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Maximise your stats, badges and GOAT potential with these archetypes for each position
Author:
Phil Iwaniuk
Publish date:
Maximise your stats, badges and GOAT potential with these archetypes for each position
If you want to create one of the best MyPlayer builds in NBA 2K23, it pays off to go into the creation menus armed with some archetypes. The community’s identified some killer builds for each position, and they’re not all intuitive - 6”8 point guard with a huge wingspan? Get outta here.
Follow these archetypes for each position on the court and you can build a superstar with superb badge and OVR potential, unleash them on the league and the PvP court, and feel like a bona fide basketball legend. All without having to do suicide runs until coach says stop or ever getting called out on Shaqtin’ a Fool.
Why use a guide?
Valid question. Why not just pick the stats you want to be good at and focus your game around them? You can absolutely do that. The game won’t delete itself or ban you from 2K’s servers for doing so. But if you want to unlock the most possible badges for your player, and particularly if you want to play a lot of 3 on 3 with your MyPlayer, it’s worth using some popular guides on certain positions. They’ve figured out how to get the most badges and develop very effective players, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make tweaks to suit your playstyle. If you’ve been a rebounding defensive PF for the last few games, for example, it doesn’t make sense to start playing as a three-point-focused PG just because people are saying that’s the dominant build this year.
Following a certain order of stat allocation also helps you to get the important badges. Stats all affect each other in this game, so if you pour your stats into the ones that really matter, the game will do the rest.
POINT GUARD - Dining 3pt Shooter
You’ll find many variations of this build on YouTube and in written guides, but these are the basic principles: he’s oversized, has a long old wingspan, and he can shoot the three ball as well as he can dunk. It’s the closest you’ll get to that Jordan build that we’ve all been trying to find since 2K11.
Height: 6”8
Weight: 180lbs
Wingspan: 6”11
Build order:
- Driving dunk: 93
- Three-point shot: 92
- Ball handle: 85
- Pass accuracy: 86
- Perimeter defense: 81
- Steal: 78
- Speed: 80
- Acceleration: 82
- Vertical: 82
- Stamina: 95
Primary takeover: limitless range
Secondary takeover: team ratings boost
Badges:
- Finishing: 12
- Shooting: 24
- Playmaking: 23
- Def/Reb: 8
The rationale behind this build is to spend most of your stats in offensive areas, and rely on that height and wingspan for a lot of your defense. At 6”8 you’ll be able to grab a few offensive boards and register some blocks on smaller PGs. This build and its variants are extremely popular online though, so be prepared to come up against a LOT of players with the exact same height and wingspan as you. If you’re really confident in your skill level, consider a smaller, faster build to counteract all the 6”8 PGs online.
SHOOTING GUARD - Inside-Out Shot Creator
Yep, things have already become weird. Our recommended SG build is an inch shorter than our PG - but hear us out. Since you’ll be meeting a lot of 6”8 PGs in PvP, it’s useful to have this compact and speedy finisher at your disposal who can outmaneuver ganglier builds. Your focus is on the three ball and on inside scoring via layups and dunks, and although those stats aren’t as high as they are in the previous build, your agility should allow you to create more uncontested looks. There’s little to no defensive potency with this build though, so if you like to contribute on both ends of the court try a different build.
Height: 6”7
Weight: 200lbs
Wingspan: 6”10
Build order:
- Driving Layup: 76
- Driving Dunk: 86
- Standing Dunk: 87
- Mid-Range Shot: 78
- Three-Point Shot: 92
- Pass Accuracy: 80
- Ball Handle: 90
- Speed With Ball: 84
- Perimeter Defense: 70
- Steal: 71
- Speed: 87
- Acceleration: 81
- Strength: 25
- Vertical: 75
- Stamina: 85
Primary Takeover: Limitless Range
Secondary Takeover: Finishing Moves
Badges:
- Finishing: 15
- Shooting: 23
- Playmaking: 23
- Def/Reb: 7
To make this build work you need to use that speed and agility both on and off the ball, to create spaces for open threes and slash to the basket when you’re carrying the ball in transition. It takes a little grinding to see this build at its fullest, since a lot of the potential’s tied up in unlocking all those badges.
SMALL FORWARD - Inside-Out Point Forward
This build is based around a certain LeBron James, and although it doesn’t use his exact measurements (imagine if LeBron had a 7”6 wingspan) it’s designed to let you play like him - formidable strength, physicality, speed, playmaking and posterizer dunks. It’s pretty light on defense, but the stats are balanced just right so that you can unlock the Chasedown Artist badge and recreate LeBron’s iconic blocks. This build was developed by JoeKnows, and you’ll see a lot of players using it in the park.
