With the NBA’s 2019-20 season put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, the league has announced that it will be holding a 16-man Players Only NBA 2K20 tournament beginning April 3, 2020.
Everybody has been longing for live NBA action and with still no definite timetable as to when the 2019-20 NBA season will resume if at all, the NBA has decided to come up with a tournament that will be played for charity.
ESPN has been airing classic games for the most of its evening programming and this tournament will most certainly bridge the gap between now and the April 19 premiere of the highly anticipated 10-part documentary on Michael Jordan. For the betting public, the top basketball online betting sites have been looking for games to bet on since the coronavirus outbreak and this one should break the ice.
The tournament will feature 16 current NBA players paired eight single-elimination matchups. The tournament will be played using Xbox One and the players will be seeded according to their 2k ratings first and tenure in the league second. The winner will be crowned as the ultimate NBA2K20 champion and he will select a beneficiary charity which will receive $100,000.00 donation from 2K, NBA, and NBPA in support of the coronavirus relief efforts.
Based on their seedings, the players will go head to head online in NBA2K20. Before the start of the tournament, every player will pick eight of today’s NBA teams, each of which can be used only once so players should strategize which teams to use first while keeping the elite teams like the Bucks, Lakers, and Clippers for the later rounds. The away team is awarded the first choice of a team if a mirror match is set. The first two rounds are single elimination rounds while the semifinals and finals will be a best-of-three affair.
The tournament will be aired live via ESPN and ESPN2 with the first scheduled matchup slated for April 3, 2020, at 7:00 PM ET between Kevin Durant and Derrick Jones Jr. Durant will be choosing among the Brooklyn Nets, Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks, Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets, LA Clippers, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Utah Jazz. Meanwhile, Jones will pick among the Boston Celtics, Brooklyn Nets, Dallas Mavericks, LA Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks, and the Philadelphia 76ers.
Here is the broadcast schedule from ESPN:
Below is the list of the participating NBA players listed according to their seedings:
Here are the complete betting odds to win the NBA’s Players Only 2K20 tournament. These odds were taken from SportsBetting as of 04/02/20:
This is hard to tell because it’s not about basketball skill but it’s about these players’ gaming skills. I’m not sure which of these NBA stars are NBA2K users but I bet they have tried playing this video game before. But even if they’ve played this game previously, we don’t know their skill level.
When you take a look at the 16-man line-up, Kevin Durant at +350 and DeMarcus Cousins at +1600 may have an edge over the rest of the field because they have been injured all-season long and have more free time to practice their 2K skills. This is on the assumption that all of these players play 2K at all.
However, when you look at the field again, Durant and Cousins are among the “oldest” players in the group. That is also another factor to consider because younger people are more likely to play video games like 2K.
If you can remember, there was a 6X6 Call of Duty Tournament tournament between NBA players last month. Among the participants of that tournament were Zach Lavine and Donovan Mitchell who are currently priced at +1600 and +800, respectively for this 2K tournament. Even if Call of Duty is their favorite game, they should be very familiar with the keys and buttons of the X-Box controller, making them good picks in this tournament.
Then there is the Portland Trail Blazers’ big man Hassan Whiteside who is seeded 3rd here because of his high 2K rating. Whiteside is a known 2K player and he recently posted an Instagram video about the game’s lag when playing NBA 2K on a hotel’s Wi-Fi. Whiteside’s opponent in the first round is 31-year-old Patrick Beverley.
If Whiteside beats Beverley, his next opponent will be either Andre Drummond and DeMarcus Cousins. To get to the finals, the higher seeds he could face would be Trae Young or Zach Lavine. I like Whiteside’s chances here. And at +800, I think that’s good enough for betting value.
PREDICTION: HASSAN WHITESIDE +800
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