[UPDATE 3/5: Anthony Muraco, director of gaming operations for Cavs Legion GC, released an official statement on the matter on Monday:
“No team, or team personnel like myself, has any influence whatsoever on who is selected by the NBA 2K League. In an attempt to show my personal support and encouragement to Styles, I mistakenly created the perception with him that I had involvement in the player selection process. This is not true, and I deeply regret that my communication suggested otherwise.”]
The first round of post-combine cuts for the NBA 2K League were finalized on Friday. It brought with it more than a fair share of skepticism from league hopefuls about the selection process and how determinations of the top 250 players were made.
Immediately, social media was ablaze with conspiracy theories about the fairness of the process. A screenshot of a conversation between MrStylez and Anthony Muraco, director of gaming operations for Cavs Legion GC, only fueled speculation of possible unfair play on the league’s part.
The Ballgamer received the inside scoop on the situation, directly from a source within the NBA 2K League. We shed some light and clear up what was the result of an apparent miscommunication between individuals within the league.
Here is the timeline of events, based on conversations as well as chat screenshots provided by the league source:
- At 11:51 AM ET, an unidentified team manager asked in a league-wide Discord server that includes numerous team personnel if the final wave of emails had been sent.
- At 11:52 AM, an official with 2K replied: “Yep, it’s done. We can’t control for when people check their inboxes, if it went to spam, etc but it’s been sent out.”
- At 11:55 AM, Grant Paranjape of Wizards District Gaming tweeted confirmation that all 250 emails had been sent.
- Minutes later, MrStylez, a distinguished and recognizable player in the 2K community, tweeted disappointment in his lack of inclusion in the top 250, including one that said “So hurt rn.”
- At 12:30 PM, Muraco inquires within the league as to whether all 250 emails had truly been sent. He is informed that there was a miscommunication and that 3-4 more emails were still to be delivered. At that time, he learns for the first time that MrStylez did, in fact, make the cut.
That then leads to the following exchange in which Muraco reaches out to MrStylez as a courtesy, according to the source, delivering the good news to someone he is an acquaintance of:
At 4:39 PM, MrStylez tweets that he had just received an email informing him of being selected for the top 250. A couple other players also received emails at the time, bringing a final conclusion to the email distribution.
“His email just didn’t go out until the end,” the league source told The Ballgamer.
Despite rampant speculation that the entire evaluation process was pre-determined, the source hopes the timeline of events clears up any perceived misdoing by the league and helps restore validity to a process that the league maintained was fair from the onset.
Brendan Donohue, the NBA 2K League managing director, released a memo Saturday night on the official league website detailing the evaluation process and congratulating those that made the top 250.
Donohue said that the 72,000 combine participants were whittled down to 1,000 based on two criteria: in-depth statistics and a data analytics model. The league measured unspecified playing data as well as relying on an external analytics firm, with the help of experts from the NBA and 2K to create a model that “algorithmically evaluated players’ statistics and determined who the top players were and ranked them accordingly.”
With the 1,000 players established based on the above criteria, the league then evaluated the online applications of the those 1,000 in determining the top 250. That helps answer the question some hopefuls posed as to why their SoundCloud recording, as required as part of the application process, was never listened to, according to the source.
The source maintains that no existing biases or relationships played a part in the selection process, despite what it may have appeared on the surface, citing that 2K controlled the outcome of who made the top 250.
“The managers had zero input into who the players were,” the source said.
Many players willingly shared screenshots highlighting their statistical accomplishments during and after the combine period. What people didn’t see, the source states, is what the backend analytic data told about the player’s total evaluation. Simply, statistics weren’t the overriding factor used to make decisions on the top 250.
The source stressed that the league understands the frustration of hopefuls who did not make it, particularly not being able to receive a direct reason as to why they were not selected compared to others who were.
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