How Superteams are Ruining the NBA pt.1

The Jordan/ Pippen Bulls…the Showtime Lakers...the big three Celtics…

There always has been, and always will be elite and dominant teams in the national basketball association. It’s the goal of every general manager to try to create the best roster and coaching staff and that’s fine and healthy for the league. In the past decade, we watched the Celtics create a team full of superstars and go on to win a championship. The spurs created a dynasty by drafting smart, fundamental players who panned out to be all-stars. But that was a result of insightful management, not the unregulated gathering of players in an attempt to rig the system in their favor. A championship should be a reward for hard work and overcoming obstacles, not for taking the path of least resistance. Professional basketball is failing its most precious trophy.

Those Celtics and spurs teams, started a chain reaction that is leading the nba in the wrong direction. With the birth of these new dominant teams, we began to see superstars join together with other fellow superstars, to form what is now known as super-teams. No doubt, Lebron is an all-time great, maybe even the greatest, but the fact of the matter is that, he struggled to beat those teams when he was in Cleveland so he signed with Miami to form, what was ultimately, the first true super-team. Then, as that team began to lose its edge, Lebron went back to Cleveland to form yet another super-team. Then Kevin Durant followed suit and after years of losing to super-teams, he joined one himself, golden state. In all these cases, the superstars leave their former teams with next to nothing and the conference crippled for years to come.

This super-team fad has set a bad precedent for stars around the league to leave their teams to form, or join more star-studded squads. The existence of these super-teams inhibits everyone else's potential to win, causing small market fans to bail on their teams. They also make it extremely hard for small market, and bottom of the pack teams to rise back into title contention. Most small market teams simply, can’t afford these costly players. As a result, they become stuck in a continuous loop of signing mid-level players who can’t do enough for them. Teams are, then left with one option: to begin the long and tedious rebuilding process which includes tanking and trading for better draft picks until they’ve accumulated enough of the top, young talent to be able to compete with the top teams again. But not only are super teams ruining the competitiveness of the NBA, but also the NBA as a business.

The predictability that super-teams have brought to the NBA has caused fans to lose hope in their team’s success. The focus has shifted towards insignificant stats and records, and individual performance and awards. And since most of the league's top players are on the same few teams, most fans are only focused on those teams. The average NBA fan isn’t interested in watching a suns vs. Kings game, for example, because win or lose, it won’t change the fact that neither team has a realistic shot of competing for a title. Sure, the die-hard fans of these teams will still tune in, but that's about the extent of it, and overall fan consumption is decreasing