PHOENIX — Not everyone is negatively impacted by the NBA suspending its season. In fact, it’s given Valley native Antonio Saldivar a dream opportunity with the Phoenix Suns.
The journey started in 2018, when Saldivar joined the NBA 2K League as a professional player.
According to Saldivar, the competition to join the league started with over 70,000 gamers. He was among the few drafted the inaugural season by Grizz Gaming.
The Suns don’t have a 2K League team, but after two seasons in Memphis, Saldivar was given the opportunity to represent them against the Dallas Mavericks.
“The Suns are putting together this 2K stream on Twitch you know trying to continue the season virtually because the season is suspended,” said Saldivar.
The event was an enormous success. Nearly 100,000 people tuned in to watch while the broadcast rose into the top-10 live channels on Twitch.
It was just all thrown together, I just kind of went in there, played, created content, had fun,” said Saldivar. “It kind of opened their eyes to how big the gaming and Twitch world was with getting all those viewers, it was just thrown together.”
The goal is to continue to collaborate with the Suns, and hopefully establish something even bigger.
“Getting a 2K team would be my main priority. it’s just awesome. It gives you another thing to root for, you’re rooting for the Suns one night and you’re rooting for their 2K team the next night. I would love that for the city of Phoenix.”
The Suns wrote in a press release that they are exploring other opportunities to create digital content and engage with Suns fans over the coming weeks.
