Does Body Type Matter in NBA 2K22? An In-Depth Investigation

No, body type does not directly affect your MyPlayer‘s attributes or on-court abilities in NBA 2K22‘s current-gen edition. Physical profile, height, weight, wingspan, attributes, and badges primarily determine your player‘s performance.

As an avid 2K gamer and league enthusiast for over 15 years, I‘ve extensively analyzed how aesthetic choices impact builds. While some claim "body type cheese" gives an unfair advantage, evidence clearly shows it‘s merely cosmetic.

Let‘s closely examine what impacts your MyPlayer‘s capabilities in 2K22 and why body shape itself is inconsequential beyond appearance.

Body Type: Strictly Visual Customization

Introduced in 2K21 as a new dimension of player personalization, body types simply alter your character model‘s visual shape. You can be tall and chiseled, stocky and tank-like, or lean and toned.

Table 1 summarizes 2K‘s official statements that body type has no direct effect on crucial gameplay factors:

Core gameplay components like attributes, badges, animations, dunk packages and more are clearly unaffected. Certain physical qualities still certainly matter, which we‘ll analyze shortly.

Figure 1 visualizes body type‘s minor back-end presence:

So if body shape doesn‘t tangibly impact performance, what does?

Height / Wingspan / Weight Remain Key Determinants

While body aesthetics are superficial, choices in height, wingspan, and weight hold meaningful gameplay implications by shifting available attribute caps. This indirectly impacts badges, animations, dunk slots, and other key drivers of on-court success.

Table 2 shows examples of how height and wingspan tradeoffs alter a Shot Creating Slasher‘s attribute limits:

Additionally, factors like strength/vertical/speed/acceleration remain directly tied to your physical profile, which body type does not influence.

In summary, upping height and wingspan typically lowers shooting at the expense of improved defense/finishing. This forces you to carefully balance your intended playstyle with the sacrifices you‘re willing to make.

Strength & Physicality Remain Impactful

Despite body types lacking gameplay effects, strength and physicality are still crucial, especially for big men. Higher strength directly powers through contact, unlocks bully animations, provides better box outs, and leads to more posterizers.

As one Redditor noted, strength‘s also hidden tie to stamina drain makes it significant for guards too. Lower-strength players fatigue faster when bumped, while stronger builds conserve energy.

So although muscles don‘t magically make you quicker or more agile, this physicality element still plays a role, particularly when navigating crowded areas near the rim.

Ideal Builds Maximize Wingspan

Per the expertise of long-time 2K analysts, optimizing wingspan generally provides the biggest returns across positions, especially for finishing and defense.

YouTuber 2K Tutes, with over 600k subscribers, consistently advocates maximizing wingspan if you can sacrifice the modest shooting decreases. This unlocks driving contact dunks earlier and boosts contest/block capabilities.

Among top point guards, TyDebo echoes similar sentiments, noting "you get way better contests and way better passing lane steals."

For big men, wingspan‘s finishing/rebounding boosts are significant enough to warrant tapering shooting that you likely won‘t utilize much anyway.

Verdict: Focus Less on Body Type, More on Wingspan

After substantial analysis of measurements and expert opinions, competitive players should indeed ignore body type herself beyond cosmetics.

Table 3 summarizes the consensus key NBA 2K22 build factors:

Hopefully this deeper investigation helps provide clarity on what tangibly impacts your MyPlayer‘s talent.

Focus less on your player‘s muscles or proportions and more on maximizing those wings. Trust me — the extra inches make a huge difference protecting the paint and attacking the rim.

What other 2K22 topics would you like analyzed in-depth? Let me know in the comments below!