2K keeps trickling out player ratings for NBA 2K27 ahead of the September 4 launch, and the big one dropped this week: Victor Wembanyama sits at 97 overall, tied with Nikola Jokić and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for the top rating in the game. Yahoo Sports has the details on the Spurs big man grabbing a share of the crown before the season even tips.

A 97 this early in a career says plenty about how 2K's ratings team sees him. He didn't get there on reputation. Wembanyama earned it by being a walking glitch in real life, a seven-footer with guard skills and a rim-protection radius that makes highlight reels look like training footage. The old hoops-gaming cliché was that the most unrealistic thing you could do was build some impossible giant in the create-a-player menu. Then San Antonio drafted him.

I've sat through enough of these reveals to know the drill. Numbers leak out over a couple weeks, guys dispute their marks on social media, somebody ends up trending over a bad three-point rating. Those squabbles are half the fun of the pre-release window. Ratings season is 2K's best free marketing and everyone involved knows it.

The interesting part of the 97 is the company he's keeping. Jokić is the best player on the planet right now, Gilgeous-Alexander is the reigning face of the MVP conversation, and Wembanyama is the future sitting at the same table. 2K ratings have always worked as a running argument about who actually runs the NBA. Back when I was grinding late-90s basketball games, the top marks went to Jordan, then to a long line of successors, and every handoff felt like an event. Same conversation now, just conducted through Overall numbers instead of barbershop debates.

For Spurs fans, it's nice continuity after years of the franchise being quietly excellent and video-game anonymous in the post-Duncan stretch. There was a period where the most fun you could have with a San Antonio roster was drafting well yourself in franchise mode. Now the tied-best player in the game wears silver and black again.

Usual caveats apply. Launch ratings are a snapshot, and 2K updates them all season based on real performance. A hot shooting month pushes a number up, a slump drags it down, and by February the leaderboard rarely looks like the August version. If Wembanyama plays like he did when healthy last season, the 97 might feel low by the winter update.

Either way, circle September 4. The launch is coming, and now there's a three-way tie at the top to argue about. I'll be starting a Spurs franchise before I touch anything else. Some rosters you just want to drive yourself.