Wow!, are you a paid shill or really just that much of a fanboy? We pay full price for a game, then in order to compete you have to spend at least another game price. If that was not bad enough you then are still at a competitive disadvantage if you are not willing spend VC on boosts before every online game, a straight pay to win strategy. There is a large market of competitive gamers. Now you obviously are not one, but if you were you would understand that no one that wants to compete is willing to wait around for half the game's life cycle until they have a player that can compete online. And even if they did without spending anything extra on VC they would still be at a huge disadvantage to those that did purchase the player day one. This is straight predatory marketing on a specific segment of purchasers that they know are willing to spend more in order to win more. Not only is it just to have a level playing field but they actually make the early stages very unenjoyable for many players by starting you with a player that has no business being an nba draft pick. Then let's not even get into issues like the prices for clothing, which I think is fine because it does not effect gameplay, but even then they have done things in the past like charge you for even wanting to see what a hair cut would look like on your player or to start your player with a beard. And how about the last couple of years where they take the release day of the game (the first day the nba has agreed they can put out a game) and put it behind a pay wall to buy a legendary edition giving yet another advantage to those willing to play more. This while they inflict advertisement on every aspect of the game we already paid for to the point where there are commercials that you cannot skip being put into the game in the final months before the next iteration comes out.
I get it, this game has a ton going for it with a plethora of modes and a lot of polish, but for you blind defenders willing to back them up no matter how slimey the practice allows the whole community to suffer. Go check Metacritic's user scores averaging like a 1 or 2 the last couple of years for this exact reason.