I'm not always a huge fan of NBA 2K's career modes, but I have to say this is my favorite beginning to one of them in - ever.
Minor spoilers for NBA 2K26 to follow!
Your soon-to-be-created player, as always affectionately known as "MP," has a chance to talk basketball with defending NBA champion and NBA 2K26 cover star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. They arrive at a classic basketball debate, who's your all time-starting five? Of course, since they're both NBA players (at least, your player is about to be), theirs is actually a starting four that they'll lead onto the court.
After Shai picks his four, you pick yours and play the opposing squad. As a child whose basketball love was cultivated in the 70s and 80s, I picked Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and LeBron James. I only ended up with LeBron because Shai had already picked Michael.
For what it's worth, we won the game, and I won't lie, I didn't do much other than pass. With that lineup, I didn't need to. But the power fantasy of running with that squad was as awesome as anything I have ever done in a game.
From here, it wasn't long until I got to run with MP in a high-school game, in which the mission is, of course, to show everyone you're the best baller in the gym. In this game I got my first taste of GOAT skills, which function kind of like a takeover. This was apparently in NBA 2K25, but I don't think I got that far into MyPlayer last year.
It's awesome to watch time slow down, see the skill has been activated, and then become superhuman. I don't know if MyPlayer will hook me all the way to completion, but man did it get off to an explosive start.