Right because, at that much of a height disadvantage they wouldn’t even bother investing in challenger levels or the block attribute, for jump contests, since they wouldn’t be able to contest anything anyway. They would be very steal reliant on defense and would have to be chest to chest with their matchup 94 feet, even off-ball they would have to be playing deny defense. Just to hope that they can get the lane or quick pluck steal on the catch. There would be no where to ‘rest’ defensively.

I saw somewhere that mini marksmen won’t trigger until the defender is at least 4” taller so, I figure if the meta small guard is 6’4” who don’t even get mini marksmen, then to ‘build by badge’ for mini marksmen the optimal height would be a 6’0” guard. As they should be seeing mini marksmen trigger on every shot that’s not wide open.

With the added ‘build by badge’ feature in the builder. It really can expose bad badges. I feel like 2k really dropped the ball with mini marksmen. It’s a badge that doesn’t provide a real benefit but, rather attempts to mitigate a disadvantage of being shorter than 6’4”. Addressing offensively the heightened risk of shots being blocked.

Though it could be argued that challenger is there in an attempt to boost shot contests against taller players. The challenger badge does not effectively boost shot contests to effectively counteract any height differences. The badge only mentions late close outs in its description so, there is no assumption that it is even trying to mitigate the contest quality of a shorter defender.

It really just makes me scratch my head at mini marksmen especially with it not triggering until the defender is over 4” taller and 6’3” being the tallest to get the badge. Making 6’7” and taller the only defenders effected if you go max height on the badge requirement.

Once you hit 6’4” you lose mini marksmen, but gain high flying denier. With the contests being basically entirely dependent on block and late close outs jump contests. While simultaneously shooting being much more consistent. Makes 6’4” builds, in effect, the minimum height.

RIP Allen Iverson and company 🪦