Ronnie 2K reveals 3 requirements Shai Gilgeous-Alexander must meet to be on NBA 2K cover

Posted by Admin October 28, 2024 NBA

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Over the last two seasons, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s astronomical rise to superstardom has accelerated the Oklahoma City Thunder‘s graduation to a championship contender. The 26-year-old’s back-to-back top-five MVP finishes served as an acceptance letter among the league’s elite.

The individual accolades have added up and the team’s success will soon follow. The Thunder have entered the 2024-25 season as a heavy title favorite. They are in the infancy stages of a contending window similar to the 2010s.

The cherry on top to celebrate Gilgeous-Alexander’s improbable rise to a bonafide superstar involves video game controllers and headphones. The NBA 2K cover athlete is a feat only the top percentile of the league enjoys. If he racks up awards and playoff wins, he could soon join that club.

Ronnie Singh — more known as Ronnie 2K — revealed he hopes Gilgeous-Alexander is eventually on the cover of an NBA 2K video game. Ronnie 2K constantly communicates with the MVP candidate about the video game.

In fact — Gilgeous-Alexander called him the day before Thunder Wire’s exclusive interview with the face of 2K.

“He just plays it all the time,” Ronnie 2K said. “It’s usually about whatever builds he’s building. He was hitting me up a couple of weeks ago about a couple of losses because of a server blimp or whatever. Anytime somebody loses, it’s like the game (invokes competitiveness). So, he’s like, ‘Can you take my losses back?'”

After teasing a potential Gilgeous-Alexander NBA 2K cover down the road, he revealed the three requirements an NBA player must meet to be featured as the face of the yearly video game. The three prerequisites are:

“Are you on the upward trajectory? He absolutely is between him and the team.”
“Can we link into the story we’re trying to tell as a brand? It depends on year to year what we’re trying to solve. Whether it’s the game features or our marketing message. Which athlete kinda links best with that.”
“And then finally, is it authentic? And what I mean by that is, do they play the game? Are they competitive in the game? Did they talk about it? Do they want to contribute something beyond just gameplay?”

Ronnie 2K noted Gilgeous-Alexander’s off-court interests align with NBA 2K’s as it tries to expand beyond being known as just a simple basketball game.

“In his case, like, obviously, fashion and music are so important to him and they’re so important to us,” Ronnie 2K said. “… It’s just about the timing of the messaging that we’re trying to tell either around the game or our features to see if that aligns with our perspective cover athlete.”

From what Ronnie 2K detailed, it seems like it’s a matter of when, not if, Gilgeous-Alexander will be an NBA 2K cover athlete. He’d join Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook as the only Thunder players to be included in the annual video game.

It’d be the latest of an ever-growing list of achievements Gilgeous-Alexander has accomplished in his career highlighted by his rise from lottery selection to MVP candidate.

“To be our fourth highest-rated player at 26 and still so young and on such an exciting team,” Ronnie 2K said. “He’s gonna be a lot of fun to watch for years.”