All these NBA 2K athletes grew up together.

SALT LAKE CITY -- Shaka Browne and Lytel Martin had the same routine growing up. They'd go to college. They would come home. They'd pop-in NBA 2K MT Coins -- the 2009 variant of the NBA-based video game -- and would ball online. Five-on-five digital games. On the weekends, same thing. Perform all weekend. Rack up stats. Come home, log in to NBA 2K and game. Day after day. Week after week.

It was a competitive time using countless thousands competing online. Shaka, whose handle has been"YoungSparks92," watched someone climbing the rankings with him. "YoungKobe3." Both New Yorkers were linked together then. Little did they know that almost a decade later they'd be teammates, competing side by side for the Utah Jazz at a professional league for NBA 2K players.

See, in the moment, it was about rankings. They climbed up the ladder. They jockeyed for position. Shaka had the bragging rights always ahead of Lotty. So when Lotty found out both NBA 2K stars climbed up in the Exact Same area of Mount Vernon, New York. He knew he needed to fight him. One game to pick bragging rights for town and 2K. They went to different high schools, therefore it was not like they could join by themselves. However they had mutual friends, so the match was set up.

Shaka wanted the opportunity to play Lotty one . He always knew he was a much better player than him, even if they were always neck-and-neck at the competitive positions. He only needed the moment to establish it. They played with a hard-fought game. The match was close, but Shaka won by 10 or so.

After that night, both opponents -- who had never met until that point -- ended up going into the movies. Fast forward over a decade and the two are still side by side, teaming together on Jazz Gambling, the Utah Jazz affiliate for the NBA 2K League. "When we discovered that we were out of the exact same neighborhood and we were on top of the world, like, wow, that's crazy we will need to start hanging out and talking about the sport to sort of learn from Buy NBA 2K21 MT Coins each other," Shaka said. "And then we only became teammates then."