SALT LAKE CITY -- Shaka Browne and Lytel Martin had the same regular growing up. They'd go to school. They'd come home. They'd pop-in NBA 2K21 MT Coins -- the 2009 variant of the NBA-based video game -- and would ball online. Five-on-five virtual games. On the weekends, same thing. Play all weekend. Rack up stats. Sometimes they would work 9 to 5. Come home, log into NBA 2K and match. Again and again. Day daily. Week after week.

Browne (who goes by"Shaka") and Martin (who goes by"Lotty") increased the global rankings of their NBA 2K9 online community. It turned out to be a competitive time with countless thousands competing on the web. Shaka, whose handle has been"YoungSparks92," saw someone climbing the ranks with him. The two New Yorkers were connected together then. Little did they know that almost a decade later they'd be competing side by side for the Utah Jazz at a professional league for NBA 2K players.

See, at the time, it was all about rankings. They climbed the ladder up. They jockeyed for position. Shaka had the bragging rights -- always ahead of Lotty. So when Lotty found out both NBA 2K stars grew up in the Exact Same neighborhood of Mount Vernon, New York. He knew he had to fight him. 1 match to decide bragging rights to the town and 2K. They went to different high schools, so it wasn't like they could join on their own.

Shaka wanted the chance to play with Lotty one on one. He knew he was a much better player than himeven though they had been constantly neck-and-neck at the competitive rankings. He just wanted the moment to establish it. They played a hard-fought game. Lotty chose the Los Angeles Lakers -- a group touting a prime Kobe Bryant -- and Shaka picked the Rockets, which had Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming in the time. The game was close, but Shaka won by 10 or so.

Later that night, the two competitors -- that had never met until that point -- ended up going to the movies. Fast forward more than a decade and both are still side by side, teaming together on Jazz Gaming, the Utah Jazz affiliate to the NBA 2K League. "When we discovered that we were from the same area and we're on top of Buy NBA 2K Coins the world, such as, wow, that is mad we need to start hanging out and talking about the sport to sort of learn from each other," Shaka explained. "And then we only became teammates after that."