Kevin Durant, Trae Young and Donovan Mitchell are just a few of the NBA players who will participate in a players-only NBA 2K tournament, according to Yahoo Sports.
The tournament will include 16 players in all, and it comes at a time when the NBA is suspended because of the current pandemic. The competition will air on ESPN starting Friday, April 3, and will last for 10 days. But some of the details are still being ironed out by the NBA.
Some of the matchups include Durant versus the Miami Heat’s Derrick Jones, the Atlanta Hawks; Young versus Harrison Barnes of the Sacramento Kings, and Mitchell will take on the Washington Wizards’ Rui Hachimura. The players will compete from separate locations as well.
Once word got out about the tournament, some said they were happy it was created, while others believe it’s a poor replacement for real NBA play.
“Yo this don’t count we want the nba back 😭😭😭,” one person wrote on Instagram.
“Sorry ima be watching this,” wrote another.
There were many who predicted who’d win the tournament.
“KD probably been playing 2K non stop since he got injured…He winning it all,” one person stated.
The NBA suspended play on March 11 after the Utah Jazz’s Rudy Gobert tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. Gobert’s teammate Mitchell also tested positive shortly afterward.
But on Friday, March 27, it was reported that Gobert and Mitchell have been cleared of the virus and they no longer have it.
In fact, on Tuesday, March 31, Gobert posted an Instagram video of himself working out and captioned it “Back at it.”
Mitchell also acknowledged being cleared of the illness, and to celebrate he tweeted a popular clip of a young Atlanta student dancing on a chair.
Durant, who was one of four Brooklyn Nets players to test positive for the virus last month, got a clean bill of health himself this week. Nets general manager Sean Marks announced Wednesday that all four players — three were unnamed — have been cleared of the virus.
“So far, everybody is healthy. The guys that were, that tested positive, have cleared their 14 days self-isolation and quarantine,” Marks told reporters in a conference call. “They’re still practicing with social distancing like the rest of us. They are cleared like everybody, like the rest of the team and the staff right now.”
Other NBA players who’ve joined the video game tournament include Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns, free agent DeMarcus Cousins, and the Portland Trail Blazers’ Hassan Whiteside.
