There’s been a lot of talk about the EBO Tournament among EU Pro-Am players recently, with one big change being implemented and one that I think still needs to be put in place.
First, the announcement of a new rule was made by the official EBO Twitter account, revealing that “players from teams that have been eliminated or that are playing in the playoffs on another team cannot be registered.”
🇪🇺 EBO Tournament 🏀🏆 on Twitter
🇪🇺#EBOTournament 🚨New rule! Players from teams that have been eliminated or that are playing Playoffs on another team cannot be registered. Players who have breached this will be excluded of the new team.
This comes following a tweet from ‘DUX Gaming’, announcing that NBA 2K League EU Invitational MVP MGoCrzy would be joining their team for the remainder of the tournament. MGoCrzy, who competed in the tournament for Bayern Ballers Gaming before being eliminated by the upstart ‘HeatCheck 2K’ squad, is widely considered to be one of the best, if not the best point guard in Europe, and there’s no doubt he would have made a considerable difference to the ‘DUX Gaming’ team.
Rafael TGR on Twitter
Guess who’s our pick for the @EBOleague Yeeeah @MGoCrzy will help us to the rest of the tournament. 🏀🎮🔒 https://t.co/dI6HIU9nMH
Another aspect of the new rule that has caused some discussion is the fact that the same thing had previously been done by HazzaHurst, NBA 2K League player for Knicks Gaming. While Hazza started out playing with Bayern Ballers Gaming, he played for the Turkey-based ‘FIST 2K’ team that were also eliminated by ‘HeatCheck 2K’ later in the tournament.
HeatCheck on Twitter
Lets goooooo!!! We are through to the final in the #EBOTournament. Thanks to everyone watching and supporting in the stream 😍 Ggs to @FIST_2K (and @HazzaHurst) those were some crazy games! 🤝 (2-1)
However, something else worth considering is the timing of both roster changes. The semi-final series between ‘FIST 2K’ and ‘HeatCheck 2K’ was played on December 22nd, while ‘DUX Gaming’ are yet to even find out who their opponent will be for their semi-final matchup (as of January 3rd), despite having won their quarter-final matchup against ‘SAS Basketball’ on December 21st. Had ‘Monstars 2K’ and ‘Supremacy FR’ played their quarter-final matchup before now, perhaps ‘DUX Gaming’ could have played their semi-final and potentially even their finals matchup with MGoCrzy on their team, but now that definitely will not happen since the new rule has been introduced.
Harry on Twitter
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that EBO changed the roster rule, odd that it was done even after I played for another team, but is what it is now.
This points towards a larger problem in my opinion, which is that organised Pro-Am events in Europe simply take too long to finish. As Hazza says in the tweet above, the EBO tournament has already been going on for a lot longer than it should have, having begun around the start of November. As a community, we need to keep things fresh and keep people entertained, having dragged-out tournaments moving at such a slow pace will never be a positive thing, even if there’s money on the line as in the EBO tournament currently taking place. While stricter playing windows are always an option, I don’t particularly mind what method the respective leagues use to keep things moving, as long as it’s actually done with consistency. While it’s understandable when you consider that the EU Invitational event would slow down the current EBO tournament, I still think getting leagues and tournaments finished quicker is something that needs to be addressed as quickly as possible, and I think that would be a big step in the right direction for the future of EU Pro-Am events.
