MyCAREER tips and tricks: Best center build in NBA 2K24

In the day and age of chucking three-pointers from half-court, don’t you just wish to bulldoze your way into the paint and two-hand slam dunk the ball on everyone’s head with your 300-pound center? What’s that, you do? Well, you’ve come to the right place then, we’ve got the best center build in NBA 2K24 ready for you.

We exaggerated a little with our perfect center’s weight. First of all, we can’t even build such a center in NBA 2K24—the weight cap is set at 290 pounds. Second of all, even if we could go over that limit, we wouldn’t, not if we want an actually competitive MyPLAYER. Running would be a tall order for such a player, let alone winning at basketball.

Running is the least you’ll be doing once you’ve built this NBA 2K24 MyCAREER center we’ve prepared for you. You’ll be swatting shots left and right, grabbing every board under the Sun, and being a walking double-double day in and day out. There won’t be any pretty jumpers here—only domination.

Best height, weight, and wingspan for a center in NBA 2K24

The best physical settings for your MyPLAYER center are as follows:

• Height – 7 feet
• Weight – 252 pounds
• Wingspan – 7-feet-5-inches

Body shape doesn’t matter, so you can go with whichever appeals to you the most.

The above settings will allow you to create the physical beast we’re striving for on this build. You will have the potential to bump every key stat for our center all the way up to 99. That’s strength, interior defense, blocks, offensive and defensive rebounding, close shot, standing dunk, and post control.

If you meddle with the character creator yourself, you will notice how some of these attributes’ potential starts going down if you move height or weight down, or wingspan up. If you want to go bigger, that won’t affect any of the key attributes but will bring down other necessary ones. Speed, acceleration, and vertical start dropping off at a rapid pace per every inch, and going over 252 pounds is a net negative at any height.

You could be tempted to go an inch or two lower because you’ll be seeing a lot more green than red on the stat calculator, but that’s fool’s gold. We don’t need good handles or great perimeter defense for this build. Sacrificing one, let alone two or more inches for extra perimeter skills won’t make your center better. If you want an all-around build, that’s great, but there are two forward positions for that. We need that extra height to dominate in the paint.

Best attributes for a center in NBA 2K24

Attribute potential is one thing, attribute distribution is another. This is what truly matters. Though our height, weight, and wingspan give us the opportunity to go all the way up to 99 in nine different categories, you shouldn’t really do that or your build will be left vulnerable in one or more important areas.

What you should do instead is bump all of our established key attributes—close shot, post control, interior defense, block, offensive rebound, defensive rebound, and strength to around the 85-90 mark. Max out speed, acceleration, and vertical, and get stamina up to about 85, so you get all the mobility you can from this build.

The attribute points you have left should be spilled into standing dunk and free throw. The latter is especially important because you’ll likely get fouled a lot. Get that free throw attribute solidly in the 80+ range. If you’ve followed the guide, you should even have a few points left to drop into your mid-range shot. It won’t be great, but the high 60s at least give you a prayer at medium distance.

At the end of the distribution process, you should be left with a MyPLAYER center looking like this:

Best badges for a center in NBA 2K24

As you can see, this MyPLAYER center build gives you the potential to equip up to 51 badge points—26 defensive and rebounding, 18 finishing, and seven shooting. Here’s the best badge setup to further boost your effectiveness on the floor:

Defense and rebounding badges

• Boxout Beast – Improves a player’s ability to box out and fight for good rebounding position.
• Post Lockdown – Strengthens a player’s ability to effectively defend moves in the post, with an increased chance of stripping the opponent.
• Anchor – Increases a player’s ability to block shots and defend the rim at a high level.
• Brick Wall – Increases effectiveness of screens, is tough to back down in the post, and drains energy from opponents upon physical contact.
• Rebound Chaser – Improves a player’s ability to track down rebounds from farther distances than normal.

Finishing badges

• Backdown Punisher – Allows players to have more success than normal when backing down a defender while posting up.
• Bully – Improves a player’s ability to initiate contact and get to the rim on layup attempts.
• Fearless Finisher – Strengthens a player’s ability to absorb contact and still finish. Also reduces the amount of energy lost from contact layups.

Shooting badges

• Volume Shooter – After a player has taken a small handful of shots, an additional boost to shot attributes is given for every subsequent shot, whether it’s a make or a miss.
• Clutch Shooter – Shot attempts that occur in the final moments of the fourth quarter, or in any overtime period, receive a large boost.
• Amped – Reduces the penalty that fatigue has on a player and their ability to make shots.

Best Takeovers for a center in NBA 2K24

There are only two takeover slots, so you’ll have to choose wisely which ones you wish to equip. Thankfully, this isn’t a one-and-done process and you can meddle with takeovers at any time. Nevertheless, we believe there are clear favorites in each of the three categories of takeovers this MyPLAYER build has access to—interior defense, rebounding, and post offense.

In that category order, the best center takeovers are:

• Post Intimidation – Delivers a severe penalty to every contested shot taken in the paint.
• Boxout Wall – Allows you to block out stronger players or swim around them to secure more rebounds.
• Power Backdowns – Increases your ability to back down even the strongest defenders in the post.

Everything in this center build is geared toward physically dominating the paint on both ends. Not allowing any inside scoring on defense, bullying your way to the opposing basket on offense, and cleaning up every rebound possible is the name of the game. If you’d rather build a shooting center instead, we can still help with a guide to the best jumpshots in NBA 2K24. Don’t say we didn’t tell you there are better center builds out there, though.