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NBA 2K LEAGUE DRAFT

April 4, 2018

Artreyo Boyd

New York, New York

Artreyo Boyd was selected by Mavs Gaming with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NBA 2K League Draft. His gamer tag is Dimez.

Q. Did you think you would be the first pick in the draft?
ARTREYO BOYD: Yes, sir. I'm always hoping it, but I stay humble as well at the same time. You always think, and you always want to say you're the best, but when it actually happens, and I'm actually the first pick, it's a different feeling.

Q. Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, big CNBC fan, he's going to be watching this. What do you have to say to Mark Cuban?
ARTREYO BOYD: Hey, Mark, man, let's go get this ring. Let's go get this championship. I appreciate you for picking me and having the faith in me, and I'm going to make you proud. We're going to go do it.

Q. How much hard work did you put in to get to this moment today?
ARTREYO BOYD: 10-plus years, man. 10-plus years. Everybody always asks me how much I play. I don't really have a specific time, but I play every day all day, almost literally 24 hours, 16 hours. I play every day as much as possible, and that's not going to stop now.

Q. What's the key to being such a good player? Do you do any training with your mind, body? What kind of drills do you do?
ARTREYO BOYD: I don't really have a specific training. I love to play. Most of the guys out there play every day all day consistently, so I play against the top competition, as much competition as possible. I play PS4 and Xbox, the cross platform, so I play the top competition on both consoles. That's just what I do. I try to play as much as possible and play against the best people I can.

Q. Did you ever imagine that you would be here doing this, getting drafted?
ARTREYO BOYD: Not before they announced it. Not before they actually announced the league was going to happen. I remember back to the Modern Warfare 2 days watching OpTic gaming, everybody playing and competing, and I was like, man, why doesn't 2K do this. And years, years later, they finally announced it. I'm just happy to be a part of it.

Q. At what point did you find out that you were going to go to Dallas? When did they inform you? Did you know days ahead of time, today?
ARTREYO BOYD: No, of course. He called me out there. He called me out there when I was sitting down, and he told me, like hey, man, I want to congratulate you, this is Mark Cuban, you're coming to Dallas. It was crazy. I'm thankful.

Q. Did you have a good talk with Jonah [Edwards] and those guys after the draft?
ARTREYO BOYD: At the interview, yes, we had a great interview. He never told me that he was going to pick me or anything like that, but I just always kind of knew.

Q. Where does Dimez come from?
ARTREYO BOYD: I've always played ball growing up. I'm a point guard. I love to get my teammates the ball, and I'm a little flashy with it. So if I throw you a great pass behind the back, between the legs or something, you hit the shot, they be like, oh, man, that was a dime. And the cool thing about it is that in the game, NBA 2K, whenever I make a shot or something like that, they actually say "dimes." They say my name.

Q. When did you realize that organized gaming was going to be your future? When did you arrive at that decision?
ARTREYO BOYD: That's a very interesting question. I started playing back in NBA 2K9. I really started to realize how good I was in NBA 2K10 and NBA 2K11, to where it was the same one that we're playing now called Pro-Am, but back then it was called My Crew, and I had the No. 1 ranked crew in both years. So I'm like, man, I'm actually good at this. I went on to play in 2K16, the Road to The Finals, and NBA 2K17, where I won the Road to the All-Star tournament. Then they announced the league, and it was happening.

Q. Can you talk about being called the LeBron James of NBA 2K?
ARTREYO BOYD: Yeah, that's a blessing, because everyone knows LeBron and he's a great player. It's actually funny because I'm originally from Cleveland, Ohio, so to be known as somebody like him is just a blessing. It's just humbling, man. It's humbling.

Q. Do you already feel like your life will be changing?
ARTREYO BOYD: Of course. I definitely feel like my life has been changing. I come from a pretty tough background. So last year when I won the tournament, everything started changing for the better, like leading up to this. Before, I had no path. I had no career. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do until they announced the league. Then it hit me immediately and I'm like, OK, this is what I've been playing for all these years. Now I have a career; now I have a path; now I can make something out of this for real.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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