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Krone proplayer4/25/2023 However, recognizing the opportunity to work behind the scenes to build a franchise, he jumped at the opportunity to join the Monumental team. A well-known 2K player, Crossan was in the process of qualifying for the 2K League as a player and would have likely made it. Monumental brought Crossan on board in March, capping off a rollercoaster few months for him. “I think a lot of teams are going to draft players that they’re comfortable or familiar with, or something else from that aspect,” says Patrick Crossan, the Team Manager for WDG. WDG is picking 12 th, giving them a chance to take two of the first 23 players off the board. The selection order was determined by a draft lottery on March 13. Each of the 17 franchises will select six players in the snake-style draft, which means that the order of picks reverses after each round. That process helped the NBA whittle down the pool to the 102 players who will participate in Wednesday’s draft. “Those 250 were then interviewed by the NBA as kind of a panel interview - by a sports psychologist and a number of other NBA and 2K officials,” says Paranjape. The large pool of players was narrowed down to 250 through a combination of Combine stats and an online application process that tested their basketball IQ, understanding of NBA 2K, and reasons for wanting to play in the 2K League. “It was really an opportunity for everyone to demonstrate why they were the best player in 2K.” “The Combine participants had to compete with random opponents and teammates, and had all of their stats tracked,” says Paranjape. Almost 72,000 players advanced to the Combine, which consisted of 12 planned playing windows in February where competitors were required to play with a default character - not their custom character that they had created and played with before. In the initial stage, players needed to win at least 50 games in NBA 2K18’s online Pro-Am mode to advance to the 2K League’s Combine in February. 31 and was open to anyone anywhere in the world, with the only requirements being that they be 18 or older by February and have completed high school or their class have graduated by the end of 2018. The first stage of qualifying ran from Jan. The NBA designed a three-step process to help identify the world’s best 2K players. With team identities complete, the next step was finding the players. It was a few months in the making, but it was exciting to finally reveal those publicly,” says Paranjape. “All of that led to us launching our brands and social handles in December. From there, the NBA worked with Rare Design throughout the summer to develop each participating team’s brand. The groundwork for the 2K League began in early 2017 when the NBA launched a partnership with Take-Two Interactive, the developers of NBA 2K. “I’ve always been interested in gaming, but I never thought there would be a career in esports,” says Paranjape. An experienced gamer himself - he played World of Warcraft professionally as an eighth grader - Paranjape left prominent esports organization Splyce to join WDG. Paranjape was hired seven months ago to oversee their foray into professional gaming. Monumental jumped at the opportunity and started the Wizards District Gaming (WDG) team. “There was a lot more interest than they expected and I think teams saw it as a great opportunity to reach a younger demographic and get their next generation of fans,” says Grant Paranjape (right), Director of Esports Business and Team Operations for Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the ownership group of the Washington Wizards.
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