An professional NBA player star has added pro athletes to the long list of people bracing for Grand Theft Auto VI. Houston Rockets center Steven Adams joked this week that the game's November launch could trigger a league-wide dip in performance, because players across the NBA and the NFL will have no sleep from staying up too late playing it to be at their best.
Adams was half-joking, but we'd like to stress the "half" part. His point was that GTA 6 drops right in the middle of both the NBA and NFL seasons, with a game this addictive set to eat into a lot of athletes' sleep. He is not the first person to admit their November is already spoken for. He is just the first one whose day job is professional sports.
Adams is describing something we have tracked for months. People are rearranging their lives around this launch. A small business is closing for the week so its staff can play, one person gifted their partner a chore-free launch week and a 78-year-old grandmother bought a console just to play it. South Park even built a running gag out of everyone pinning their hopes on November. Adams pointing at his own league is the sports version of the same thing.
GTA 6 is already reshaping people's November
Who | How GTA 6 is affecting them |
|---|---|
A small business | Closing for launch week so its staff can play |
Couples | Gifting each other chore-free launch weeks |
Rival studios | Avoiding November to dodge GTA 6's pull |
Now NBA players | Warned by Steven Adams they will play too much to perform |
The growing list of people rearranging their lives around GTA 6's launch.
It is not just people who are feeling the gravity pull of the next Grand Theft Auto. Rival studios have spent months dodging November entirely so they do not have to compete with GTA 6 for attention, a pull Twitch's CEO called an "attention vortex". When entire game publishers reschedule around a launch, an NBA center warning that his sport will feel it too does not sound so far-fetched.
Adams will presumably still suit up on game nights. He's an NBA iron man who, before a string of injuries from 2023-2026, barely missed games from his rookie season in 2013-2014 to 2018-2019. He's expected to suit up for the NBA regular season come October after undergoing a season-ending ankle ligament surgery back in January 2026.
With that said, the joke works because what's happening is very real. GTA 6 arrives on November 19 into a world that has spent the past few months clearing its calendar for it. Apparently that now includes locker rooms of lumbering giants who are apparently as huge of a fan as GTA as the rest of us.
If a few box scores dip that week, at least everyone will know why.