The NBA 2K league is taking the next step to making the professional eSports league a reality, announcing its plans for a draft lottery. The NBA and 2K Sports gave us detailed plans for exactly how teams will stock their rosters on Friday, with a draft lottery method arranged to help determine draft order.
The NBA announced Friday that the Draft Lottery drawing will take place on March 13 at 1 p.m. with the Draft itself taking place on April 4 at 1 p.m. in the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The Draft Lottery for the 2K League will look a lot like the lottery the NBA uses, with ping-pong balls selected in random order using the official ball machine that’s used for the NBA Draft Lottery. Every team will have one ping-pong ball with its logo, meaning the draft will not be weighted. This makes sense, given that the 17 teams don’t actually exist yet. Draft order will be announced on Twitter using the league’s official account, starting at pick 17 and working its way down to number one.
https://twitter.com/NBA2KLeague/status/972152333797855234
The league held a combine in the first few months of 2018 as a way to evaluate potential talent for the league, including where they best play on the court and how they will play with others. And now we also know a bit more about the actual draft, which will be held later this spring.
The draft will consist of six rounds with each team selecting six players and will be snake order, with the order of picks reversing after each round. For instance, the team with the first overall pick will have the last pick of the second round, the first pick of the third round and so on. The team with the 17th and last pick of the first round will have the first pick of the second round and the last pick of the third round. The 102 players available in the draft will have been selected by the league following an extensive tryout process that began in January.
“The NBA 2K League Draft is going to be incredible as we watch dreams become reality for our players,” NBA 2K League managing director Brendan Donohue said in a release. “We cannot wait to introduce the world to the first-ever NBA 2K League professionals and, most importantly, we are eager for our players to meet their teams and teammates for the first time. This will be a milestone moment for our league.”
While most of the draft information and how the league itself will work is still forthcoming, things certainly seem on schedule for a summer launch of the eSports league. NBA 2K is a huge game in the basketball world, and the NBA and 2K Sports are taking this endeavor seriously. Having the NBA backing franchises and following a similar model to the real Association will help fans tie the two leagues together as they make the league from concept into reality.
