A New Beginning.
Five games into the new era and the first thing to say is that the building has changed. This league shot 68% from the floor for two hundred and thirty-seven games; it has shot 50.6% in the five since. Sides are taking the same number of shots and scoring a quarter fewer points, a team has been held to 24, and the man who owned the old record book has walked in and taken two of the first five Players of the Game. West leads The Trials 3–2. The Belt has not moved, because the champion has not played.
First, the game. Season X went in at 68.1% from the floor and 63.7% from three — figures that read like a misprint and were simply what 2K26 was. Five games of Season One have gone in at 50.6% and 39.1%. Sides are taking nearly the same number of shots, 8.5 a man against 9.2, and averaging 51.5 points a game where they used to average seventy-eight, because the shots stopped falling. There are half again as many rebounds to collect, twice as many blocks, and a quarter fewer assists to earn. It is not a lower-scoring version of the old game. It is a different one, and the numbers on this page are the first anybody has ever put on it.
Then the night the floor gave out. Association West 51, Association East 24. No team in two hundred and thirty-seven games of Season X had ever finished under forty; the East missed forty by sixteen. They shot 10-of-35, two men went scoreless on four shots apiece, and they gave the ball away fourteen times to a side that took FOURTEEN steals and SIX blocks — twenty takeaways, a total only two team-games in the whole previous era ever reached. IVNemBLit had the six blocks himself, more than anybody managed in any of Season X’s two thousand three hundred and seventy player-lines, and eleven rebounds, and was Player of the Game on two points. GdertHtx went a perfect 7-of-7 beside him. Seventy-five points between two teams is the fewest ever scored in an Association game.
The series has a shape now, even if the rosters do not. The East took the opener 57–47 behind RickJames323496’s twenty-four. The West took the next three — 64–59 on MBK Blu3’s 8-of-10, 58–49 on I SHAWNO I’s twenty and twelve, and the fifty-one to twenty-four. Then the East came back in Game 005 with the best shooting night the new game has seen, 60% from the floor and 10-of-18 from three, and won 64–42. Three–two, West. The sides have kept their names and roughly their cores, but the fives are drifting: sixteen different men have played, and only Keonthebest25 and xMrCluTcHx801 have played all five.
And the people are sorting themselves out. RickJames323496 has two of the five Players of the Game and has played three times. I SHAWNO I took the season’s first Hot Seat in Game 001, took Player of the Game two games later, and has posted the only two double-doubles anybody has managed — twenty and twelve, then fourteen and ten. GdertHtx is shooting 80% from the floor across three games. IVNemBLit blocked six shots in one game and turned it over five times in the next, Player of the Game and Hot Seat in consecutive games, which is the new era in one man. Jaycross713 is 0–3. And jspalt4, who closed Season X with the Belt around his waist, has not played a possession — so it sits there, undefended since Game 228 of the old book, waiting for him to turn up and lose it or keep it.
The Trials, Game by Game
Five games. Four decided by nine or more. One that will be talked about for a year.
- Game 001 · East 57, West 47. RickJames323496 with 24 on 11-of-16, five assists, three steals, one turnover and the only A-plus on the floor — the first Player of the Game of Season One, to the man who won fifty-two of them in Season X. It was the lowest-scoring game the Association had ever completed. It held that title until Game 004.
- Game 002 · West 64, East 59. The same ten men, one change, and the other side won. MBK Blu3 went 8-of-10 for sixteen with two steals and two blocks; YGNxCASH ran it with fifteen and eight assists and the only A on the board. Keonthebest25 hit five threes for twenty in the loss and TJ09 pulled thirteen rebounds, still the most anybody has taken in the new season.
- Game 003 · West 58, East 49. I SHAWNO I, two games after the season’s first Hot Seat, with 20 points and 12 assists — the first double-double of Season One, and twelve of his side’s eighteen assists. IVNemBLit had eleven rebounds and four blocks behind him. Second quarter 23–16, and the West never looked back.
- Game 004 · West 51, East 24. The one. Fourteen steals, six blocks, a perfect 7-of-7 from GdertHtx, and an East side that shot 28.6% and put two scoreless men on the floor. IVNemBLit’s six blocks are more than anybody managed in 237 games of Season X. Twenty-four points is the fewest any Association team has ever scored, by twenty-three.
- Game 005 · East 64, West 42. RickJames323496 again — 19 on 8-of-10, a perfect 3-of-3 from deep, nine assists — on the best shooting night the new game has produced: 60% from the floor, ten threes, twenty-one assists, all Season One highs. Second quarter 20–5. DeuceDeuceYeti arrived with twelve rebounds and three blocks. Three–two.
The Book, Five Games In
Season One’s record book starts here. Every mark below was set in the new game, against the new game.
- Points. 24, RickJames323496, Game 001. Keonthebest25 and I SHAWNO I have both reached twenty; nobody has reached twenty-five.
- Rebounds. 13, TJ09, Game 002. DeuceDeuceYeti had twelve in his first appearance; IVNemBLit has three games of eleven.
- Assists. 12, I SHAWNO I, Game 003. He also has the ten in Game 004; RickJames323496’s nine in Game 005 is next.
- Steals. 5, three times — xMrCluTcHx801 in Game 001, then I SHAWNO I and GdertHtx on the same night in Game 004.
- Blocks. 6, IVNemBLit, Game 004. The mark to beat in Season X was five, and it stood for two hundred games.
- Team. 64 points, twice. 60% shooting, ten threes and twenty-one assists, all in Game 005. Fourteen steals in Game 004. And the twenty-four, which nobody is trying to beat.
Game 001: sixteen points on fifteen shots, four turnovers, the first Hot Seat of the season. Game 003: twenty and TWELVE, the first double-double of the season and Player of the Game. Game 004: fourteen and ten, with five steals, in the lowest-scoring game ever played. He is 3–1, he is averaging 15.5 points and 7.5 assists in a league where the average man scores ten, and he owns both double-doubles Season One has produced. The seat was the best thing that ever happened to him.
Eleven rebounds in Game 001. Eleven and four blocks in Game 003. Eleven and SIX blocks in Game 004, more than any man managed in two thousand three hundred and seventy Season X lines, on the night his side allowed twenty-four points. He is averaging 9.3 rebounds and 3.0 blocks, and he is the reason the middle of the floor has stopped being a place you can score. Then he turned it over five times in Game 005 and took the seat in the very next game after taking the trophy. Both things are true. The paper would rather have the blocks.