The Phoenix Suns season may or may not be over on the hardwood, but it is very much alive on the virtual wood. Two players made the field for the players-only NBA2K tournament.
Just when you thought basketball was over for the Phoenix Suns this season, Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton will be hooping on ESPN this Friday.
Sort of.
The NBA is hosting a players-only NBA2K tournament that will air on ESPN this Friday. The 16-man field will not host not one, but two Phoenix Suns players, Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton.
The Suns themselves were the first to jump on the NBA2K simulation bandwagon, as the team has been hosting head-to-head matchups of their would-be regular-season games on their Twitch channel.
While they have had random gamers involved, the best and most watchable games is when they have given the controllers to players.
Ty Jerome won his matchup by 30. Frank Kaminsky lost his game but doled out plenty of self-deprecating jokes to keep us entertained, and Mikal Bridges confidently eeked out a victory bringing the Suns players record to 2-1.
.@NBA2K's "Players-Only" tournament will air starting this Friday on @ESPN. Here are the brackets - who do you think is gonna take it all? pic.twitter.com/51ltOfjeqR
— Boardroom (@boardroom) March 31, 2020
For this tournament, the field has a wide array of actual basketball talent, and they have been seeded by their 2K individual rating.
Devin Booker earned the 5-seed with a criminally-low 86 rating. Seriously, how is Trae Young a 90 rating and Booker is an 86? I digress.
Booker plays against the 12-seed Michael Porter Jr. in the first round, but don’t expect a 12-5 upset. Booker is essentially a professional gamer, and while his forte is Call of Duty, I have to think there is a strong crossover to NBA2K.
After all, Booker with a basketball is a first-person shooter. Get it? Because…okay, nevermind.
Deandre Ayton, coming in at the 10-seed with an 85 overall rating, will face off against Zach Lavine (who also has an 85 rating) of the Chicago Bulls.
Kevin Durant is the biggest star in the tournament, topping the field with a dominant 96 rating and the 1-seed, but that doesn’t mean anything once you get behind the sticks.
Suns fans will be cheering for an All-Suns final between Booker and Ayton, and then they will finally have something to brag about.
Go Suns. Time to rise.