The 2018 NBA 2K League season was the inaugural season of the NBA 2K League, an esports league based on the basketball video game series NBA 2K. The season opened with the Tip-Off Tournament, which ran from May 1–5, 2018, where 76ers GC defeated Blazer5 Gaming. The season culminated on August 25, 2018, when Knicks Gaming defeated Heat Check Gaming in a best-of-three finals to become the first playoff champions in league history. Other tournaments included The Turn (where Blazer5 Gaming defeated Celtics Crossover Gaming) and The Ticket (where Knicks Gaming defeated Celtics Crossover Gaming).
For the inaugural season, the qualifying stage was open to anyone who was 18+ years old and owned NBA 2K18 on either PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. To qualify, players had to win 50 games in NBA 2K18's Pro-Am mode and submit an application following this requirement between January 1–31, 2018.[1] Following that, the players who qualified participated in a combine that ran from February 2–21, 2018.[2] The top 102 players out of the 72,000 who qualified were then drafted on April 4.[3]
On December 11, 2017, the official logo for the NBA 2K League was revealed,[4] with the logos for each of the 17 teams being revealed over the course of the following days.[5][6][7]
On April 4, 2018, the inaugural draft took place and was broadcast on NBA TV (first round only) and Twitch. The draft used a snake draft format with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announcing the first pick,[3] NBA 2K League managing director Brendan Donohue announcing the rest of the picks. The draft took place in the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden. For the first five rounds, each team was required to choose one player at each position, and in the sixth round team were allowed to choose any remaining player, regardless of their position.
