Whether you are looking to create your very first build of NBA 2K21 or are looking at some ideas on how to create a powerful, small forward build in the likes of Lebron James, then we would recommend you to stick around.
After some experimenting, we finally have everything that we need to write up today’s article. It will be dedicated to exploring the different characteristics that we have decided to go for in order to create a forward version of Lebron James so that you can totally dominate your games.
Most Suitable Skill Breakdown for Lebron James
In NBA 2K21, there are a total of four skill breakdowns that give your player a core set of characteristics. They will determine whether the player is suitable to be a striker, defender, and so on. Below, we will explore each one of them in more detail and let you know which one to go for provided you are looking to build a character with the characteristics of Lebron James.
Finishing
This particular skill breakdown will influence your player on how effective their offence abilities are when in the paint. The main attributes that this option focuses on are finishing moves in terms of close shot, diving dunk, and standing dunk.
This means that if you are building a striker that you want to have the best abilities to score in the basket, then this is your go.
Shooting
If you are looking to build a player that has incredible shooting abilities, then you should go for this option. The attributes in this case mainly focus on offensive plays that are outside of the paint. So, if you are looking to build a player with attributes that better the odds of the character of scoring from attempted three-pointers or be able to greatly distribute the ball from free throws, this is the skillset to go for.
Playmaking
The playmaking skill focuses on providing your player with the ability to obtain higher ratings in the field of passing accuracy, and ball handling. This skill will also ensure that your dribbles are going to be more precise.
Defense / Rebounding
The defense and rebounding skill lets your character have the ability to box out opponents in interior defense and perimeter defense a lot more effectively. Furthermore, this skill set also influences the effectiveness of your player’s ability to steal the ball from opposing players as well as executing offensive and defensive rebounds.
So, which skill breakdown should you go for? We would recommend that you go for the slashing and playmaking pie chart, or the very bottom option on your screen (number 4 on the list), which has an equal split of playmaking and finishing as that is exactly what Lebron James is great at.
Lebron James Physical Profile
Like the Skill Breakdown from above, when it comes to selecting your player’s physical profile, you will have four pie charts to pick from. Each pie chart is split into three sections including agility, strength, and vertical.
Note: If you are completely new to NBA 2K21 or have played the demo version of the game, you would know that the developers have added an extra weight on strength, making it quite a vital component of the game. This means that if your player has a physical profile that leans more towards top speed and top acceleration, then you are likely to have a difficult time against a player who has more dominant strength characteristics.
So, out of the four physical profile pie charts, which one should you go for? With what we have mentioned above, we are going to go for the second pie chart on the list, which leans greatly towards strength and agility.
Lebron James Attributes
After carefully selecting the skill breakdown and physical profile of your player in accordance to our guidance, you should then distribute the 418 remaining attribute points to complete the final characteristics of your player. Please follow the table below for more insight.
Finishing
| Attribute | Starting | Potential |
| Close Shot | 60 | 84 |
| Driving Layup | 57 | 84 |
| Driving Dunk | 49 | 83 |
| Standing Dunk | 44 | – |
| Post Hook | 47 | 81 |
Shooting
| Attribute | Starting | Potential |
| Mid-Range Shot | 44 | 72 |
| Three-Point Shot | 42 | 64 |
| Free Throw | 55 | 82 |
| Post Fade | 45 | 74 |
Playmaking
| Attribute | Starting | Potential |
| Pass Accuracy | 52 | 80 |
| Ball Handle | 49 | 79 |
| Post Moves | 49 | – |
Defense / Rebounding
| Attribute | Starting | Potential |
| Interior Defense | 38 | – |
| Perimeter Defense | 47 | 73 |
| Lateral Quickness | 47 | 72 |
| Steal | 33 | 72 |
| Block | 29 | – |
| Offensive Rebound | 29 | 34 |
| Defensive Rebound | 29 | 69 |
Now, if you are completely confused with the tables above, don’t be. We will explain everything so that you know what is happening at each step of the way. The starting points which you see in the middle column are the default attributes before we use any of our spare attribute points. The potential attribute score is the one that you should go for using your spare attribute points to build up your character’s skill abilities to those of Lebron James.
If you have played 2K20 or even 2K19, you may be thinking, why are there no points dedicated to post moves. The simple answer is quite simply because you can’t have it all. This build is most optimal for most badge upgrades while still having a functional player.
What we would recommend you is to remove any doubts that you may have about this build and actually try it out for yourself. We promise you that it will leave you very surprised.
Lebron James Best Body Type
Next up, we have the body type. There are a number of body types that you can pick out from ranging from slight to compact, and solid. For our player build, we will go with ‘defined’ purely for aesthetic appeal.
