Your NBA career starts with the MyPLAYER Builder. Create a player from scratch or lean on pre-made templates and complete your vision. NBA 2K26 features an updated Animation Glossary and all-new Body Type previews.

Animation Glossary

Creating your MyPLAYER can feel like a big decision. There are several variables to consider when building a MyPLAYER from scratch, like which player’s scoring and dribbling animations you’ll be able to use when you’re in the heat of competition. The brand new Animation Glossary in NBA 2K26 is available to help you make more informed decisions when building your MyPLAYER.

When you Create Your Own MyPLAYER from scratch, the new Animation Glossary will list every animation with details, attribute, and height requirements. If you have a specific player you’d like to model your game after, use the Search function to find who you’re looking for; whether you want Stephen Curry’s quick release or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s smooth jumper, it’s easy to see all the requirements you need to meet for their animations.

There are numerous outcomes within the MyPLAYER Builder. This year, each Create Your Own build will sift through dozens of NBA player comparisons before choosing the best animations, associated with the suggested players, and assign them as default animations for a more enjoyable and streamlined experience.

Build By Badges

Attributes lay the foundation for your MyPLAYER, while Badges can enhance and significantly improve your impact on the court. Experienced build makers often begin MyPLAYER creation by ensuring their attributes meet the requirements for certain Badges.

Try experimenting with the new Build via Badges feature in NBA 2K26 to shape the framework of your MyPLAYER. Choose your desired Badges and tiers—Bronze, Silver, Gold, Hall of Fame, and Legend—and the minimum attribute points required will automatically be locked in, meaning you can then spend your remaining attribute points to max out categories of your choosing and reach 99 Potential Overall without missing out on your must-haves.

Body Types

Get a glimpse of your MyPLAYER’s Body Type in NBA 2K26 with all-new visual previews of what you can unlock as you’re making it. Unlock Body Types by completing 3-star Gatorade Gym workouts to give yourself more variety.

Build Templates

Eager to get on the court quickly? Hit the ground running with pre-made builds and expedite your MyPLAYER creation. Choose from three different template types and fine tune it to meet your needs.

1. NBA - Play like your favorite NBA players with NBA templates. These builds come equipped with signature animations that mirror the style and actions of their real-life counterparts. Each Season, a new set of themed NBA templates will be revealed and added to the MyPLAYER Builder library. Season 1 will feature a collection of players who have had multiple NBA All-Star appearances.
2. Community - Starting in Season 2, new templates submitted by some of the best build makers in the NBA 2K community will be added into the mix, showcasing creativity, originality, and competitive playstyles. Stay tuned to learn more about the new submission process and how you can submit your MyPLAYER build for a chance to be featured in NBA 2K26!
3. Pro-Tuned - Designed by the NBA 2K development team at Visual Concepts, select a Position and Best Skill to filter a curated list of builds that suit your preferences. 

NBA 2K26 boasts roughly 10 times the number of archetype names available in NBA 2K25, offering more unique titles that better communicate your MyPLAYER’s strengths.

Scouting Report

The final step of the MyPLAYER Builder in NBA 2K26 is a new Scouting Report feature to help you understand what type of build you’ve made. It displays your best Badges and Attributes, and coaches you on your strengths and weaknesses. For example, if you make a point guard with a low Pass Accuracy rating, the Builder will flag this as an area of concern and potential detriment to your teammates.

Height Balancing

The game is growing—literally! The max height for MyPLAYERs in NBA 2K26 is now 7’4”. This decision was made by popular demand; however, the MyPLAYER Builder has been balanced to ensure that all height measurements, short and tall, can be effective against anyone on the court and encourage more build diversity.

Take your game to the next level with Badges, Takeovers, and Cap Breakers. These specialized boosts can be equipped and used to activate specific abilities on the court and improve your builds throughout the year for fresh playstyles.

Badge Perks

Up your game with Badge Perks that boost your Badges even further, even after they’ve reached their max potential.

• Max +1 and Max +2 - Max +1s are back—and now there are new Max +2s. They work just like they sound. Max +1s push Badges one tier beyond their max potential, and Max +2s take them two tiers higher. Got a Badge that is maxed out at Gold? A Max +2 perk can boost it all the way to Legend!
• Takeover Surge - Badges equipped with this perk will be boosted one tier beyond their max potential while you have Takeover Level 5 active.
• Hot Start - Badges equipped with this perk will be boosted one tier beyond their max potential during the early portions of games.
• Clutch Gene - Badges equipped with this perk will be boosted one tier beyond their max potential during high-pressure situations including late-game situations in the Park and the end of the 4th quarter and overtime.

