This riddle was shared as a post by the official NBA 2K Twitter account and it said, “Name the previous player on the basis of the teams he played for 🤔” with a link attached. It looked like a harmless fun way to have the community engage, nothing major just a little light-hearted manner. However, the answers? They are a whole different vibe and not always a pleasant one. The year 2025 reflects the NBA 2K community perfectly, so to say—sharp basketball knowledge, total confusion and plenty of people just wanting to complain about the game happily.
First came the riddle. The logos of Phoenix Suns, Miami Heat, Toronto Raptors, Dallas Mavericks, and Cleveland Cavaliers can only be described through the replies to the original post (although we can’t see them, the replies give a good description). To true basketball fans, that is no riddle. Guys that were basketball-savvy showed up and answering was very quick. ‘Shawn “matrix” Marion,’ one said. ‘Shawn Marion The Matrix’, another one uttered. Others even went further by saying: ‘Shawn Marion who was in the NBA for 16 seasons and played for 5 different teams.’ It was decided, right? The player who had one of the most… strange… shooting styles in NBA history was the answer. The trivia for today had good points but was perhaps a bit too easy.
But here is where it gets difficult and to be honest very interesting. For every person who immediately recognized Marion, there was somebody who guessed hilariously wrong. One said Vince Carter, which… well, Vinsanity has played for many teams, but not that exact group? Another was referring to Jeff Green, the ultimate traveler, which was a little close yet not so bad guess. However, the most ridiculous guess of all was ‘Cedric Zelos Ceballos.’ What? Ceballos? He surely was a Suns and Mavs player no doubt about that but being with the Heats, Raptors, and Cavs? Not a chance! That reply was a complete disaster and was totally roasted; an account even replied: ‘This might deadass be the worst guess ive ever seen.’ A user very simply said, ‘He didn’t play for any of these teams lmao.’ It’s just beautiful chaos.
And then comes the ketchup for that matter the other, noisier, angrier section of the replies. They see an NBA 2K tweet and just see a target. Frustration with NBA 2K25 was mentioned in every complaint in connection with this trivia tweet. One user even posted a video clip showing the problem instead of trying to guess the player. ‘FIX YOUR DOG SHIT GAME! This has happened several times and the only reason why I am showing it now is because attempting to get in SEVERAL matches I have been DEMOTED! Like WTF is wrong with yall???!’ is the caption of the video he posted. The mood is so tense that it is very easy to feel the anger through the screen. Another user simply said, ‘Can anyone help me? When I try to play casual matches in the city, the game tells me I don’t meet the requirements.’ It is a clear indication that for some people a broken online experience makes the fun community stuff less attractive.
There were also some funny comments in the replies. One user said, ‘this is how I found out Shawn Marion was on the Raptors.’ Seems pretty fair since his move to Toronto was probably the least memorable part of his career. Another user called him ‘Mr ugly jumper,’ and, you know, he is not wrong. It is that mix of trivia and personality that makes the basketball fan culture so great.
The absolutely amazing thing? The complete randomness that gets mixed in. Someone used the comment section to share their unrelated content along with a completely irrelevant video. Moreover, another user took that moment to ask the developers to bring back a feature that sounded like a deep cut from a past game: ‘Bring back 21 in my park if you’re too young it’s 1vs1vs1 make it you shoot freethrows you go over 21 you go back to 11 you have to hit 21 exactly.’ Try reading that in one breath. It is a glorious, confusing, run-on sentence of passion for a mode that probably hasn’t been around for the last ten years.
What lesson can be taken from this one tiny tweet? It is that the NBA 2K community is, as always, very knowledgeable but at the same time very frustrated. They can identify a player by just five team logos in a flash, and that shows the amazing basketball IQ which is the reason for the fanbase’s strength. But they are like the ones sitting on a powder keg of gameplay issues, ready to vent at any moment, even over Shawn Marion. It’s a love-and-hate relationship, very often in the same
