbian is only the 13th player in NBA history to be named MVP in consecutive seasons.
For our money Jokić seems the obvious choice for the cover athlete on NBA 2K23.
NBA 2K23 Price and Platforms
We’re once again expecting to see NBA 2K23 released in the same fashion as what we saw last year with NBA 2K22.
Previously 2K offered three different editions of the game available on digital and physical formats. This included the Standard Edition, a Cross-Gen Digital Bundle and a special edition, which last year was themed on the NBA 75th Anniversary.
On previous-gen platforms (PlayStation 4, Xbox One consoles, Nintendo Switch, and PC) the NBA 2K22 cost £59.99/$59.99, whilst new-gen consoles (PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S) versions cost £64.99/$69.99.
2K also sold the cross-gen Digital Bundle for £74.99/$79.99 and granted players access to the Standard Edition across previous and new-gen within the same PlayStation and Xbox consoles.
Finally there was the NBA 2K22 NBA 75th Anniversary Edition available for £84.99/$99.99 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Although it is worth noting the NBA 75th Anniversary Edition for Nintendo Switch was only be available on digital format in the EMEA region.
We would imagine that NBA 2K23 will once again continue to charge the same price points this year, as nothing much has changed since the release of the last NBA 2K game.
That’s everything you need to know about NBA 2K23. If you’re interested in more games coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC in the future, check out some of our other guides just below.
