Matthew Coller: What would Khyree Jackson's life been like as a pro gamer? Let a 2K star explain

In the back corner of the fourth floor of Mall of America overlooking Nickelodeon Universe is a video gamer’s palace called Wisdom Gaming Studios. There are neon lights, screens of all sizes and controllers everywhere. Upstairs is a room with a half dozen monitors in a circle. There are two other computers in the corner, one of them has a basketball play drawn up on it, the other has a spreadsheet open. In the corner is a noisy mini fridge. In the other corner, a championship trophy the same size as the Larry O’Brien trophy.

This is where several of the world’s greatest NBA2K players go to work every day.

Michael Key, much better known as BearDaBeast (everyone calls him Bear), is sitting alone with a controller in his hand staring at the game that has made him a star of the industry. Between small talk about old school games, he starts and stops the game, getting in every extra moment of practice that he can.

Bear is living out a career that nearly belonged to Minnesota Vikings fourth round draft pick Khyree Jackson. When Jackson was fresh out of high school, the new Vikings cornerback aimed to pursue football but he walked away from the sport as a freshman. He was embarrassed to tell his friends that he quit football so he didn’t go out much. Instead he put all of his competitive efforts into the 2K video game.

Jackson got so good at 2K that he had an opportunity to chase a career as a gamer. At one point he reached a crossroads where he had an offer to return to football and an offer to go to New York to play 2K. As you already know, he picked football.

“I was debating that decision for about 48 hours, but then I ended up going back and play football,” Jackson said. “But I think I could have been in the 2K league if it didn't work out.”

It wasn’t an easy journey for Jackson to arrive in purple for this week’s rookie minicamp as one of the most intriguing players on the practice field at TCO Performance Center but after a terrific season at Oregon in 2023, he made it.

It’s hard not to wonder: What would Jackson’s life been like if he made it as a gamer instead?

That’s why I’m at Wisdom Gaming chopping it up with Bear. How does someone end up with a gaming career? What do they do?

First, let’s talk about Bear. He was a first-round pick of TWolves Gaming in 2019 and led the team to a championship in 2019. He won MVP. If you want to run through a wall, check out his speech after winning the title . He’s happy to take a picture with that big trophy.

He’s a bit of a rarity in the fact that he’s in his 30s — many of the top gamers are too young to remember NBA Jam. When he was growing up in North Carolina, Bear never could have dreamed that there would be an NBA endorsed league that he could play in. He played just because he is wildly competitive and really good at it. But in 2018 the league launched with a 17-week season, 3v3 and 5v5 formats in which the players use custom characters that they have developed. A bunch of NBA teams have affiliated game squads, including the Hawks, Nets, 76ers, Wizards, Lakers, Bucks, Blazers etc. and there are international teams from places like Mexico and Australia, all in all totaling 25 clubs presently.

Bear’s road to gaming greatness started with simply playing the other kids in his area.

“You are playing outside and then the street lights come on, you go in the house and you’re bored and start playing the video game,” Bear said, still with plenty of North Carolina accent still left. “You start to realize that, hey, I’m pretty good at this. You start beating all of your friends in the neighborhood and then you start rivaling other neighborhoods and they’re bringing their best player and you’re beating him.”

Eventually Bear beat so many kids in so many neighborhood that he worked his way to GameStop tournaments. He came within a late-game fumble of reaching the pinnacle of Madden playing just as the gaming craze was getting started with Madden Nation, a reality TV show that followed top players on a Madden bus. He still wishes that he kneeled down.

He set his sights on a NBA2K tournament with $250,000 in prize money. Playing alongside his brother, college basketball teammate and cousin, Bear’s team finished fourth in the tournament.

“I’m like, if I can do that, I have a really good chance to be successful,” he said. “That’s where it started.”

What makes him so good at these games? It isn’t like the NFL where Khyree Jackson’s 6-foot-4 frame and 4.5 40-yard dash that sets him apart in football. But there are a few things Bear has in common with the best NFL athletes, starting with preparation.

Nobody makes it in the NFL these days without a deep understanding of scheme and technique. In gaming, same story. In Bear’s time in college as a basketball player he gathered knowledge that most game players never attain.

“I actually understand flare screens and bumping on the down screen and when it’s a switch and when to soft hedge, hard hedge and I’m used to running plays and the concept of actual basketball,” Bear said. “Our team is different from other teams. We convert real life into 2K mechanics. It’s different than real life because everything can’t be the same but we implement 80% or 70% of real life in the video game. We bring Timberwolves plays. Horn sets, 1-4 low, five out, which is what Boston is running now and we bring it into 2K.”

Bear has notebooks of opposing players’ tendencies. Do they dribble twice to the right before crossing over left? Do they like to get to the corner for three-pointers? Where are his opponents’ hot spots?

All of this sounds pretty familiar to a football reporter.

“I nerd that type of stuff out and then the amount of time I put in is ridiculous,” Bear said.

The passion is real too. Before games it looks like their mini version of players in an NFL locker room getting pumped up to play.

“We mimic [pro athletes] as much as possible,” Bear said. “We are playing music, hyping each other up, doing push-ups…the energy is similar but we’re not about to go knock somebody’s helmet off.”

Now you can start putting together why Jackson would have been good at this. Competitiveness, details, obsessive preparation.

Could Jackson have actually made it though?

“For him to make it to that level, who’s to say he couldn’t have made it to the 2K league?” Bear said. “When you have that competitive fire. If he could put the time in and the level he was playing at and the concepts that he’s already putting on the field — we’re not going to be running anything more complex than a D-I team is running — so mentally he’s probably got it and work ethic he’s got it. He might be right there with us.”

If things go well for Jackson, he won’t be returning to serious gaming for a long time. Though if he does go back, it’s in a fascinating universe. With the explosion of content creation over the past decade, there are many gamers who make significant money by streaming on Twitch and posting videos on YouTube, including Bear. He plays fans on Twitch and blasts them by 40 points by the second quarter to the glee of his online audience and posts YouTube videos with game tips to his approximately 44,500 subscribers. Bear said he earns as much money from his salary from 2K league as he does in content creation.

Who knows where the gaming universe is headed. Maybe by the time Jackson’s career is over, it will be even more robust than it is now and he can jump back in.

“I never thought it would become this thing of showing people how to play a video game or entertaining them by playing a video game,” Bear said. “From us growing up and the way kids are growing up now is a little bit different… Gaming is huge, I think it’s here to stay.”

Bear said he has had a chance to talk with Jackson but hasn’t played him yet. That may have to wait. Jackson has a Brian Flores playbook to learn.

Special thanks to TWolves Gaming. Follow them on Twitter and all other social media channels at @TWolvesGaming and follow Bear at @BearDaBeast and the NBA2KLeague here