2K Games has unveiled the cover star for NBA 2K26’s Standard Edition, and — to the shock of no one — it’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Suppose you’ve watched any ball during the 2024-25 NBA season: You’d understand immediately why this decision was a no-brainer. In the 2024-25 season, Gilgeous-Alexander led the league in scoring, snagging 32.7 points per game, earning him the coveted scoring title.
Additionally, SGA was named the NBA MVP, and became an NBA Finals MVP after winning his first NBA Championship. The historic season made Gilgeous-Alexander only the fourth player in NBA history to win MVP and Finals MVP, and obtain the league’s scoring title all in the same season. The other three players? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal, and Michael Jordan, the latter of whom did it four times throughout the ’90s.
While there hasn’t been any official word yet on other editions of NBA 2K26 for sale, players can expect to see various versions of the game announced soon, following its historical trend of releasing two-to-four different editions of the game annually.
NBA 2K26 hasn’t received an official release date yet, but the game typically launches in the first week of September, so fans can probably expect it to follow that trend as well.