The NBA 2K series' longstanding issues with floor spacing and player movement have become more exposed by this year's 10-player Pro-Am mode. In this mode, your 99-rated, 40-badge MyPlayers can sprint across the court quickly enough to double team a big man on the block, then swerve back out to the three-point line just in time to contest a kick-out jump shot.

It's probably too late in NBA 2K16's life cycle to universally shrink all the player models and increase the physical size of the court, so as a band-aid for the remainder of this year, I propose two fixes:

1. Lower the global speed and acceleration sliders.

2. Instead of allowing 99-overall, 40-badge superstars into Road to the Finals, give users several predetermined, sixth-man caliber player builds to choose from, then make users select a small number of badges like they were Call of Duty perks. I detailed how this system would work in a previous Pro-Am article.

Pro-Am has more gameplay problems, however, than the court simply being too cramped. To demonstrate how prevalent this mode's shenanigans have become, here are a few clips I cut together, not from a month of playing, not from a week of playing, not from a full night of playing, but from a single match against a highly ranked opponent who knew how to exploit every major flaw in NBA 2K16's gameplay:
 

With those issues in mind, here are some other tweaks I'd suggest for a future patch or tuner update:

-Turn the fatigue rate up so that turbo addicts and paint pounders will eventually tire out, even if a team exhausts all of their timeouts. Sprinting around in circles on offense until someone finally gets open should not be a viable strategy in the half-court. The game should be rewarding patient, purposeful offensive movement instead of benefiting teams who act like decapitated chickens.

-Raise defensive awareness so that the majority of loose balls stop going to the offense.

-Reduce on-ball steal success to deter strip spammers and reward defenders who play without reaching.

-Increase off-ball steal success and defenders' global pass perception to discourage contested lead passes into the paint.

-Keep global pass accuracy where it's at now, but significantly reduce the accuracy bonus that's being awarded by the gold Breakstarter badge. Only players with a base 90-plus accuracy rating should even bother attempting full-court passes if they don't want the ball to go bouncing out of bounds. Elite passers should still misfire a decent amount of times, and the recipients of these long outlet pass should rarely be able to catch them in stride. Instead of making "Willie Mays" over-the-shoulder catches the norm, regularly trigger the "bobble" or "lunging" catch animations on these 90-foot, full-court heaves. The offense is already at a disadvantage on fast breaks by having to spin around 180 degrees before sprinting back -- plus having to worry about getting stuck in a lengthy after-shot animation -- so long outlet passes need to be tweaked to prevent cherry picking from being the most commonly abused scoring tactic in Road to the Finals.

-Change the Corner Specialist badge back to how it was in NBA 2K14, where it only activated on stationary assisted shots, instead of how it is now where it will trigger during pull-up jumpers. The shooting accuracy boost on the gold Corner Specialist badge should also be lessened. Right now, a corner three-pointer is almost as easy to make as a mid-range jumper if you have the gold Corner Specialist badge. I'd also like to see wide-open wing and top of the key three-pointers falling at a higher percentage than they are now. I'm reluctant to take open threes from anywhere except the corner in Pro-Am because that's the only spot you can reliably make them from, even with a level 20 outside scorer.

-Make no foul call and play one of the "incidental contact" animations whenever users attempt to take off-ball charges inside the paint in Pro Am. The key is just too cluttered in NBA 2K16 (due to the aforementioned court spacing issues) to have to worry about avoiding charges while moving around without the ball.

-Make the left trigger "intense defense" stance just as likely to produce a charging call on an out-of-control perimeter player as the B button "take charge" command currently is. As it stands now, it does not seem like the "intense defense" stance can create a charging call, no matter how well-positioned the defender is or how reckless the ball-handler is being.

-Also increase the likelihood of the ball coming loose when the offensive player is spamming size-up dribbles or iso moves into the body of the defender. Many size-up dribbles make the basketball completely immune to contact, preventing the defender from engaging the ball handler until the size-up animation has finished. When you combine that invulnerability period with NBA 2K's unusually slow defensive movement -- plus the explosive speed burst that small players can get at the end of certain dribble animations -- it makes it very difficult to stay in front of size-up/iso spammers, even if the defender anticipates the exact sequence of moves the dribbler is trying to perform.

-Decrease the power of the gold Acrobat badge. Contested shots that are altered in mid-air should have a much lower success rate than they currently do.

-Jump passes should result in more bobbled receptions and off-target throws. It's too easy at the moment to complete jumping passes at a high percentage since there's so little hit to the accuracy of these passes, especially if you have the gold Flashy Passer badge.
 

If no gameplay changes are made between now and the beginning of the Road to the Finals eSports tournament, Visual Concepts' marketers will have a hard time promoting the brand of "basketball" that's being played by their top teams. Thus far, many teams have been relying on ugly, nonsensical tactics that make their Twitch.TV broadcasts look nothing like the sport people watch on cable TV.