I spent hours in NBA 2K26 grinding for the best team to take my shot at the $10,000 King of the Court prize, only to see my opponents running out squads with sapphire cards on them. Clearly, they read the rules. The weekly $10,000 tourney rewards players who win games without the glossiest cards, and I don't know if I've been prouder of NBA 2K at any point in the past five years.
NBA 2K's Play Now Online gives more points to teams with lower ratings who defeat better squads, and that's one of the primary reasons I love that mode. I recommend it to anybody who enjoys playing the game, but doesn't want to deal with MyTeam's pay-to-win elements. I never, ever envisioned they would implement a similar system in King of the Court. It feels like, for the first time in years, NBA 2K has made a decision not strictly rooted in profit.
That said, the players who have the best sapphire cards probably have pretty big collections as well. Thanks to YouTube, it's fairly easy to find out which low-rated cards punch well above their weight class. There will now be a whole economy built around them. Dang it, now that I've thought about it, 2K probably makes a whole bunch of money anyway. If they're giving away $10,000 a week..
But it's really hard to be mad about a weekly $10,000 tourney, however small my personal chances of winning it might be. In addition, learning how to play with lower-rated cards teaches us a lot about basketball in the long run. A couple of weeks in, I'm calling NBA 2K26's King of the Court a W.