NEW YORK – It was a draft night that was oh so familiar in one hand, and not at all on the other.
The familiar tradition of a group of suited young men piling into Barclays Center and awaiting to hear their name called to make their hoop dreams come true was upheld Tuesday with the second-ever NBA 2K League Draft, the official draft of the NBA’s still-fledgling esports experiment using the NBA 2K video game franchise.
Other than the fact this was for an esports league, the affair appeared to be much like its NBA cousin, with the commissioner, or in this case 2K League managing director Brendan Donohue, announcing picks and the aforementioned suited young men heading up to the stage while putting on a cap to denote the new team they’re heading to before shaking Donohue’s hand and then going for a quick interview with the broadcast.
All things considered, take away video games, and this was as standard draft fair as they come, until the fourth round that is.
With the final round now upon everyone, there were more than a few yawns and sleepy expressions in the now sparse crowd, likely just hoping for this entire thing to be over. Then Donohue stepped up to the podium and woke everyone up.
“With the second pick of the fourth round in the NBA 2K League Draft Warriors Gaming Squad selects Chiquitae126 from Illinois.”
A massive eruption of noise immediately shook Barclays Center as everyone in there understood what this meant.
Emerging from the back row of seats came a young woman with highlight-tipped dreads wearing a red floral-printed suit jacket and solid red pants grinning from ear-to-ear as she gingerly made her way up to the stage among a cacophony of hooting and hollering with Beyonce’s “Girls” proudly playing in the background.
Chiquita Evans had just been drafted.
The first-ever woman drafted into the NBA 2K League, Evans was overcome with emotion upon understanding the gravity of what she just accomplished, not just for the 2K League, but for esports, in general.
https://twitter.com/NBA2KLeague/status/1103106007901880325
It’s no secret that esports has something of a diversity problem, especially in player ratios between men and women. Back when the 2K League first launched in April of last year, NBA commissioner Adam Silver made an announcement that the 2K League was looking to help resolve some of these issues with a “task force” that would come together and create a pool of female participants for the 2019 draft.
“We did several focus groups with current NBA 2K League players,” Donohue said before the draft started of what the task force did. “We did it with the best known 2K women players we knew about, and in addition to that we also conducted a study. So we did research on women in esports and women in their association and their relationship with the 2K League. One of the things we did find was we talked to the best, elite women players who played 2K and what we found was — everyone wears a headset when they play — if someone identified their voice as female, they stopped getting passed the ball.
“So, as a result, this year when we thought about our tryout process we wanted to make sure, when we looked at the analytics, how good someone did when they had the ball in their hands. What they could control, how good were they, how big an impact on the game did they have when the ball was in their hand.”
The result was two women, Evans and Brianna “icygrl” Novin making it past the rigourous screen process to make the pool of 198 hopefuls this year competing for 75 open spots in the draft.
That only two women made the cut could be seen as problematic but seeing as one actually made it into the league is still forward progress.
“I feel like it will improve, but it starts with women ourselves,” said Evans after she was drafted. “We have to go out there and get ourselves known. We have to learn to be able to have tough skin, to be honest with you, and just go out there and compete, no matter what anyone says.”
To say Evans faced hurdles on her path to the 2K League would be an understatement. Facing doubters and blatant disrespect because of her gender along the way, she didn’t allow this persecution to lead her astray.
“A lot of people said that I don’t belong here,” Evans said. “I’ve worked hard, and now I’m just proving to myself and showing everyone.”
She’s made that important first step to make it to the show and understands there’s many more to come. A challenge she seems more than willing to take on.
“I’ve always been a leader. I don’t have any problems with being a leader.”
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