Josiah Cohen

I didn’t even play 2K until this year.

I still don’t play “comp,” either, the nebulous phrase for competitive, amateur leagues and tournaments of the best 2K Pro-Am players in the world. I play Rec, and maybe a little ranked Pro-Am, like hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of 2K gamers around the world. I will probably never play comp.

Yet I found a home in the NBA 2K League, like the hundreds of people directly affiliated with the NBA 2K League’s bold foray into esports and the thousands of people—yes, thousands, comfortably—whom it touched. I was lucky enough to get a job, what seemed like a career, and most importantly many of my closest friends through this oft-inexplicable world of “GREEN” and “stack! stack!” and “ANWUNNN!” Numerous people found that home, from knowing a player to working in and around the league to watching the league—yes, people did that! Especially big 5v5 games!—as a fan. And that’s why we knew there was promise, that a future was on the horizon—there was NBA backing, and we were unbelievably lucky to do what we did! If we could just get a little more retail integration, a little less NBA IP regulation…

Obviously, the league never expanded to the hundreds of thousands of people it wished for. Thousands isn’t bad for seven years in, especially as some teams started to become profitable, many players changed their life unequivocally for the better, and as the repressive regulations of the NBPA and NBA IP structures began to loosen. The storylines wrote themselves right until the end—Warriors Gaming Squad took the mantle of the greatest team of all time, the Celtics made the finals in the NBA, NBA G League, and NBA 2K League, and Mama threw bands while bandying into the thick of the GOAT debate. “Whatever happens, they can’t take this accomplishment away from you,” I’ve said a lot over the last few days.

Sometimes I even believe myself.

And now, the league as we know it is over. It’s hard to see 5v5 coming back with any continuity, even though I will also believe it to be the future—that’s what basketball is, to whichever level of fan you want to market. That’s why it’s tough, for those of us who have spent seven years explaining what we do at wedding, parties, Thanksgiving, grappling with the internal flaws while promoting a vision of the future.

We don’t know what the future of the league looks like. It may be incredible. It may be not. It certainly won’t be this—the teams built up year over year, the player rivalries ebbing and flowing, the absolute peak of team talent and strategic skill. But that’s what those who deeply cared should remember: the people who made this league, the friendships, the greatest 2K moments of all-time that we somehow failed to market and didn’t care enough to explain. We shouldn’t remember it as it ended, a swift eight minutes of persistent uncertainty: the fraying of the personal, the disenfranchisement of the collective.

And so we go. The great people are still the great people, and the relationships need not decrease 40% as the league seems poised to. Competitive 2K isn’t done for those who wish to continue. The accolades may fade, the memories perhaps with them.

The home will change. But it doesn’t have to crumble even after you leave, and the time spent there need be no less happy.