The Hawks Talon Gaming Club, the NBA 2K affiliate team of the Atlanta Hawks, hosted media day on Tuesday to introduce the team for the 2020 season while unveiling the brand new training facility dedicated to the professional gamers. The training facility is inside the Atlanta Hawks corporate offices in downtown and the Talon Gaming Club is steps away from where their NBA counterparts compete at State Farm Arena.
“We just got a space that we can call our own. The design is cool, we got a large screen television we can do film sessions on, so it’s just comfortable and it’s ours. It just makes us work that much harder being able to have a space that’s ours and that’s closer to the Hawks family. It’s just a much better environment.” Head Coach and Team Manager of the Hawks Talon Gaming Club Wesley Acuff said.
Not only does the team have a new training facility, but also a new look to the roster as well. The team only retained one player from last season, MrStylez (Andrew Valle), and last season’s MVP runner up, BP ( Michael Diaz) who was acquired in a trade with Kings Guard Gaming.
“He [BP] took his team to the playoffs last year and being able to acquire him in this offseason obviously puts us more on the right path of going in the right direction of getting to where we want to be which is obviously the playoffs and then focusing on the championship afterwards. His skillset and his ability to discover things in the game that are really useful, it really puts us in a great position.” Acuff said.
The team drafted four players in the 2020 draft, hosted on Feb 22 in New York City, including Atlanta native, Arkele (Derrion Elmore) with the 62nd overall pick out of McEachern High School.
“It’s a great feeling, just being able to be close to my family. Ever since I joined the league that’s what I wanted.” Arkele said.
Other players drafted were Lee Lamb with the 16th overall pick, Kel (Mykel Wilson) with the 38th overall pick, and FollowTHEGOD (Kwan Larry Niblack Jr). Every player placed an emphasis on the importance building and maintaining great chemistry will mean for championship contention.
“We gotta have that chemistry. There’s no ‘I’ in the team, I can’t do this myself. Without help we’re not going to be able to do it.” BP said.
“I’m excited. We have a whole lot of chemistry off that court which brings it to the court with the energy and everything like that. When we’re winning, we’re a hard team to stop … We’re locked in. We’re ready to get to New York and bring home a banner.” Arkele said.
The Hawks Talon GC season opener is set for April 1 at 7:00 PM at the NBA 2K League Studio in Manhattan, NY. The team will face Warriors Gaming Squad, the Golden State Warriors affiliate, and can be streamed on Twitch and YouTube Gaming.
