NBA 2K20 Tournament of Champions: First round simulation

The Last Dance will debut on Sunday, April 19 Mandatory Credit: Jonathan Daniel /Allsport
The Last Dance will debut on Sunday, April 19 Mandatory Credit: Jonathan Daniel /Allsport
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NBA 2K20
NBA 2K (Photo by JEFF HAYNES/AFP via Getty Images)

The NBA is on indefinite hiatus after suspending its season as society copes with the real world, but we go to NBA 2K to find an all-time great champion.

We’re a week into the NBA’s indefinite suspension of its season as the world copes with coronavirus. It’s going to be some time before we get real basketball back, but we have NBA 2K20 to fill in some of the gaps.

While the league is hoping to return for at least the playoffs, if not an abbreviated remainder of the regular season, we don’t really know if it’s going to happen. Rather than wait for the NBA to crown a champion via the due process of playoffs, we’re going to jump right to the simulation and crown a champion of our own.

Of course, just running the playoffs with current teams as they stand now would be easy. Surely we’ll get a great postseason and we can see if Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks can finally get over the hump, or if Kawhi Leonard will reign supreme once again with his third team, the LA Clippers.

But if we’re going to do this, why do it easy? If we’re going to crown a champion, let’s crown a CHAMPION.

What we’ll do today with the simulating power of NBA 2K is look back into history and seed a playoff tournament with 16 past champions. We will pit them against each other in an effort to determine who is the greatest champion of all time, at least in the eyes of NBA 2K20.

On the next page, we’ll take a look at the ground rules and the teams we used.