Becoming a cover athlete for any sports game is a pretty big deal, and it often means you’re the face of a franchise.
As the Gretzky trade taught us, anybody can get traded at any time, but usually video game companies do their best to choose someone who is sure to remain on their team by the beginning of the season. You’ll never see free agents on the cover or people on the trade block, but unfortunately for NBA 2K18, the Kyrie rumours didn’t start until last month.
That ultimately led them to say this about their cover choice.
This is the first time this has ever happened to an NBA video game, but it’s not the first sports video game to have this happen.
Brett Favre was traded from the Green Bay Packers to the New York Jets in the offseason of the 2008-2009 season and he was on the cover of Madden 09. Luckily for them, they were able to change the cover in time and there was a Jets version that came out.
The game is set to release on September 19, so we’re sure the company will be able to come out with a replacement cover before then.
