The NBA 2K community has been buzzing about the Lone Star Showdown event where Victor Wembanyama will play against Cooper Flagg, but players seem to prefer complaining about the game’s issues rather than watching the actual match. The official NBA 2K26 tweet “The Lone Star Showdown begins tonight 🤠 Wemby vs Cooper – who you got?” has triggered a torrent of complaints from gamers who are dealing with server problems, disputing ratings, and expressing their concerns about in-game purchases.
So, what is this Lone Star Showdown all about? It seems to be a special event or a virtual confrontation between two of the most promising basketball players in the NBA 2K game. However, instead of creating any hype about the basketball fight, the comment section converted instantly into a massive complaint board where players voiced their discontent over the game.
The primary issue being raised was? Server outages. A lot of users reported that they couldn’t connect and play properly. One dissatisfied gamer complained, “Fix ur fucking servers for europe i cant play for shit,” while another simply said, “Fix these damn servers.” Problems with the servers were not limited to a specific region as gamers from different places mentioned experiencing the same issues with connectivity.
Star rating-related argument actually got the audience talking. Several players pointed out what they thought were ridiculously low dunk ratings for both protagonists. For example, one user pointed out: “May want to adjust Wemby’s dunk stat; 75 is too low,” and another questioned “I really don’t understand 80 driving dunk for Flagg. Do yall not see his dunks? Lmao.” The stats debate became even more focused when someone asked, “Perimeter defense Cooper 83 and Wemby 78? WTF” – thus showing that gamers are indeed paying close attention to these virtual athlete attributes.
Microtransactions issue was also heavily criticized, and along with that, the hashtag #PlayersOverProfits was seen frequently in the commentary. “You’re not a game company, you’re a pimp. You’re selling great players and history like prostitutes,” vented one really upset user. On the other hand, another one was saying: “Let loose your dev team & give us a mode with useful & grindable rewards. This will bring you players, and the money you desire. #PlayersOverProfits” – arguing that gamers are asking for more just and friendly progression systems rather than constant pressure to spend more money.
The technical issues not only included servers but also other areas as mentioned in the replies. One user said, “i just bought VC and it took my money but never gave me my VC…” and another was talking about face scanning problems: “Yall should fix my face scan appearing on other people’s myplayers it’s mad weird.” In addition, there were complaints regarding age verification, and one user was asking, “Why the fuck so you need to verify my age to play a basketball game?”
Along with the complaints, there were some users who defended the players instead of lamenting their issues. “I’ll bet on the great center I’ve ever seen play the game of basketball” one user backed Wembanyama, whereas another one argued “Coop because Derick lively II be dominating Wemby every time they match up.” Nevertheless, such discussions regarding basketball would take place against a backdrop of technical complaints and demands for fixes.
The daily pick’em system also faced criticism, and one user remarked cynically, “What’s the point of having daily pickems if they don’t work 🤦🏽” – suggesting that even player engagement promotional events might be affected by glitches too.
What is really surprising is that a simple marketing tweet about an in-game event that should be exciting quickly turned into a large complaint session. This shows that NBA 2K players have a lot of grievances – from the most basic, like the server down, to the more complex, like player ratings’ balance, to the game’s business model issues that concern the whole player community. The fact that so many different problems came out with a single tweet proves that these aren’t isolated problems but rather widespread issues amongst the players.
And wait! What was I talking about? Oh yes – the basketball part of it. Even though there were a lot of complaints regarding technical issues, some gamers found a way to discuss the basketball aspect of it. There were arguments about who would be the better player, conversations about the actual matchups between the two players, and one user even predicted the future team of Cooper Flagg by saying “Cooper Dallas Mavericks.”
The massive number and variety of complaints that were directed towards what should have been a promotional tweet from NBA 2K very well represent the situation of the game’s relationship with the players’ community. While developers are creating attractive content like the Lone Star Showdown, the players are mourning the fundamental problems that prevent them from fully enjoying the game. It is a classic case of needing to fix the foundations before adding new features, something gamers have been telling developers across franchises for years.
In summary, there may be the Lone Star Showdown in NBA 2K, but the real fight seems to be between the players who just want the game to run smoothly and the developers who keep on creating new content while old issues remain unresolved. The community is likely to continue using every official NBA 2K tweet as a platform to vent their frustrations instead of engaging in discussions about the actual basketball content until server issues are sorted and player ratings are adjusted to be more realistic. Many players are also experiencing issues on their PlayStation and Xbox consoles.