Takeover Surge, Hot Start, and Clutch Gene are earned from rotating seasonal rewards, with one available each season. Badge Perks reset to their original tier once the season ends. Meanwhile, Badge Elevators continue to provide permanent upgrades within a Badge’s max potential, and Performance Multipliers accelerate Badge progression. 

Badge Accelerators

Complete drills during team practices to earn Badge Accelerators that speed up progression of the Badge that you practiced for a limited number of games. The higher your star rating in a drill, the more impact the Accelerator will have.

Takeover Progression

After creating your MyPLAYER, you will be automatically assigned a Takeover that best fits your archetype.

As you heat up on the court and fill up the five levels of your Takeover Meter over multiple games, you will unlock over 40 Takeover-related rewards. These include:

• Takeover Tokens are used to unlock new Takeovers and Takeover Abilities. Overall, there are 44 Takeovers and 11 Takeover Abilities in NBA 2K26, consolidated to be around half of NBA 2K25’s total so that each one is more impactful. All levels of new Takeovers are instantly available to you and do not need to be unlocked!
• Takeover Presets allow you to change which Takeover you have equipped between games without exiting to the MyCAREER menu.
• Takeover Accelerators speed up how quickly you fill your Takeover Meter.
• The final reward is Custom Takeover. This allows you to design your own Takeover from scratch, choosing the targeted attributes that are boosted and pairing that with any Takeover Ability your build can use! 

Takeover rewards only need to be unlocked once and progress is shared across saves.

Build Specialization

New in NBA 2K26, Build Specialization questlines allow you to enhance your MyPLAYER’s potential in a specific skill area.

For each save, you can pick one of five areas to specialize in: Finishing, Shooting, Playmaking, Defense, or Rebounding. Each area features nine unique quests that test your abilities in that specialty. If you choose the Shooting questline, for example, your second quest will be to make 100 3PT or mid-range shots.

Your mastery will earn you rewards tailored to each skill area, including Skill Boosts, unique apparel and cosmetics, new archetype names, Cap Breakers for that skill area, and permanent Max +1 and Max +2 Badge Perks.

Whether you want to extend your primary skill to be even stronger or round out your secondary skills, Build Specialization is a new way to make your MyPLAYER even better.

More Impactful Cap Breakers

Cap Breakers are evolving. In NBA 2K25, each Cap Breaker raised an attribute by +1 point. Most players in the community chose to make their best attributes even better rather than addressing their weaknesses. 

In NBA 2K26, each Cap Breaker will still raise your highest-rated and strongest attributes by +1 point, but if you choose to apply them to your lower-rated attributes you will see greater boosts. For example, if your favorite MyPLAYER build is struggling in The REC because you left its Free Throw rating low, a Cap Breaker could raise your Free Throw rating by double-digit points at a time and provide a significant improvement.

Remember, Cap Breakers have a few restrictions to ensure a balanced gameplay experience:

• A Cap Breaker can be applied to each attribute a maximum of 5 times.
• You can use a Cap Breaker on an attribute up to its max potential rating allowed by your build’s height, weight, and wingspan, which is shown in the MyPLAYER Builder while allocating your attribute potential.
• You must progress an attribute category to its max potential rating before applying a Cap Breaker.

Cap Breakers can be earned from Build Specialization questlines, Season rewards, REP rewards—and some other ways that we can’t talk about just yet!

Rebirth

There are multiple tiers of Rebirth in NBA 2K26, allowing you to carry over more progress from your existing saves than ever before.

Silver Rebirth is unlocked at 90 OVR and allows you to instantly unlock any newly created MyPLAYER’s maximum potential to the highest overall rating you’ve previously reached. This permanently accelerates your Badge progression by 10%, and automatically upgrades your Badges to Silver once attribute requirements are met.

As you reach 95 OVR across new saves, you will unlock Gold, Hall of Fame, and Legend Rebirth. These new tiers of Rebirth automatically upgrade your Badges to its respective tier once attribute requirements are met.

Utilize a host of all-new MyPLAYER Builder features to craft your perfect MyPLAYER in NBA 2K26. Explore more customization options, Build by Badges, and boost your game with Perks, Takeover, and Badges.

Coming up next, we’ll detail the all-new enhancements and features available in MyTEAM—this is a Courtside Report you won’t want to miss. Stay tuned for the MyTEAM Courtside Report and other NBA 2K26-related news by following along on all of our social channels.