Badges should make a noticeable difference and you should feel their impact, but they shouldn’t completely override skill. If someone is genuinely a 40% wide-open shooter with meter off, a custom jumper, and no badges, max badges shouldn’t magically turn them into a 60–70% shooter. Badges should enhance skill, not replace it.
I think ratings, badges, hot zones AND user skill all need to matter, but none of them should completely override the others. Badges should make a noticeable difference at every tier. you should feel Bronze → Silver → Gold → HOF → Legend — but they should enhance what a player is already capable of rather than manufacture skill that isn’t there.
If someone is genuinely only a 40% wide open shooter. The badges should absolutely improve them, maybe substantially, but there still needs to be separation between that player and someone who has actually mastered shooting.
Ratings need to matter just as much. An 80 3PT, 90 3PT, 95 3PT and 99 3PT should have meaningful differences beyond just unlocking animations and badge levels. If somebody spends a massive amount of their build on a 99 three, that should give them a noticeably higher shooting ceiling than somebody who gets by with an 80–85.
But I also don’t think the answer is artificially forcing elite players to miss wide-open shots to control percentages 100% leave it as NO RNG. If someone has a 95–99 3PT, HOF/Legend shooting badges, a hot/lethal zone, good stamina, knows their jumper perfectly and consistently gets truly wide open, they should be capable of shooting an insanely high percentage. If someone can actually time 9 out of 10 or even 10 out of 10 open shots correctly they should make it.
That’s where the skill gap should come from. A 40% player shouldn’t become a 70% player simply because of badges, but a legitimately elite player who has mastered shooting and invested into it should absolutely be able to reach 80%, 90%+ on genuinely uncontested, high quality shots. The ceiling should be extremely high getting to that ceiling should be the difficult part & it should require skill.
I think fades in 2K26 are a perfect example of what I mean. After Patch 1, fading 3s basically became something you just couldn’t consistently make, even if you were elite at timing them. But take essentially that same moving shot one foot inside the 3PT line and an elite player can hit it almost 100% of the time. That felt artificial. There obviously should be a meaningful penalty for adding three point distance, but there shouldn’t be this invisible line where an elite, mastered shot goes from extremely consistent to practically nonviable just because you stepped one foot backwards.
If I have a very high 3PT rating, the correct badges, a hot/lethal zone and I’ve actually mastered the timing of a moving three, there should be a skill window where I can consistently make that shot. Make the green window smaller than the moving middy. Make the rating requirement higher. Make stamina matter. Make contests punish it heavily. Make Legend badges meaningful. Just don’t remove the ability for great players to master the shot altogether.
That’s also how ratings could create different ceilings. Maybe an 80 3pt viable for a great spot-up shooter but has a much smaller margin for error & struggles with advanced shots. A 86-90+ rating gives more consistency and expands what shots you can realistically master. Then 93-99 combined with HOF/Legend badges gives elite players access to the highest ceiling in the game including difficult shots that lower-rated builds simply shouldn’t be able to hit at the same rate.
To me the goal should be: low ratings limit your ceiling, high ratings raise your ceiling, badges enhance your strengths, hot zones reward where you’re successful, and USER SKILL determines how much of that ceiling you actually reach.
That way a bad shooter can’t hide behind a 99 rating & Legend badges & PLEASE MOST IMPORTANTLY THEY CANT HIDE BEHIND TEMPO
🚨BREAKING: The #Chargers are one of the FAVORITES to trade for #Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens.
There is a 56% chance that Pickens is TRADED by Dallas, per Polymarket.
Pickens is 25 and was an All-Pro and Pro Bowler last season.
Justin Herbert would get his legit WR1.