The casual community belief that spamming escapes left and right or zig zagging left and right around the screen is how the competitive community plays is just so baffling to me. How can you be so ignorant to a thing that's right in front of you? Let me break it down for you how it actually works. I'll take 2K26 as an example, as it's the most recent 2K besides #2K27 The comp community finds a few moves, that are effective - they chain them together with basic moves, such as escapes, snatchbacks, behind the backs and what not. That's how combos are made and then you have what a basketball fan would refer to as a "bag". That's how you get better, not by holding right stick up and watching your player do a predetermined animation. Example A: Devin Booker Breakdown in 2K26. We found out about DBook Break down, started using it, defense adapted, started playing a lil lower, expecting it in certain spots. Then we found that you can double flick it out of a catch to get instant DBook without dribbling the ball. We added that to our bag. Then we found out about Dbook Hop jumper, added that. Then found out you can double flick right stick for Dbook breakdown into instant dbook hop, that's a combo. Then we started using DBook Breakdown with Up/Down right stick cancels, snatchbacks, escapes etc. to make more combos. Then we found out you can Dbook into a spin jumper. Then when defense adapted to that one, we started using Double DBook > Spin Jumper > cancel > standing shot Then in S4 or something Kawhi BTB got added, and you could make even more killer combos. My favourite was always: get the ball on the wing coming up towards middle > behind the back towards wing > (if not open) Dbook Break down > (if not open) snatchback > if not crabbed > escape into another btb, or snatchback into the up/down before it got patched. Or snatchback into another dbook into spin jumper. That's bag, that's evolution of the game, that's learning, skill gap, getting better. The offense got a move, defense adapted, the offense adapted to defense adapting, defense adapted again, offense got creative, defense found gaps to exploit that creativity. The thing with casuals is that y'all got stuck on step 1, and instead of finding how to adapt to the DBook Breakdown, y'all were still screeching that it's OP by season 7 when everyone was already blitzing it any time it was used in a bad spot. In 2K27, y'all got a game that has ZERO separation, and we still adapt and end up winning 80-90% of our games (not involving codes), while y'all can't use your head to find an antidote to a simple move, then year in and year out we get this watered down game, that becomes less and less responsive, with less and less manual input mattering. Y'all still talk about left right, there hasn't been a proper ''left-right'' in 2K since PS4 generation. What are we talking about? Last proper left-right move was 2K20 Behind the Back that ended up getting patched. Or the speed glitch in PS4 2K21. C'mon mane. Y'all talk about realism and ''good hoops'' but you can't use yo' noggin to break down a simple defense. Y'all still call what comp teams run ''zone'' when no one has ran zone in 5s since maybe 2k18. Any other game, COD, CS2, LoL, Fortnite, FIFA, literally ANYTHING that has ANY ranking - you don't see Gold Timmies telling the pros about game state. I don't know how 2K is so backwards in this sense.