The basketball jones in this nation is palpable. March Madness would have been wrapping up with the Final Four this weekend, and the NBA would be gearing up for the playoffs if it weren't for the coronavirus dealing a serious blow to the "ball is life" crowd. Basketball fans are so starved they were able to successfully pressure ESPN into pushing up the release of its highly anticipated Michael Jordan documentary.
Thankfully, even more basketball content is on the way during this stoppage of play. ESPN will air an NBA 2K20 tournament featuring 16 players from the league. The single-elimination contest begins Friday, April 3, and will run through April 11, with games televised on ESPN and ESPN 2. Kevin Durant and Trae Young have the top two seeds, as determined by the participating players' ratings within the game. The winner will select a charity to receive a $100,000 donation in their name and in support of coronavirus relief.
This will be fun —
Besides the obvious draw of seeing hyper-competitive players square off gaming, there's real promise in the oppurtunity for gaffes. Just last night, Ronnie 2K forgot he was live streaming and called Demarcus Cousins "a dick" while discussing this very tournament.
Even funnier was CJ McCollum reading a comment comparing his pubic hair to Jamal Murray's — a reference to a sex tape appearing on the latter's Instagram Stories. It went down on the NBA's official Instagram account, sparking an incredulous Damian Lillard to tell him he can't address those comments. McCollum was relentless and asked, "What you mean?"
With more moments like these happening on national TV, what could possibly go wrong? We can't wait to find out.