Height: 6”8
Weight: 236lbs
Wingspan: 7”6
Build order:
- Speed: 82
- Acceleration: 74
- Strength: 89
- Vertical: 82
- Ball handle: 89
- Speed with ball: 77
- Pass accuracy: 82
- Driving dunk: 93
- Driving layup: 80
- Close shot: 85
- Standing dunk: 77
- Three-point shot: 84
- Midrange shot: 79
- Perimeter defense: 70
- Steal: 58
- Block: 47
Primary takeover: finishing moves
Secondary takeover: team takeover boost
Badges:
- Finishing: 21
- Shooting: 21
- Playmaking: 23
- Def/Reb: 3
Like the SG build above, this one’s light on defensive attributes so your role is to generate ALL the offense for your team, using your strength and surprisingly soft hands to score and assist. You’re not going to sleep out of possession though - that insanely long wingspan does a lot to counteract your low defensive stats, so it’s still possible to make strong shot contests and tip off a few passes.
POWER FORWARD - 2-Way Stretch Glass Cleaner
2K23’s meta favors oversized guards and undersized PF/Cs, so welcome to a very bizarre world where your PF is one inch taller than most point guards. You can bump up the height to around 6”11 in this build without losing the basic archetype’s properties, but you’ll need to re-tweak the stat allocation in order to maximize your badges.
This one’s very defense-focused, so don’t expect to be putting up Luka-like numbers on offense. Instead, you’ll be grabbing hideous numbers of rebounds, blocking shots from all over the place, and getting into the paint with your raw strength and size. You’ll have a fairly good three-point shot, but that’s primarily to give this build a lot of shooting badges so that you can expand your offensive game after a little grinding.
Height: 6”9
Weight: 239lbs
Wingspan: 7”7
Build order:
- Speed: 79
- Acceleration: 73
- Strength: 90
- Vertical: 85
- Stamina: 95
- Perimeter defense: 86
- Steal: 90
- Block: 99
- Defensive rebound: 99
- Offensive rebound: 76
- Pass accuracy: 75
- Three-point shot: 82
- Mid-range shot: 69
- Driving dunk: 84
- Driving layup: 65
Primary takeover: paint intimidation
Secondary takeover: limitless range
Badges:
- Finishing: 8
- Shooting: 16
- Playmaking: 6
- Def/Reb: 30
20 defensive badges. That tells you the story of where to place your focus when you’re using this build. Since most players you meet online will be using one of the above archetypes, their stats will be lopsided towards offense and that means you’re a rare commodity: a player who can defend, and defend well.
You’ve got some driving dunks, layups, and even a three available to you too, but they’ll probably only become viable in PvP later in the game after unlocking those 16 shooting badges. Since your acceleration and speed are relatively low, you won’t get many uncontested shots away. Credit to Double H for developing this popular build.
CENTER: 2-Way Inside-The-Arc Scorer
Most center builds online top out at 6”9, but we think there’s good reason to go higher than that. For starters, almost all MyPlayer builds in the park are around 6”8 so regardless of stats it’s useful to have an immediate height advantage over 90% of players. And if you really care about defending more than scoring, you can use that height to great effect without ever worrying about your lower speed stats.
Height: 7”0
Weight: 251lbs
Wingspan: 7”10
Build order:
- Close Shot: 73
- Driving Layup: 71
- Driving Dunk: 85
- Standing Dunk: 93
- Mid-Range Shot: 80
- Three-Point Shot: 79
- Pass Accuracy: 71
- Interior Defense: 88
- Perimeter Defense: 85
- Steal: 70
- Block: 88
- Offensive Rebound: 85
- Defensive Rebound: 90
- Speed: 70
- Acceleration: 61
- Strength: 85
- Vertical: 83
- Stamina: 87
Badges:
- Finishing: 18
- Shooting: 20
- Playmaking: 9
- Def/Reb: 25
If you’re under the basket at either end of the court using this build, you’re either scoring or you’re stopping somebody. It’s an absolutely formidable dunk and layup stat allocation, but it’s nicely balanced to allow for a real spread of badges. The only thing you won’t be doing much of is playmaking, but that’s fine: you’re a center. That’s what teammates are for. We found this build via Gamespot, and we love that it makes the big man build a really viable option in 2K23.