When it comes to player height, that one would be completely up to you, however, we would recommend that you don’t go above 6 foot 7. The reason is that if you go for 6 foot 8 for example, your player will quite simply not be as fast. Likewise, you shouldn’t go too low on the height. The ideal height in our opinion is 6 foot 7. The reason for that is because, in our opinion, our player, based on our characteristics simply performs the best.
When it comes to weight, we would recommend you to go up quite a bit from the initial 228lbs. The weight we are going to go for is 247lbs as we feel like that is the sweet spot. This way, you will gain some extra strength without sacrificing much of the player’s speed attributes. If you feel like speed isn’t that important for you, feel free to increase the player’s weight to increase their strength even more.
As per the wingspan of the player, we are going to go for 89″. If you are wondering why we maxed this out, we did it because we feel like the player becomes a lot more dominant, especially when he is 6 foot 7 tall.
Takeovers
Next up, we have takeovers. There are four options that you can pick from including:
- Slasher: With this takeover, your player will receive extra boost to finishing at the rim in traffic and become more effective when getting past defenders.
- Playmaking: This takeover allows you to freeze defenders a lot more often with augmented ball handling abilities. It can also enhance your teammates’ shot making from assists.
- Post Scorer: This is the one that we are going to choose for the Lebron build. Overall, it allows the player to become a lot more dominant in the paint with stronger backdowns and enhanced moves and shots.
- Shot Creator: Overall, upon selecting this takeover, your player will become better at shooting off the dribble with the ability to also shake off any defenders consistently using setback and spin gathers.
Once you finalize your player’s characteristics in accordance with our guide above, you will get ‘Facilitating Finisher’, which in our opinion is very much like Lebron James himself.
If you plan on playing the game quite a lot, feel free to set your players’ overall rating to 99 for the testing phase if you want to see what he would be like in real game scenarios when you take him to that maximum overall rating score.
Lebron James Badges NBA 2K21
And finally, the badges. You will need to select the appropriate badges that you feel are going to benefit your player the most when it comes to finishing, shooting, playmaking, and defence / rebounding. In our case, we are building a Lebron James-like character and so, below you can find the breakdown for all of those.
Lebron James Finising Badges
1) Contact Finisher: Improves the ability of the player to convert contact layups and dunks in traffic.
2) Fancy Footwork: Improves the ability of the player to beat defenders with an advanced layup or dunk gather.
3) Lob City Finisher: This badge greatly improves the chances of completing a successful alley-oop dunk/layup.
4) Relentless Finisher: This badge will greatly reduce the player’s fatigue levels from continuous attempts at finishing at the rim with contact.
5) Giant Slayer: Finally, this badge increases the effectiveness of layups over taller defenders.
Note: If you want to play more in the post with this build, we would recommend you to take away the ‘Giant Slayer’ badge and replace it with ‘Pro Touch’. This gives you an additional boost for having good layup timing.
Lebron James Shooting Badges
1) Catch & Shoot: This badge increases the chance of hitting a jump shot immediately after a catch.
2) Range Extender: Increases the range from which a player can effectively shoot.
3) Volume Shooter: Boosts the shot percentage as shot attempts continue to build up throughout the game.
4) Slippery Off-Ball: This badge improves the player’s ability to get open off the ball.
Note: If you have already unlocked a lot of hot zones, we would recommend that you replace ‘Slipper Off-Ball’ with ‘Hot Zone Hunter’ if you would like to reap the full benefits of this build.
Lebron James Playmaking Badges
1) HOF Dimer: This badge will boost the shot percentage for open teammates on jump shots after they catch one of your passes.
2) HOF Quick First Step: This badge will provide your player with more explosive first steps out of triple threat and size-ups.
3) HOF Handles For Days: Using this badge will reduce the amount of energy your player will lose when performing dribbling moves.
4) HOF Ankle Breaker: This badge will improve the likelihood of freezing or dropping a defender during dribble moves.
5) Bronze Bail Out: This perk will increase the chances of successfully completing a pass while in mid-air.
6) Silver Unpluckable: This badge will reduce the likelihood of your player being stripped by a defender.
7) Bronze Post Spin Technician: Use this badge to improve your player’s ability to post-spin or drive to work more efficiently.
Lebron James Defense Badges
1) Silver Clamps: This perk will boost the players’ ability to stay in front of the ball handler on the perimeter.
2) Silver Intimidator: This badge will make your opposing players miss shots a lot more often.
3) Bronze Rebound Chaser: This badge will improve the player’s ability to chase down rebounds.
This leaves us with 4 Gold Badges, 7 Hall Of Fame Badges, 5 Silver Badges, and 3 Bronze Badges.
And that is it. This is the complete Lebron James build in NBA 2K21. We hope that you have gathered enough valuable information so that you can get right into the game and apply these settings to your own player and start dominating.
