Following Kyrie Irving's trade to the Boston Celtics two days ago, 2K found themselves in a slightly awkward position with their yearly NBA franchise due to release in just a few weeks with Irving in his Cavs jersey on the cover. The company has issued an official statement on the matter, revealing that they will indeed release an updated cover of Irving in his new Celtics jersey, but it won't be there at launch.
"We are excited to be part of one of the most memorable NBA offseasons in history with Kyrie, our 2K18 cover athlete, and Isaiah, one of the stars of our 2K roster, trading places," said Jason Argent, 2K's Senior Vice President of Basketball Operations.
"This isn't an unprecedented event, a cover athlete being traded–but it's certainly interesting timing with 2K18 being released in less than a month. The good news is that as the most authentic and realistic basketball game on the market, we're used to being nimble and responding to changes in the NBA. Fans should be thrilled to know that we will issue a version of 2K18 featuring Kyrie in a Boston Celtics uniform at a later date."
This is definitely a more in-depth response than the "whoops" that the game's Twitter account offered yesterday, and is almost the exact same response that EA had with the Brett Farve cover back on Madden 09.
So on the one hand, the old cover may be outdated, but it could potentially become quite the collectible, as 2K is unlikely to produce any more of the Cavalier covers from this point forward.
NBA 2K18 releases on September 19th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.
Source: [Gamespot]
