Please Watch This Amazing Overwatch x Dallas Mavericks Video

Last night I was browsing TikTok in the middle of an edible descent, and I came across something so ridiculous, so grating, so shiny, that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. It’s called Maverwatch, and it’s a 2018 buzz video for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks that features its star players as Overwatch characters.

Learn more: NBA Star Luka Doncic Is Overwatch Grandmaster Mains Zarya

Edited to look like an Overwatch gameplay clip, which highlights a particularly gnarly play (usually a multi-kill) at the end of each match, this minute-long video looks like something my high brain concocted in a dream. But it’s not. This clip is real, and every second is piercing, a weird mix of car crash tragedy and knee-high comedy. You can’t deny, however, that the editing is top-notch, with the all-too-familiar sounds pointing to an Overwatch kill, Overwatch police showing rival player ‘kills’ getting delayed, and the game playing music. swelling between each delivery by a wooden NBA player of a line of heroes.

Athletes are, on the whole, not known for their acting and line-reading skills. In the rare chance of having an athlete with a bright personality who can actually say dialogue without sounding like a kid having to read aloud during class, teams will push him to the forefront of marketing materials and business opportunities (Eli Manning, Tom Brady) or even letting them star in a movie (LeBron James, Michael Jordan). I can say with some confidence that none of the 2018 Dallas Mavericks players have the same je ne sais quoi as James or Brady, but that only makes the Maverwatch experience better.

The man behind Maverwatch

The clip begins with Dirk Nowitzki aping Soldier: 76’s ultimate ability line (“I’ve got you in my sights”) while pretending to activate an imaginary visor before moving on to clips of him sinking three.

“Dirk got Soldier because he’s the tough former leader of the team,” Austin Guttery, former in-game media designer for the Dallas Mavericks and creator of Maverwatch, told Kotaku via email.

The second player highlighted is former Mavs center Deandre Jordan, who claims to pop a Lucio ultimate (“oh, let’s break it down”) under the nickname “Shootscio.” Help me. “Jordan got Lucio because of his great defensive plays and his ability to keep the team alive,” Guttery explained.

But when it came time to assign a character to Mavericks point guard and Grandmaster Overwatch player Luka Doncic, things got a little heated. “Luka really wanted to be Hanzo, since he’s the one he usually plays against, but there was one player on the team, Wes Matthews, who was known to pretend to shoot a bow and arrow after every shot during matches, so naturally we HAVE to make him Hanzo,” Guttery said. “I chose Luka to be Junkrat because of his blonde hair. Luka was the least bit salty and tried to convince us to make him Hanzo, but we had already shot the role of Wes, and we only had one quick hit with each player each year.

“Luka really, really wanted to be Hanzo” – Austin Guttery, video creator

Other players were assigned based on how much connection Guttery could make between them and an Overwatch hero — or if he thought they could mimic a character’s movements well enough. No, I can’t help but laugh at Luka pretending to fire a Junkrat RIP-Tire.

Aside from the drama that accompanied Mavs players being assigned their Overwatch counterparts, Guttery says it took him ages to get the video approved because his boss “didn’t really know what Overwatch was.” . But telling him that Doncic was a huge Overwatch fan “really helped sell him.” The clip was shot during the team’s media day and played on arena screens during a lull in the game to a “pretty good reaction” from fans.

But when Guttery shared the video on Redditwhich is probably where this TikToker found it, it got in quite a bit of trouble.

“I almost got fired!” he said happily. “Once our videos are released in-game, we generally don’t upload them until the end of the season, or unless we get permission from [owner Mark] Cuban to lead them. But I was so excited with how this one turned out that I really wanted to see how the Overwatch community would react to it. So I posted it on Reddit and within a day it exploded… It finally caught the attention of my boss who was, uh, pretty upset that it was there, and he was afraid that if Cuba saw, we wouldn’t no longer be making videos for them, so I deleted it. Luckily, Cuba never got wind of it, so it wasn’t a problem.

But Overwatch developer Blizzard actually saw the video and sent Guttery a “really nice Widowmaker figurine” which the team kept in the office. And now that same video is making the rounds on social media again. Time is a flat circle, but Luka Doncic is no longer a main Hanzo. It’s Zarya now.