Warriors Gaming Squad talks their draft experience in NBA 2K League

The Golden State Warriors’ organization is soaking in all the attention this week. First their Santa Cruz Warriors G League team was announced as the Franchise of the Year. I totally feel they deserve the award for helping Jordan Poole and Nico Mannion find their strides, but they’ve also been fantastic with humanitarian work in the Bay Area.

And of course there’s all the hoopla around the Warriors NBA team snagging two highly coveted picks in Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody at #7 and #14 respectively. Both guys come with much fanfare, as these two picks represent the Warriors desire to keep developing young talent around the battle hardened core of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green.

But did you also know that the Warriors are intent on taking over the gaming world as well? Golden State’s official professional NBA 2K League team Warriors Gaming Squad is playing tonight in the league’s game of the week against Raptors Uprising GC.

I sat in on a media session with Charles “CB13” Bostwick and Veron “Hezi” Coates from WGS and asked them about how the experience of being drafted into the 2K League changed their lives.

Hezi: I got drafted this year as the third pick. When I got drafted I was 19, I turned 20 over the bye week. It impacted my life in a huge amount, before I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I was working in retail stores playing 2K for fun. So to play it professionally and get paid for it. So to me, at this age, it’s a cool job.

Who wouldn’t want to play 2K and get paid? Everybody I know on my Snap or on my Twitter always hit me up saying that I have it good. My family, they’re happy. For right now it’s cool, I really enjoy it alot.

CB13: For me, when I was going for it I told my family and at first they were shocked because I was in school at the time. But after seeing it now there is just an outpouring of support, like my uncles will watch a game and text me about it. Like everytime I get a text from a family member, even my grandma will text me like, “hey great game”. They’re staying up until like 11 or 12 O’clock Eastern just to watch a video game; it sounds crazy!

That type of support from my family is really what motivates me. Getting drafted for Hezi was virtually sadly, but in season 2 we got drafted in the Barclays Center. That was really a cool experience. It felt like a real NBA draft: we walked up there, put the hat on, and got to go upstairs to the VIP section. That was a really cool experience that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

The other big part is the family support, whenever we have a good game or I play bad or play well, I always get a text from my parents, uncles, and grandparents. It’s really fun.

You can check these young guns out tonight at at 6PM west coast time on Twitch.tv/nba2kleague and for more information visit their site at warriorsgs.nba.com.