Chicago Sky superstar Candace Parker will grace the cover of NBA 2K22.
The former Tennessee Volunteers and former two-time WNBA MVP and reigning Defensive Player of the Year, will become the first woman to grace the cover of the acclaimed video game. 2K Sports revealed the groundbreaking announcement late Wednesday afternoon.
Parker who signed with her hometown Sky this past off-season after spending the first 13 seasons of her Hall of Fame career in LA, will appear as part of a GameStop- exclusive release of the game celebrating the WNBA’s 25th anniversary season when NBA 2K22 are released on September 10.
The game was announced today, with other cover athletes including Luka Doncic, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Durant, and Rui Hachimura.
“I’m extremely proud and humbled to be the female woman cover athlete in the history of @NBA2K,” Parker wrote on Twitter. “I’m honored to work with a company that’s investing in women and betting on us to succeed. I’m hopeful there will be many more badass females to follow.”
Parker is a two-time Olympic gold medalist (2008, 2012), and the second player ever to dunk in a WNBA game (Lisa Leslie).
Parker led the Sparks to the 2016 WNBA title and was also named WNBA Finals MVP.
And get this, in addition to her multi-media talents. she’s also a gamer.
“I grew up a video game fanatic, that’s what I did, to the point where my brothers would give me the fake controller when I was younger where I think I was playing, and I wasn’t,” she said. “All I wanted to do was just be like them. As a kid growing up, you dream of having your own shoe and being in a video game. Those are an athlete as a kid’s dreams. To be able to experience that. I don’t take it lightly.”
The WNBA was first added to NBA 2K games with NBA 2K20. However, a WNBA player has never appeared as the cover athlete for an NBA 2K game until now.
This move is another crack in that proverbial glass-ceiling that women continue to shatter daily.
