Dingbest: These NBA 2K athletes grew up together. Now they are teaming up with the Jazz

Dingbest

They would go to college. They'd come home. They had pop-in NBA 2K9 -- the 2009 variant of the NBA-based video game -- and 2K MT could ball online. Five-on-five digital games. On the weekends, the same thing. Play all weekend. Rack up stats. Come home, log into NBA 2K and match. Again and again. Day after day. Week after week.

Browne (who goes by"Shaka" and Martin (who goes by"Lotty" increased the worldwide rankings of their NBA 2K9 online community. It was a competitive time with hundreds of thousands competing on the web. Shaka, whose speech has been"YoungSparks92," watched somebody climbing the ranks with him. "YoungKobe3." The two New Yorkers were connected together then. Little did they know that almost a decade later they'd be teammates, competing side by side for the Utah Jazz in a professional league for NBA 2K players.

See, in the moment, it was all about rankings. They climbed up the ladder. They jockeyed for position. Shaka had the bragging rights always ahead of Lotty. So when Lotty discovered the two NBA 2K stars climbed up in the Exact Same neighborhood of Mount Vernon, New York. He knew he had to fight him. 1 game to pick bragging rights for the town and 2K. They went to different high schools, so it was not like they could link up on their own.

Shaka wanted the opportunity to play with Lotty one on one. He always knew he was a better player than him, even if they were always neck-and-neck at the competitive rankings. He just wanted the moment to prove it. They played a hard-fought game. Lotty chose the Los Angeles Lakers -- a group touting a prime Kobe Bryant -- and Shaka chose the Rockets, which had Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming in the time.

Later that night, the two opponents -- that had never met until there -- ended up going to the movies. Fast forward more than 10 years and both are still side by side, teaming together on Jazz Gambling, the Utah Jazz affiliate for its NBA 2K League. "When we found out that we were from the exact same neighborhood and we were both on top of the planet, such as, wow, that is crazy we need to start hanging out and talking about the game to sort of learn from Buy NBA 2K21 MT Coins each other," Shaka explained. "And then we just became teammates then."