I don't think the SIM should be used for anything other than determining first round matchups for a couple of reasons. I don't feel strongly about any of these reasons, so I'm ok with whatever is decided:
- I don't play 2K, but my kids watch other kids using sims on 2K on YouTube, and I've seen some of the stuff the AI does, and it's just dumb.
- If people knew ahead of time that SIM would determine anything they might have built their team differently, like looking at 2K ratings.
- If the sim is really going to determine anything then people should be allowed to give matchup dependent minute distributions, but that would take way too long.
I still recommend just letting the sim determine teams 1-14 and then playing all matchups and letting the team with the highest amount of votes join the other 7 winners for an 8 team quarterfinals. That said, I don't really care that much.