Keyboard Controls (2023)

If you purchased NBA 2K13 where it is available (For me, the GameStop website had it up until June 8th of 2022), you may have noticed with the servers being offline for almost eight years, this version does not have controller support. At least, you can scroll the menus but the button maps and controls are completely off.
If you have similar issues, I have set up the keybinds to be more user-friendly.
Check out this whole guide for more details.

Introduction/Gameplay

Well, you're here probably feeling just as disappointed as I felt when I first booted up my PC port of 2K13. I also had similar issues with the PC port of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

My version's control scheme was strictly keyboard and mouse in the menus, which is misleading. Many of the menus have different control methods shown in the options but they switch between the two to show gameplay and navigating at once. It does not keep specific moves/binds to your controller for both gameplay/going through the menus. What I expect is having the Xbox controller being actively known by the game, but instead gives me buttons for a third-party controller with buttons D & C. When binding these buttons it is completely different to have a player shoot and rebound in gameplay, which brings me to this screenshot of my keybinds for these controls that is actually correct and decent enough to get unique dribble moves and defensive abilities.

PASS - Space
HOPSTEP/SCREEN - J
POST UP/REBOUND - U
SHOOT/STEAL - H

Menus/Extras

Hopefully I can patch this kind of thing with a mod but I have no knowledge of it existing, yet.

The menus are iffy to navigate as well, restricting easy bumper and trigger buttons/keys to the "<" and ">". The ENTER key and space also signify "select/yes" even though it's different navigating the MyPlayer upgrades or selecting teams compared to the actual gameplay pause menu.
Enjoy the nostalgia as much as possible!! :)

[desolation0]

Yeah, have to disable the Steam based controller support and any Xinput - Xbox controller works flawlessly. I can't speak for other controller signalling types like Playstation, but the traditional workarounds to enable them should be just fine, basically third party remapping applications.

[The Old Bear]

it says it doesn't have support, but it works any way with my xbox controller

[lord_alec]

I bought it on Steam when it was new(ish) and it's always had controller support, at least for Xbox controllers. Is it not detecting the controller?