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NBA 2K LEAGUE DRAFT

March 5, 2019

Spencer Wyman

New York, New York

Spencer Wyman was selected by Jazz Gaming with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 NBA 2K League Draft. His gamer tag is Ria.

Q. You received the first Xbox when you were 8 years old, correct?
SPENCER WYMAN: Maybe a little younger, but around that, yeah.

Q. How long did you spend in front of a video screen --
SPENCER WYMAN: Like per day when I was younger? Maybe two hours at most. I'd play it for a couple hours. My parents would say, all right, you've been on it long enough, time to go outside. Something like that.

Q. When is the time that your parents told you that, yeah, maybe you are fairly good, maybe you should play a longer time?
SPENCER WYMAN: Well, most kids when they're playing, their parents aren't really watching them, so it's kind of hard to say. But if you see your kid is putting more and more time into this and they have real passion for this and whenever they have free time they're trying to play the game, look into it a little bit, see if they're good. See if they're just playing it because they're having fun. That's what it is a lot of the time. They're just playing with friends.

Q. When did you realize that you were good?
SPENCER WYMAN: Really good, probably four years ago. I was playing NBA 2K17 with some friends that I met over the game, and I got a message from another soon-drafted player, hopefully tonight, SlayIsland [Stephen Lay]. He hit me up and said I need a player like you. So I went and played with them. We joined the competitive pro-am scene and started dominating. It was the most fun I've ever had on a video game. I built these great friendships with people that you would never expect to over a video game.

Q. Do you have a standard routine in terms of training like you're now playing at the professional level? Is it something very set or it's more like you play and you progress this way?
SPENCER WYMAN: Well, there's a certain level of seriousness you have to have when you're practicing. Before, I was just playing for fun, and then tournaments on the side obviously you take very seriously. But there wasn't really any practice into it. You would just play the game. You would want to win, so you'd try your best. Now you're going into it, you're practicing five, six hours a day. So it's definitely been a lot more serious, not fun at all.

Q. When did the Jazz tell you they were going to take you first overall?
SPENCER WYMAN: I've known for probably the past two months that I was their No. 1 guy. Unless something had changed, I was very certain that I was going to be their pick.

Q. Do you remember the first day you started playing video games? What was that like?
SPENCER WYMAN: I don't remember the first day, but I remember back in the original Xbox, I played Shrek 2. It was this one mission. It was some hero time, and it was like a button combination sequence. You had to get it perfect or you would fail the mission. For some reason, it was just so amazing to me. I would sit there for hours just trying to perfect it. I was younger. I wasn't the most -- I wouldn't say coordinated, but I just wasn't great at video games at that time. So when I finally did complete it, it was just this amazing feeling, that I've overcome the most impossible obstacle.

Q. Is that feeling still inside of you?
SPENCER WYMAN: I wouldn't say that same feeling is in me now. Obviously, I'm overwhelmed with excitement for this opportunity that the Utah Jazz have given me, but that same feeling, it's a little different now.

Q. What do you think you bring to the Jazz?
SPENCER WYMAN: A hard worker, and I can play with anybody. The Jazz, they already have their leader, their set leader in Compete. I'm good friends with Shaka. And I'm just ready to get to work. I'm going to be a dominant player at 3 through 5, so we're going to have a lot of different lineups we can run there in Utah. It's going to be fun.

Q. Do you follow the real NBA, and which team do you support?
SPENCER WYMAN: Yeah, I love the NBA, but I don't support a single team anymore because I'm from Seattle, Washington, and they don't have the SuperSonics anymore. I kind of just follow Kevin Durant around. That's my guy. Ever since he got drafted by Seattle in [2007], that's who I've been rocking with.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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