The knicks make it to the finals - In an alternate reality

On two jumbo screens, the virtual players could be seen loosening up with shoulder rolls and elbow bumps while the Knicks and the Wizards sat down in black pleather chairs and put on headsets.

A few cleaned their fingers with alcohol pads before picking up their controllers and pushing their faces toward computer monitors placed only a few inches from their noses.

This is “NBA 2K,” the first official esports league operated by a professional U.S. sports league.

The video game league, a joint venture between the NBA and game developer Take-Two, started its inaugural season May 1. Its games are livestreamed to hundreds of thousands of fans across the world on the online platform Twitch. The games are played in front of a live audience in a flashy new studio in Long Island City, which opened in April. Here on the banks of the East River, the basketball court is a circle of computers. The locker rooms are internet cafe-like spaces where players warm up before a game. The competition is fueled by sugar-free Red Bull, pigs-in-a-blanket and Gatorade in every color.

The Knicks lost that game, 80-68, but have rebounded, winning enough games to make it to the league finals against the Heat.

“From the NBA’s standpoint, this is our fourth league,” said Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA, referring to the NBA’s other properties, including the WNBA and the NBA G League. “While the NBA 2K League is a new concept, because it’s a virtual league, we think we can take the same expertise and experience in operating traditional leagues and bring that to the world of gaming.”

The NBA 2k League has several similarities with the NBA — with a few obvious differences.

There are 17 teams this year; the NBA has 30. The average age of the gamers is 23; it’s 27 in the NBA Each 2K team is affiliated with an NBA franchise, like the Pistons, the Celtics or the Jazz, and the players live and practice in their home markets. The 2K teams have six players; NBA teams have a minimum of 14.

The gamers are paid a salary of up to $35,000 for a six-month contract; Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors, who according to reports is the highest paid player in the NBA, made almost $35 million last season.

The gamers might not be making millions, but there are a few perks: Free housing. Free training. And the opportunity for self-promotion.

Every weekend, all 102 players in the league (except for the Knicks) are flown to New York from regional training centers across the country to compete in Long Island City. Even though it’s an online venture, games during the 17-week season are played in person to avoid connectivity issues.

For the 2K Knicks, practice begins at 10 a.m. at 11 Penn Plaza, a building in front of Madison Square Garden. The team spends about eight hours with their coach, scrimmaging, studying match videos and working on strategy. The players — who are from South Carolina, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Virginia and the Bronx — are advised on what foods to eat, how to disconnect before bed and how to develop better sleep habits.

“Practicing before, oh, my God, it was insane,” said 2K Knicks player Marc Rodriguez, 22, from the Bronx, of his gaming before going pro. He began playing the video game NBA 2K at age 10. By middle school, he would regularly play until 3 a.m. “I used to have rough mornings,” he said, “but I would get home again after school, take like an hour nap, and then I would get back on the game.”

Before being drafted, the 2K Knicks players were students or held mostly entry level jobs: country club locker room attendant, salesman for a trucking company, YouTube content creator, Amazon warehouse employee. Their day jobs, however, came second to 2K.

Idris Richardson, 22, the center for the 2K Knicks, comes from South Carolina, where he boxed and shipped commercial heaters, and later moved to Detroit. He said he never liked playing basketball in real life, but for him, NBA 2K was an escape.

“If I didn’t have 2K, I wouldn’t be sitting in this chair; I’d be in jail or dead,” said Richardson, who described a tough life in Detroit. “Everywhere I go I hear gunshots or sirens 24/7. So it was, like, let me stay in the house. I know I’m safe.”

When drafting players, scouts look for players with “stick skills” and those who know the game of basketball well.

“You really can look at it the same way as you would in traditional basketball,” said Jerry Ferrara, a scout for the 2K Knicks and the actor best known for his role as Turtle in “Entourage,'’ the HBO series. “Is he making the right plays and not forcing shots? That guy is only interested in scoring. That guy withdraws in the fourth quarter, what’s up with that? Could we coach him differently? Coachability is a big factor.”

Ferrara said he conducted interviews on Skype with more than 100 players before draft day in April, factoring in natural playing ability, character and a player’s love for the game, he said. He described the 2K Knicks players as a bunch of social media-savvy, brand-conscious go-getters.

“The stereotype of the hairy guy, in his boxers, overweight, eating Doritos and playing video games — yeah, that still exists — but that’s more the casual player, like me, than the pro gamer,” Ferrara said. “Pro gamers now are busy, motivated young people who get it. They’re having sponsorship meetings, and the popular ones are running full on brands and the aspiring ones see that blueprint now and are following suit.”

In the games, the players control avatars who stand 1 foot taller, or more, than they are. But they bear a passing resemblance: The players could scan their faces and have them mapped on to their characters. Other attributes were left up to the players.

“Some have mohawks, or accessories, and some are different races than their avatars,” said Brendan Donohue, managing director of the NBA 2K League.

Some women competed in the tryouts, but none made the final cut, and at the moment, NBA 2K doesn’t support female avatars.

“We’re working on that,” Donohue said.

As the popularity of sport simulation games grows, more popular video games — like “League of Legends” and “DOTA 3” — still dominate the video game world.

The NBA 2K League said an average of 300,000 unique viewers watch individual game broadcasts this year. In comparison, “Overwatch,” a popular first-person shooting game, averaged 830,000 daily worldwide viewers at its grand finale at Barclays Center last month, according to the game’s developer. A single “League of Legends” match during the game’s 2017 World Championship in Beijing saw 80 million unique viewers, according to the developer. Last season, the NBA said regular games averaged around 1.3 million television viewers.

Still, Silver said, NBA 2K viewers are more likely to attend a game in person or watch one on television after they have watched a 2K match on Twitch, and the league is closely watching to see if the cities, like New York or Cleveland or Memphis, Tennessee, will rally around their hometown players.

“It’s a big experiment to see if the geographical ties that are used to build a fan base, whether that can translate into a virtual world,” Silver said. “That is a new concept.”

After the season, the players plan on returning to school and finding new jobs. Nate Kahl, the Knicks power forward, is considering driving for Uber.

Rodriguez said he will go back to his retail job at GameStop and living with his mother in the Bronx, where he’ll continue to grind at 2K.

“At this point the sky’s the limit,” he said. “I’m going to keep breaking barriers after barriers and continue to pursue my dreams.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

The knicks make it to the finals - In an alternate reality

A sportscaster’s booming voice introduced the players to a couple hundred in attendance, who watched from seats arranged like bleachers.

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The knicks make it to the finals - In an alternate reality

A sportscaster’s booming voice introduced the players to a couple hundred in attendance, who watched from seats arranged like bleachers.

Recommended articles

JOIN OUR PULSE COMMUNITY!

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