Career Mode – "The One"

Career mode includes online features as well as offline modes, known collectively as "The One" for both NBA and street games. Players create either a male or female player followed by choosing to play as a guard, wing, or power forward/center. Players choose play styles determined by two upgradeable initial attributes and three unlockable attributes. They can then choose an icon corresponding to either a current NBA star or NBA legend that determines a special ability and an extra attribute that can be upgraded as well as various boosts as the character gains experience. Moreover, three WNBA stars also have icons inspired by them. For example, a player who creates a slashing guard can choose Beast Mode based on Russell Westbrook to increase dunking, The Answer based on Allen Iverson to increase steals or The Spark based on Candace Parker to increase shot blocking. The 25 icons and their associated players are as follows:

Attributes and Skills Breakdown

Every player has 6 different skill categories: Interior Offense, Interior Defense, Perimeter Offense, Perimeter Defense, Playmaking and Athleticism. All 6 categories are made up of 24 attributes (there are 25 attributes in the game, but "Injury" is an auto-generated number that can't be increased or decreased by a player, and "Draw Shooting Foul" isn't assigned to any of the 6 categories). Below is a breakdown of what attributes are included in each skill category.

Interior Offense

   - Driving Layup
   - Dunk
   - Inside Shot
   - Post Moves

Interior Defense

   - Defensive Awareness
   - Post Defense
   - Rebounding
   - Shot Block

Perimeter Offense

   - 3-Pt Shot
   - Contested Shot
   - Free Throw
   - Mid-Range Shot
   - Shot Off Dribble

Perimeter Defense

   - On-Ball Defense
   - Steal

Playmaking

   - Court Vision
   - Dribbling
   - Passing

Athleticism

   - Injury
   - Speed
   - Stamina
   - Strength
   - Vertical

Note - Depending on the player's position and their playstyle, all 25 attributes are grouped into Primary, Secondary, and Minor sub-sections. Primary are attributes that strongly affect the player's OVR. Secondary attributes slightly affect the player's OVR. Minor attributes have very little to no effect on the player's OVR. These 3 groups distinguish what attributes are important for each position/playstyle. For example: A Point-Guard/Backcourt Defender will have a high Perimeter Defense, as On-Ball Defense and Steal are important attributes to succeed in. But a Shooting-Guard/Slasher will be more focused on increasing their Dribbling and Layup attributes.

Court battles

Along with Live Run and Live Events as live multiplayer, the Court Battles mode allows each player to create and customize a home court and then specify a rule set (for example, Meet Me at the Rim, where bonus points are given for dunks and blocks) and a team to defend it. At the same time, the player tries to win games on opponents' home courts to take control of them.^[3] Unique rewards are available in this mode, including unlocking star players for Court Battles and the Streets World Tour. Each player may use a created player from The One for away games in this mode as long as the created player meets the home court requirements set by the defending team.

Soundtrack

The game's soundtrack features over 20 songs, including songs by Migos, J. Cole, Logic, Injury Reserve and Lil Pump. It was made available for streaming on Spotify.^[4]

Accolades

The game was nominated for "Control Design, 2D or Limited 3D" and "Control Precision" at the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards in 2019.^[15]