Hornets Venom GT: Tip-off Tournament Preview 2022

Hornets Venom GT, the official NBA 2K League affiliate of the Charlotte Hornets, is set to kick off the fifth season of 2K League action. With their first game coming on Tuesday, April 5, Venom are going to start things off on opening night of the league’s annual tip-off tournament, which is appropriately named THE TIPOFF.

In this season’s tip-off tournament, the 24 2K League teams selected their own groups via a type of drafting process. In this unique way of selecting your own group, Venom ended up with a difficult grouping.

While Venom finished second in the East last season and should be the favorite to win the group, there are three other playoff teams from last year in their group as well. Joined by Knicks Gaming, NetsGC, Raptors Uprising GC, Magic Gaming, and Grizz Gaming, Venom have a stacked group to get through. When four of the six Eastern Conference playoff teams are in one group, it is going to be the more difficult group by default.

Thankfully, Wizards District Gaming, the back-to-back champions, are not in their group. Although there are several playoff teams from a year ago in Venom’s group, a few of them are looking drastically different than when we saw them last. Most notably, NetsGC lost star point guard Choc, who was by far the squad’s best player, to retirement.

With the top four teams from each of the four remote-play groups advancing to the in-person round of 16, Venom have to like their chances of advancing. Even with rigby potentially out of the lineup, Venom, along with replacement player Glennratty, has a solid team and should be able to compete quite well in this group.

New this year, this tournament’s opening round of remote play will take place over a two-week timetable. With each group playing the other group members once each, the top four teams from each group will compete for the $100,000 first-place prize. With a total of $250,000 going to the top-eight squads, you can bet that Venom have their eyes locked on the prize.