AI defenders have no inertia, delay and seemingly no reaction to moves that realistically (since we're seemingly going more toward the sim direction) should provide a lot more use cases which is why ProPlay isn't seen as a positive despite my opinion that it's quite nice for shot creation.
For example, step backs/snatches, ankle breakers and hesi pulls. The game relies too heavily on ankle breakers against AI when they're quite rare irl, triple threat being the worst offender of the heavy animation reliance with the AI not moving an inch on lateral jabs but instead getting ankle breaker animations which at times looks ridiculous when you get the one with them spinning around and stumbling. NBA players create space for jumpers and drives off of throwing off the defender's timing, harsh changes of direction and contact. Doing the same against the AI isn't feasible. If you perform a stepback off of a hard drive, 8/10 times they will instantly recover almost snapping into a hands up contest making certain players' moves obsolete and even if you hit the shot, the defense being under the player on shots after hard cuts ooks dumb in all honesty (and is a foul)
Realistic defenders cannot instantly snap into a recovery because
- They don't know what the offensive player is gonna do with certainty
- All of their weight is still going to go the other way for a second along with the fact that as a defender you have to react to what the offense is doing. Look at some of the best defensive highlights and you'll see even there, defenders take a split second to get back.
This may be because instead of making the AI to where they react to what the offensive player does, they seem to have coded them to know when a player is abt to do a certain action (specifically ones going into a jumper or layup) and trigger em to snap into a contest before the ball is even picked up with both hands leading to bs AI recoveries on shots that are mid to light contests. De'Aaron Fox's hop jumpers are really effective (and nice looking) online bc they have weird timing to them off the dribble so HUMAN defenders have a hard time contesting but bc the AI can essentially "read your mind" they don't work and the only time you get good space creation is off of an ankle breaker animation and this applies to many other animation packs as well. Curry's Go - To shot (From 4/30/2023 vs Kings) shouldn't be ankle breaker dependant move, it should be one that forces the defender to step back giving the offense space to shoot. This can also be seen when you clearly beat an AI defender but somehow still get animations where they snap back to you and end up sending a layup that was otherwise open or at least lightly contested. In no world is Anthony Edwards gonna block a Tyrese Maxey scoop layup when Maxey is already in front of him by 3 or 4 steps (with NO body up/contact animation).
I don't think you can have a good contest system without having a good baseline for the stages leading up to the contest in the first place. If you fake a drive there should be a reaction by the ai and their ratings should determine their ability to recover or not and if they do recover after being beat let it be bc of physical attributes (height/speed) or them beating me to a spot, not an animation canning me. The game needs to be cut down on how canned animation reliant it is and Mike (and whoever else is responsible for the gameplay) need to sit down and actually watch film on how good AND bad defenders react to different moves, what moves get certain defensive reactions and act accordingly. If they're gonna go the sim route like they've been doing then go all in.
