The NBA 2K series is not an arcade style game so it does have a learning curve. There is certainly some work by you required to get the hang of the controls.
I feel that they give you complete control over the action, but they have simplified it a little so that the screen is not too cluttered with buttons. You play the game with a virtual joystick on one side of the screen and a series of buttons on the other. To be fair though, NBA 2K17 does fair quite well. Too many mobile games that have tried to emulate their console big brothers fall at the control hurdle.
Of course, all of the flash means nothing if the game does not control well.
