What does ‘player is not eligible’ mean in NBA 2K25?

Have you been faced with the dreaded “player is not eligible” notification in NBA 2K25? Since you’re here, the answer is probably yes. The good news is you haven’t done anything wrong. The bad news is you can’t do anything to fix the situation.

If you’ve played MyCAREER intensely in the first week following NBA 2K25’s launch, you’ve almost certainly been told your player isn’t eligible to play on certain courts at least once. Naturally, being told you can’t play the game you just bought can cause one to pause. NBA 2K25 doesn’t do a great job explaining this issue, but it turns out there’s not much you can do about it anyway.

Why do you get “player is not eligible” in NBA 2K25?

“Player is not eligible” simply means that you’ve become too good to play on casual courts. Casual courts are specifically designed for players who are just getting started or ones who aren’t doing well in MyCAREER, so they can hone their skills in a more relaxed environment. For this same reason, squads are also forbidden from playing at casual courts.

How to fix “player is not eligible” in NBA 2K25

The only “fix” for this issue is to be very bad at NBA 2K25, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of MyCAREER in the first place. In a way, getting a “player is not eligible” message is a compliment to your skills. You’ve now grown out of the Rookie phase and are ready to take on the next step and face the big boys playing at the beach courts.

This sounds cute but the reality is if you’re not as confident in your skills as NBA 2K25 thinks you should be, getting locked out of casual courts can be quite the downer. You will generally be out of range of being eligible for casual courts by the time you’re 70 OVR, and queuing up as a 70 OVR player without a premade squad can be pretty rough, not to mention time consuming.

If the queue times elsewhere are getting out of hand, try the theater, it’s your best bet of getting games fairly quickly while you build yourself up. Just don’t let all this bring you down and keep grinding because getting your MyPLAYER to 90 OVR can unlock the Rebirth feature that will make all subsequent MyCAREER saves much easier.