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Five Canadian gamers in pool of 102 players eligible for NBA 2K draft

Five Canadian gamers have made their way into the pool of 102 players who will become the NBA 2K League's first professionals when the inaugural season tips off in May.

The esports league features gaming offshoots of 17 NBA teams including the Toronto Raptors. Each of the participating clubs will select six players in Wednesday's draft at The Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York.

The Canadians available are small forward Ryan de Villon (whose gamer-tag is Devillon), power forwards Thomas Genaj (Speedbrook) and Basil Rose (l 24k Dropoff l) and centres Yusuf Abdulla (Kobeyusuf) and Mehyar Ahmed-Hassan (AuthenticAfrican).

Teams will select one player at each position (point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, centre) over the first five rounds before selecting a second player at the position of their choice in the sixth round.

The players will compete using their own avatars.

Mavs Gaming will have the No. 1 overall pick. Raptors Uprising Gaming Club, Toronto's esports team, will pick 11th, then 24th, 45th, 58th, 79th and 93nd.

The process of selecting gamers for the final player pool began with a qualifier in January that yielded 72,000 players. Following a February combine, the NBA 2K League identified the top 250 players and held live one-on-one interviews with each one. After the interviews, all player information was evaluated by a selection committee and used to determine the 102 players eligible to be drafted.

The draft pool also includes players from the U.S., United Kingdom and Germany.

The Canadian Press


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