SportTechie’s Athletes Voice series features the views and opinions of the athletes who use and are powered by technology. SportTechie talked to Cavs Legion GC player Tim “oLARRY” Anselimo about how he struggled back to esports competition after he was badly injured in a shooting last year.
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On Aug. 26, 2018, a gunman armed with two handguns opened fire at a Madden NFL 19 qualifier tournament inside a pizza bar in Jacksonville, Fla. Two people were fatally shot and 12 were injured before the gunman took his own life.
NBA 2K League player Tim “oLARRY” Anselimo was competing in the tournament alongside his close friend Taylor Robertson. Anselimo, now 26 years old, was shot three times. One bullet hit his chest, another hit his hip, and another ripped through his right wrist, leaving his thumb barely hanging on. Robertson was killed.
Doctors at the University of Florida Health Jacksonville hospital stabilized Anselimo, but were unable to remove the bullet from his chest. After multiple operations, he only regained 30 to 40 percent functionality in his right hand.
Anselimo had competed in the inaugural season of the NBA 2K League as a member of Bucks Gaming, the Milwaukee Bucks’ affiliate—the shooting took place the day after the 2018 Finals wrapped up on Aug. 25. On Sept. 4, the Bucks declined their second-year player option for Anselimo, and his future as a pro gamer looked in doubt.
Exactly one month after the day Anselimo was almost killed, Cavs Legion GC traded former first rounder Brandon Caicedo to new team T-Wolves Gaming for the third pick in the NBA 2K League’s expansion draft. Cavs manager Anthony Muraco called Anselimo, and offered him a chance to make a comeback.
His return to the NBA 2K League is currently in the running for an ESPY for the best esports moment of the year. Anselimo had to adjust how he holds his gaming controller to compensate for the loss of feeling in his right thumb. He now uses the index finger on his right hand instead of his thumb to press buttons and navigate the right stick, while his ring finger and middle finger operate the right trigger and bumper respectively. In 15 regular season games so far this season, Anselimo is leading the Cavs with an average of 6.0 rebounds. He also has contributed 10.0 points and 3.5 assists per game.
His Rebuilt Hand
“The bullet went exactly—I can show you better on the hand that’s good—right through this [wrist] tendon here, completely shattered everything. They had to basically use a dead person’s bone and a bunch of plates and screws just to fuse it to keep it together because when I got to the hospital [my thumb] was dangling, basically almost detached. I have no joint or anything here, it’s all just metal. I can’t bend like this anymore to press buttons as I normally would. So when I got out of the hospital, I still had this joint here that allows basic left-right [movement], and I can go down here, but I don’t have the bend that I would want … And there’s really no feeling [in my thumb] at all.”
“In gaming, a lot of it is hand-eye coordination and response time, obviously, looking at the monitor and having fast paced decision making and reaction time. Being that I can’t feel the controller with my thumb, I was just lost all the time. Sometimes I would find myself pressing X instead of A, or B instead of Y, things like that. I was just like ‘I suck, I can’t do this anymore.’”
Psychological Struggles
“I just thought I wouldn’t be the same. With what I went though, there’s a lot of mental battles. Depression, anxiety, things like that. You don’t even know if you want to travel anymore, you don’t know if you want to go out in the real world anymore, because for something like that to happen by a random stranger to me, there were times I just thought I don’t really need 2K, I could just try to enjoy the rest of my life—live safely and not travel.”
“But this is something I’ve done for so many years and really enjoyed. I think my hand had just come out of the cast, it happened so fast. I was out of the hospital, found out I wasn’t being retained by Milwaukee, maybe a week or two went by, the expansion draft, the trade. Everything kind of happened rapidly. I was just like ‘Alright I got a lot of people counting on me, friends, family, people who believe in me.’”
“There’s times that I try to use [my injury] as an excuse. Sometimes if I’m late on a play or miss a shot or something, I feel like ‘Damn, what if I had my thumb?’ kind of thing. But for the most part, I feel like I’m still competing out here with these guys. There’s games I’m scoring 20 points, grabbing 10 rebounds, doing what I have to do to help the team win. Getting Player of the Game things like that. So it shows I could still compete with the best no matter how much I try to cut myself slack.”
Learning to Play Again
“I was just at home in Florida in the offseason. Just in my room by myself. Like I said there was a lot of ups and downs, a lot of wanting to give up, a lot of frustration. I just stuck with it over three or four months before I happened to relocate to Cleveland for the season. Obviously with going through everything and then the Milwaukee Bucks not re-signing me after the injury, I was provided a chip on my shoulder to get back out there and prove people wrong, prove that I’m still the same type of player despite the injury.”
“It took probably about three months of trying to master [my new grip]. The beginning was real hard. It was painful. A lot of times, just from muscle memory, I would find myself trying to use my thumb and because the injury was still so fresh it would hurt. And when I can’t feel [my thumb], I’d get frustrated. There were times I wanted to give up but after teaching myself that muscle memory of just doing it over and over, it got a little bit easier and more comfortable.”
“I just put myself through different types of games. Obviously a lot of 2K, because that’s what I was doing professionally. Playing different things like Fortnite and stuff like that, so I could get comfortable with it and have it mapped in my brain that this is how I’m going to be playing going forward.”
Proving He Still Belongs
“At the time, after the shooting, there was a lot of uncertainty around how I’d be able to play. I think I averaged the most or second most points in Milwaukee, led the team in rebounds. I was upset, I felt like they chose to not retain me because of the uncertainty of my injury. I think that’s really what provided me with that motivation because I knew they didn’t keep me because of this. I was just telling myself over and over that now I have a point to prove and I just need somebody to know that I could do this still, know that I’m still available.”
“I remember there was a game I played online, I was shooting guard and I scored 90 [points] or something like that. Just getting off a bunch of threes and I scored like 90. I was like ‘Okay, I’m not out of it completely. It just shows that there’s hope.’ That was with the cast still on. That game wasn’t against the best talent, it was just against some random people online.”
“There’s leagues we play for smaller prizes during the offseason. I joined one of those with some guys I know, I started playing with guys who were in Season One and retained. That’s when I saw I was holding my own, so I thought I had a shot to keep it going. The fact that I was still holding my own with them or outplaying them, against them, they thought I had recovered completely just a couple months after the injury because of how I was playing.”
The Future
“In Cleveland, I was offered to see different therapists at places like the Cleveland Clinic and departments from the Cavaliers, but I don’t really feel it’s necessary. From what I was told from different doctors, is that I’m kind of at my maximum recovery stage. The 30-to-40-percent functionality I have is probably where I’m going to be for the rest of my life. The bone is too severely damaged to repair, so it’s stuff I just have to live with. I continued therapy for maybe six to eight months and then just said ‘If this is where I’m at I’m okay with it.’”
“There’s a bunch of little stuff that people take for granted. I can’t really tie my shoes, it’s kinda hard. Buttoning my pants, zippering them, zippers on sweaters sometimes. Just little things like that, my thumb just doesn’t work that way. I had to get accustomed to brushing my teeth with my left hand and things like that.”
“I’m actually supposed to have another surgery after the season’s over to try to get some more movement here on this part because it’s not broken, but from the impact it’s stuck between all the scar tissue and everything. They want to go back in to free up some of the nerve, free up that joint, so we’ll see after that. But as far being able to bring my thumb in here from this part I’ll never be able to do it again. So I’ll probably just play like this forever.”
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