One way that basketball players have remained occupied during the league’s COVID-19 hiatus has been video games. Some have opted to stream games from their homes, with some reportedly hopping on board with an NBA 2K tournament that the league is going to hold and broadcast on ESPN.
Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports brought word of the tournament, which is slated to include 16 players from around the league. We’re still waiting to get the names of everyone who will participate, but on Tuesday morning, Haynes reported four of the All-Star names that we’ll see take to the virtual hardwood, which includes Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant and Utah Jazz standout Donovan Mitchell.
Via Yahoo Sports:
The NBA is planning a players-only NBA 2K tournament that is expected to feature some of the league’s sharpest video gamers, including Kevin Durant, and it will be broadcast on ESPN, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
The league hopes to launch the event Friday, with the 16-player tournament lasting 10 days. It is expected to include stars such as the Utah Jazz’s Donovan Mitchell, four-time All-Star DeMarcus Cousins and two-time All-Star Andre Drummond, among other big-name players, sources said.
It’s obviously going to be an exciting tournament and a fun way to watch basketball at a time when the only ways to do that are YouTube mixtapes and diving into the League Pass archive. But beyond that, Durant and Mitchell were two of the first NBA players to have confirmed cases of COVID-19 — Mitchell has been given the all clear, while we have not heard one way or another on Durant, and getting to see that both of them are doing well is a good thing.
We’ll be sure to keep you updated on the full list of names that will participate when it becomes available. This is not the only 2K-related event happening in the coming days, as the NBA 2K League is in the midst of its own tournament. We’ll be participating in it on Tuesday night, and you can read more about that right here.