Now they are teaming up with the Jazz

SALT LAKE CITY -- Shaka Browne and Lytel Martin had the same routine growing up. They would go to college. They would come home. They'd pop-in NBA 2K9 -- the 2009 edition of the NBA-based video game -- and could basketball online. Five-on-five virtual games. On the weekends, the same thing. Perform all weekend. Sometimes they'd work 9 to MT NBA 2K21 5. Come home, log in to NBA 2K and game. Day daily.

It turned out to be a competitive time with hundreds of thousands competing online. Shaka, whose speech has been"YoungSparks92," saw someone climbing the rankings with him. The two New Yorkers were connected together then. Little did they know that nearly a decade later they would be teammates, competing side by side for the Utah Jazz in a professional league for NBA 2K players.

See, at the time, it was all about rankings. They climbed up the ladder. 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 battle him. 1 game to decide bragging rights to the town and 2K. They went to different high schools, therefore it wasn't like they could link up on their own.

Shaka wanted the chance to play Lotty one on one. He knew he was a better player than him, even if they were always neck-and-neck in the competitive rankings. He just wanted the moment to prove it. They played with a hard-fought game. Lotty chose the Los Angeles Lakers -- a team touting a prime Kobe Bryant -- and Shaka picked the Rockets, which had Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming in the time. The match was close, but Shaka won by 10 or so.

Later that night, both opponents -- that had never met until that point -- ended up going to the movies. "When we found out that we were out of precisely the exact same area and we were on top of the planet, like, wow, that's crazy we need to start hanging out and Cheap NBA 2K21 MT talking about the sport to kind of learn from each other," Shaka said. "And we only became teammates then."