Good news, everyone. We have NBA games again! And to top it all off, DeMarcus Cousins is returning following his ACL injury in August!
While the above may be somewhat true, it’s not exactly what you might be imagining.
There will be NBA games televised on ESPN starting this Friday night, although those NBA games will be through the video game NBA 2K20. First reported by Chris Haynes/Yahoo Sports, 16 NBA players will be starting a NBA 2K20 tournament this Friday where they will battle head-to-head. Former Laker DeMarcus Cousins will be one of the participants, playing against the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Andre Drummond in the first-round. Below you can see the rest of the players in the tourney, most notably Kevin Durant, Donovan Mitchell, and Trae Young.
Yahoo Sources: NBA stars Kevin Durant, Andre Drummond and Donovan Mitchell expected to compete in the 16-player NBA 2K Tournament. https://t.co/6m39JZETjx pic.twitter.com/6S23sfFxBT
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) March 31, 2020
.@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
— The Boardroom (@boardroom) March 31, 2020
As Chris Haynes notes in his report, the NBA is still finalizing details of the tournament. It’s unknown if the players will be playing full team games, or if they will be playing different minigames that you can play on NBA 2K20, such as 1-on-1. If the players will be playing with their own teams, that causes some problems within the tournament as there are two Los Angeles Clippers players in the field (Patrick Beverley and Montrezl Harrell). Imagine both players controlling the Clippers and the championship resulting in us watching two virtual Patrick Beverleys fight each other on the court. It’d be miserable!
Although DeMarcus Cousins could theoretically represent the Los Angeles Lakers in this tournament, he technically isn’t one following his release that was done to sign Markieff Morris. Still, he has stayed around the facilities since his release while there are rumors of interest on both sides to reunite for the 2020-21 season, so we can consider him an honorary Laker for the purposes of this tournament.
It’s disappointing to not see Anthony Davis in the tournament field, as he is the cover athlete for NBA 2K20 and has voiced his love for playing the game. Hell, even LeBron James has posted himself playing on NBA 2K many times in the past on his Instagram.
Either way, let’s just be happy that we have something to tune into to take our minds off of the global coronavirus pandemic. Even if it’s just for a measly 10 days.
