Countless NBA players have experienced this feeling.

Countless NBA players have experienced this feeling. However, not just one WNBA participant had until lately. When NBA 2K20 was released in NBA MT Coins 2019, it was the first time the yearly game -- that premiered in 1999 -- featured WNBA players. Her predecessors did not get the opportunity to play as themselves, but Washington Mystics wing Aerial Powers could not help but make a comparison when she first played as herself. "This is probably the way the guys feel when they get in the league and they get a chance to play themselves on 2K," she said. "It's just surreal and is pretty enjoyable."

"I'd have never believed they would implement girls to the game," Powers told USA TODAY Sports. "Even though I feel like we should be in there." Dallas Wings shield Allisha Gray has been playing 2K since Shaquille O'Neal graced the cover at 2005, and she has trouble believing that she's a part of it. Alexis Jones, who had been waived by the Atlanta Fantasy in August, has always enjoyed making her own participant on 2K and tends to mold his game following her own. This is going to be the first year she won't need to make herself in the image of a guy.

"That was my fantasy come true, '' I don't know about everybody else," Jones stated. "I understand that's 1 thing I always dreamed of as a little girl -- to be in a 2K match. This opportunity to make yourself and build yourself and be a girl is dope." The significance of building your own WNBA player can not be overstated, particularly for young girls who aspire to play basketball or are just fans of this sport. "I think that it's amazing that little girls can develop and really play the game and understand that they can still have the very same objectives and accomplishments as guys," Jones said. Powers echoed the opinion and how significant representation is for young ladies. She wants to see more progression with women in the video game business in general.

Powers streams and plays video games on Twitch and has become particularly active in gaming since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. She even hosted an all-female 2K tournament in October that included a 30-minute opening musical group by Grammy Award Winning artist DJ Jazzy Jeff. The stream garnered over 26,000 audiences. The 2019 WNBA champion says when she plays video games she is sometimes met with misogynistic messages from different consumers, and she expects that new modes such as"The W" will make it easier for girls playing video games. "It sort of gives the younger girls a fantastic look and says,'Hey, it is fine to be a female, like basketball and wish to playwith,' since I know some of Buy MT 2K21 their male friends may have a different opinion," Powers explained. "But if you Find the girls from the game, it is like,'Hey, that is all right.'"