Jalen Williams headlines 3 Thunder NBA 2K27 player ratings that will definitely need major update this season

The Oklahoma City Thunder are entering the 2026-27 season as one of the best teams in the association even after trading away three valuable members of their championship-winning squad in 2025. They may have lost a ton of depth, but they still have the requisite star power to compete with every team in the NBA.

NBA 2K ratings are not a catch-all indicator of how good a player or a team is, but it at least somewhat reflects reality — especially when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning two-time MVP, is one of the three highest-rated players in the game at 97 overall heading into the release of the franchise’s newest game.

Gilgeous-Alexander has all the ratings and the animations to be one of the most dominant players in NBA 2K yet again, and his supporting cast is not too shabby. As per 2Kratings.com, the Thunder have six players rated above 80-overall (Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams, Isaiah Hartenstein, Ajay Mitchell, Alex Caruso, and Cason Wallace), with two others being more than usable in Jared McCain (78) and Jaylin Williams (77).

At first glance, there seems to be nothing particularly egregious about the ratings NBA 2K gave the Thunder team at the release of NBA 2K27. But once the 2026-27 NBA season begins, there are surely going to be a few players who will prove those overall ratings wrong in a hurry — starting with former All-NBA Third Team forward, J-Dub.

Jalen Williams (85 overall)

The Thunder, of all parties, would know that Williams had a rough 2025-26 campaign. Tabbed by many to take an even bigger next step in his progression to superstardom, especially after he had that bonkers 40-point outing in the 2025 NBA Finals, Williams suffered a plethora of injury problems that prevented him from taking that leap.

Williams played in only 33 games in the regular season, and his numbers dipped quite a bit following wrist surgery in the offseason. In particular, his three-point shot looked broken at multiple points in the season, and he finished the campaign with a subpar 29.9% mark from deep — a career-low in his four seasons thus far in the NBA.

He never truly got into the swing of things last season, and it was perhaps fair for NBA 2K to lower his ratings considerably. NBA 2K relies more on what players have done lately to gauge their overall ratings, and downgrading him seemed fair amid his injury woes.

It did not help that Williams was also injury-riddled in the 2026 NBA playoffs, suiting up in just five games and averaging just 21.4 minutes in those contests. His stock could not be any lower at this point. But 2K ratings are also relative, and having him at 85 to begin NBA 2K27 is a huge disservice to what he’s done in the past.

Cooper Flagg is 87-rated in NBA 2K27. Trae Young, who had plenty of injury woes last season and averaged just 18 and eight, the worst numbers of his career since his rookie campaign, received an overall rating of 87 as well.

Are Deni Avdija and Paolo Banchero that much better than the Thunder star? Both Avdija and Banchero are rated 88 overall in the latest installment of the NBA 2K franchise. OG Anunoby is the epitome of a winning player, and he was a legitimate star during the New York Knicks’ run to the title. But does he deserve to be three ratings higher than J-Dub?

Williams has the same rating as sophomore Dylan Harper, Jaden McDaniels, Tyler Herro, Domantas Sabonis, and Brandon Miller. For someone who was the number two option of a championship team, this rating feels like a slight.

Again, Williams did go through a rough 2025-26 campaign. But so did Herro (33 games played) and Sabonis (19 games played). Sabonis’ stats even fell off a cliff. The world is Harper’s oyster after a stellar postseason run, but he did average just 12-4-3 last season. McDaniels is a menace defensively, but his self-sufficiency on offense pales in comparison to that of Williams’.

When Williams becomes healthy once again, it should only be a matter of time before he climbs back to the 88 or 89 range where he belongs.

Cason Wallace (81 overall)

With Lu Dort now playing for the Atlanta Hawks, Wallace is going to step into a consistent starting role for the first time in his career. Wallace had usurped Dort in importance in the Thunder rotation during the 2026 NBA playoffs, and it was only a matter of time before he took his starting spot.

Unlike with Williams, an 81 overall seems to be more than fair for Wallace heading into the 2026-27 season. This is the rating of a solid starting-caliber player, and Wallace, as a bench player for the first three seasons of his career, doesn’t have the counting stats to make the argument for a higher overall.

His defensive ratings are already insane. He has a 98 steal, 93 pass perception, 93 perimeter defense, and 95 defensive consistency. Combine that with his gold challenger, interceptor, and glove badges, and there is going to be no getting past him on the perimeter.

But now that he’s going to be a member of the starting lineup, his counting stats should get a boost as well. He showed glimpses of the player he can be during the 2026 NBA playoffs, when he shot over 48 percent from deep against strong defenses.

He’ll thrive as a secondary or tertiary creator alongside Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams, and he’s in line to record career-highs across the board in a larger role. And those improved numbers will be what catches NBA 2K’s attention, boosting him up to around 84 or 85 in the middle of the 2026-27 campaign.

Jared McCain (78 overall)

McCain was so impressive in the 2026 NBA playoffs, reaching the point where he even started two games for the Thunder. But him taking on a larger role was mostly due to Mitchell’s injury-related absence.

Nonetheless, he deserves credit for stepping up when the Thunder needed him to. Over the course of a long regular season, OKC should find plenty of minutes for him, and he has the track record of meeting the challenge every single time. He should cross the 80-rating territory at some point during the 2026-27 season as a result.

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