NBL Oz Gaming Set for Inaugural 2K League Clash

Wednesday, March 8, 2023

A new chapter in the history of the NBL begins today.

A new chapter in the history of the NBL begins Thursday (AEDT), as the NBL’s NBA 2K League team – NBL Oz Gaming – takes to the court for the first time in a competitive landscape.

The new NBA 2K League consists of 25 teams split into two conferences, with the NBL side set to take part in the Eastern Conference.

The first part of the season consists of a Blacktop 3v3 tournament – a stage that was only introduced two years ago – with the NBL representative’s opening opponents set to be Raptors Uprising GC.

The 2K League side of the Toronto Raptors, Uprising GC finished last season’s 3v3 stage in eighth place in the Eastern Conference.

“For this one you take one of your best scoring guards and your lockdown defender, and then it depends stylistically whether you want to take your big dunking type guy, or what we call a ‘popper’ – a big that can shoot,” NBL Oz Gaming coach Mitchell ‘Mootyy’ Franklin said of the league’s first stage.

“With our strategy right now, we have our shooting guard as our scorer, our lockdown defender to take the opposition scorer out of the game and then we have our power forward – DjayTooCold – who’s playing as a popper.

“I feel like we’re one of the frontrunners in the league to be one of the best teams in the three-on-three mode … we want to be one of the best teams in the league and I think we’re definitely on the right path to it.

“I’m excited for the guys because starting tomorrow we get to showcase how good NBL Oz is, and we get to show how much work we’ve put in.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">?IT'S GAME WEEK?<br><br>Tune in live for the start of the 2023 season with the <a href="https://twitter.com/coinbase?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@coinbase</a> NBA 2K League 3v3 SLAM OPEN Wednesday, March 8th at 6pm/et on <a href="https://t.co/v1LLynxNVO">https://t.co/v1LLynxNVO</a>! <a href="https://t.co/npcD1mbUYz">pic.twitter.com/npcD1mbUYz</a></p>— NBA 2K League (@NBA2KLeague) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBA2KLeague/status/1632774598881075200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 6, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

While Mootyy believes his side is primed to take the competition by storm in the three on three, he’s assured of the fact that it won’t be at the expense of the five-on-five competition that will be run later in the season.

The selection of small forward Lawrence ‘LawRich’ Mayberry with the 24^th pick in the recent draft signifies the intention to be strong in both formats, and the coach believes his lockdown defender could be a point of difference in the upcoming season.

“With the roster we’d built we wanted to draft a lockdown small forward who plays ‘stage’, which is where the best three on three players tend to come from,” Mootyy said.

“You have to be able to balance them though – you don’t want to have a good three on three line-up that isn’t good at the five on five.

“I wanted to make sure that lock was also experienced and good at the five on five.

“The ultimate goal is to get a championship, but we have to take it step by step. We haven’t been focusing on the five on five as much, but we’ve still been out here beating teams in scrimmages that have been focusing more on that stage.

“We know what we’ve got, we know how good we can be, we’ve put in the work and now it’s all down to how it’s going to translate.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Tomorrow we show what it means to be a Roo ?<br><br>10:45am AEDT (6:45pm ET) vs <a href="https://twitter.com/RaptorsGC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RaptorsGC</a> <br><br>1:00pm AEDT (9:00pm ET) vs <a href="https://twitter.com/PacersGaming?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PacersGaming</a> <a href="https://t.co/iWxquZfy7Z">pic.twitter.com/iWxquZfy7Z</a></p>— NBL Oz Gaming ??? (@nblozgaming) <a href="https://twitter.com/nblozgaming/status/1633200464656465920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 7, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

No matter how the NBL Oz Gaming team performs in its first season, Mootyy and his players have had the rare experience of helping to build the cultural foundation of the team from the ground up.

Mootyy says he has a clear reaction he wants his side to pull from opposition players who see the green and gold kangaroo logo on the schedule.

“I wanted to establish a culture where whether we’re winning or losing people see the NBL Oz angry kangaroo logo and think ‘damn, we’re in for a bar fight here. It’s going to be a tough game’,” he said.

“We also want people to see us off the court to want to be a part of what we’ve created because it looks like we’re having fun and enjoying what we do in addition to being good.”

You can catch the first fixture in the history of NBL Oz Gaming live on the NBA 2K League Twitch and YouTube channels from 10:45am AEDT on Thursday, March 9.