Early NBA Season Surprises

We are now approximately 12% of the way into the NBA season at which point some trends can start to be analyzed. I thought it would be interesting to look at how the player ratings have changed based on the results from the start of the season. The easiest way to do this is look at those who are clearly outperforming expectations and those who are disappointing. How have their ratings changed in NBA Live 10 and NBA 2K10 since the start of the season?

Here are some of the players that have stood out to me or were suggested by others on Twitter. Their current and original overall ratings are listed.

Fast or surprising starts

Brandon Jennings 25.6 PPG, 5.1 APG
NBA Live 10: Current 70. Original 70. (No Change)
NBA 2K10: Current 74. Original 64. (+10)

Steve Nash 17.1 PPG, 11.8 APG
NBA Live 10: Current 88. Original 88. (No Change)
NBA 2K10: Current 80. Original 80. (No Change)

Tyreke Evans 16.8 PPG, 4.3 APG
NBA Live 10: Current 69. Original 69. (No Change)
NBA 2K10: Current 71. Original 71. (No Change)

Carmelo Anthony 29.7 PPG, 6.3 RPG
NBA Live 10: Current 90. Original 90. (No Change)
NBA 2K10: Current 91. Original 88. (+3)

Chris Kaman 22.0 PPG, 9.3 RPG
NBA Live 10: Current 74. Original 74. (No Change)
NBA 2K10: Current 72. Original 72. (No Change)

Slow or disappointing starts

Elton Brand 9.8 PPG, 5.3 RPG
NBA Live 10: Current 79. Original 79. (No Change)
NBA 2K10: Current 74. Original 77. (-3)

Shaquille O’Neal 11.3 PPG, 6.8 RPG
NBA Live 10: Current 83. Original 83. (No Change)
NBA 2K10: Current 81. Original 81. (No Change)

Hasheem Thabeet 0.6 PPG, 1.6 RPG
NBA Live 10: Current 72. Original 72. (No Change)
NBA 2K10: Current 57. Original 57. (No Change)

Stephen Curry 8.3 PPG, 4.4 APG
NBA Live 10: Current 73. Original 73. (No Change)
NBA 2K10: Current 69. Original 69. (No Change)

Kevin Garnett 13.6 PPG, 7.5 RPG
NBA Live 10: Current 90. Original 90. (No Change)
NBA 2K10: Current 87. Original 90. (-3)

Overall Analysis
Both the Synergy auto-updating for NBA Live 10 and the single person in charge of updating rosters for NBA 2K10 are somewhat unreliable. In Live’s case while Synergy is updating the rosters and tendencies after each game it has not resulted in any overall ratings changes which is very disappointing. Meanwhile NBA 2K10 is at least seeing adjustments to some players but others seem largely ignored and online play still uses the default roster as opposed to the most recent one. (Update) EA has stated that a full ratings update is coming this week.