StarCraft II: NBA player Gordon Hayward in IPL3

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By Duncan 'Thorin' Shields

Sep 9, 2011 20:55

TL have interviewed NBA player Gordon Hayward about his planned participation in the IPL3 finals as an open bracket player.

TeamLiquid have interviewed NBA player

Gordon Hayward about his recently announced participation in the IGN ProLeague Season 3 finals, as an open bracket player. The Utah Jazz forward was a Brood War player in his youth and has been playing SC2 with his friend while on road trips. With the NBA currently locked out he is free to pursue competitive SC2 play for a while.

When he started playing StarCraft:

"I started playing StarCraft: Brood War in high school. The first RTS game I played was Red Alert, and I really enjoyed that. My friends were telling me about StarCraft, saying it was so much better than Red Alert, and I said "alright I'll check it out." So, we started playing Brood War, and when we did that, it was just my high school tennis buddies, and they only did like Fastest Possible Map, and all we did was that and Sunken Defense and I just had fun doing that."

How he got into competitive SC2:

"The best way to get better in anything is just to watch the best. And somehow we both got to your website (TeamLiquid.net) and just started watching streams all the time. I'd lay in bed before going to sleep and I'd just watch. We watched anything and everything, mostly the featured players. I liked playing every race, but I like Terran the most so I'd watch those and he'd watch Protoss. One day we got the bright idea to stream. It was just going to be me and my friends to watch, I didn't think anyone would care. I tweeted about it and then we had like 2,300 people watching and then it just went on from there -- IGN contacted me, and it's been going on ever since."

If he has watched the GSL:

"Yes, I have watched the GSL. That's when our eyes were opened up, because we didn't realize how big StarCraft was. And then we went to your website and started reading everything and it was kind of like a snowball effect. As for players, I like watching

Jinro play, and I like watching

MarineKingPrime, those are two of my favorite players to watch. "

His favourite matchup:

"I like TvP the best just because I like cannot play against Zerg. I just suck so bad against Zerg. And then Terran vs Terran always takes an hour and a half to get done. So TvP I tend to win quickly or lose quickly, so that's my favorite part."

Gordon Hayward was selected 9th in the 2010 NBA Draft by the Utah Jazz. He started 17 games in the 2010-2011 season, averaging 5.4 points-per-game on ~48% field goal percentage. In college his team, the Butler Bulldogs, made it to the final of the NCAA tournament but lost to the Duke Blue Devils 59-61.

Source: TeamLiquid