Thursday, February 24th, 2011 at 12:30 pm  |  53 responses

Things Done Changed… Or Have They?

Everyone agrees that super teams are evil. What if everyone is wrong?

by Allen Powell II

“To be one’s self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity.” Irving Wallace

“Real niggas do real things.” Christopher Wallace

There is likely no consanguinity between Christopher Wallace, better known as the Notorious B.I.G., and Irving Wallace, a Jewish-American author, but everybody knows that great minds tend to share thoughts. In this case, the aforementioned quotes by Messrs. Wallace perfectly encapsulate the way many NBA fans feel about the current trend in the League toward “super teams.”

Basically, “super teams” are an evil scourge concocted by millionaire athletes to destroy small market teams and the purity of basketball because today’s pampered and arrogant athletes lack the testicular fortitude to win rings like men.

Did I get that right?

It’s funny how easily people accept ideas that validate their worst fears or basest biases. Whether it’s rumors of death panels, or claims that the NBA is on the brink of destruction, folks tend to follow what author Terry Goodkind aptly called “The Wizard’s First Rule.”

“Wizard’s First Rule: People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it’s true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool…”

Despite the harshness of those words they have the bell clear ring of truth about them. Sadly, what most people believe they believe has very little to do with what they actually believe or the truth. The idea that “super teams” will ruin the NBA and force small market teams to fold is probably false because the NBA has been down this road before.

Remember the glory days?

Many NBA fans consider the period from 1980 to 2000 as the greatest time to have been a professional basketball fan. Fouls were hard, shorts were tiny, and superstars had the guts to stick with their teams until they made them into champions. At least that’s the popular myth promulgated by the sports media and lapped up by nostalgic fans.

Sadly, it’s complete balderdash. From 1980 to 1990 only four teams won championships, and two of those teams, the NBA’s longstanding power dynasties in Boston and Los Angles, won eight of the rings. The only other two teams to reach the apex of NBA success were the Philadelphia Sixers and the Detroit Pistons.

Any true basketball fan can rattle off the names that dominated those championship teams with ease: Bird, Magic, McHale, Parrish, Worthy, Kareem, Isiah, Dumars, Rodman, Dr. J, Moses and Andrew “The Boston Strangler” Toney. That doesn’t even account for role players like John Salley, Jamaal Wilkes, Bill Walton, Danny Ainge, Bobby Jones, Dennis Johnson or Bill Laimbeer.

That is a might impressive collection of talent consolidated among only four teams. How did the League ever survive such a ridiculously unfair distribution of talent that clearly favored big markets with established stars? Obviously, the League must have bumbled along during this horrible period with flagging viewership and putrid crowds, right?

Wrong.

Well how about the 1990s? Clearly the League struggled since one team won a ridiculous six championships during that decade. Surely people hated a league plagued by such glaring lack of parity? Obviously, nobody wanted to watch Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, the second best swingman in the game, steamroll opponents with what was clearly an unfairly stacked team, right?

Not even close.

Fans say they hate “super teams,” but can’t stop watching them. League officials swear that the consolidation of star players on big market teams will kill the League’s viability, but all established research says the exact opposite. The truth is, casual and hardcore fans love when “super teams” duke it out for supremacy. Casual fans get easy to understand games between recognizable stars, and hardcore fans get to settle longstanding debates about which players and playing styles are conducive to success. In fact, the only people who suffer might be owners. The rich bastards.

Very few NBA teams are in danger of folding as long as the League has fat television contracts and sponsorships. While individual owners in individual cities might not be swimming in profits, the overall league profits are fine as long as fans are dialed in to the NBA’s storylines.

Parity may drive the NFL’s popularity, but the NBA is about dynasties. Dynasties make things simpler during the long slog of a season. Sure, it may be better for the Denver Nuggets’ bottom line if they have Carmelo Anthony to build marketing and merchandising campaigns around, but it has very little effect on the overall health of the League.

In fact, it might be worse for the beauty of the game.

How many fans have complained of poorly constructed teams built to suit the middling talents of players never meant to be “franchise guys”? How often have teams found themselves mired in a morass of horrible contracts because they overpaid for talent simply because “the market” demanded it? Very few players are cut out to be alpha dogs, and many of them struggle when miscast into that role.

Honestly, the angst among fans and sportswriters seems to be driven by a simple fear of change. The world is changing, and the NBA is following suit. Maybe people were comforted by the fact that despite their massive contracts, NBA players still had to depend on executives to create opportunities for them to win. Maybe people believed that since the system worked that way for so long, changing it up would only bring chaos. And maybe, just maybe, it has a little to do with race.

It doesn’t matter. There is no reason to believe that “super teams” will ruin the NBA. Hell, this just might be the start of a brand new Golden Age. Better yet, a “Platinum Age.”

Let the League upgrade you.

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  • http://slamonline.com/ Ryne Nelson

    Apt Terry Goodkind reference. Can’t overlook the growing hype around NBA hoops right now!

  • http://www.slamonline.com Eboy

    Excellent as always…..I think the only issue right now is that all the Super Teams seem to be building up in one conference. Unless there’s a balance in the near future….the West is going to have a long-ass drought of title wins.

  • http://google c_cantrell

    west is lookin pretty poor about now

  • Red Star

    Almost half the NBA teams are losing money!(Stern’s claim but I think he is lying) I’m not sure how Super Teams will fix this. It is a concern for Owners that maybe addressed in the next CBA. But for the record, I love it!!! I can’t remember last Basketball was sooooo exciting! More Super Teams please!!!

  • holiday

    I seriously doubt that the Lakers will go irrelevant even after Kobe retires, and personally I think the team of the future is OKC! Utah trading D-Will could give the 4 lottery picks in the next two seasons, plus Dallas and Portland aren’t going anywhere too soon and there complete teams, not just a couple of stars surrounded by below average secondary squads!

  • http://google c_cantrell

    ^holiday..
    yes bro you are right.. the team of the future of the nba is okc!

  • holiday

    Plus who knows, Golden State may be a decent low post player from bein kinda scary, the clippers have a lot of potential too but we’ve been sayin that for long time now!

  • JTaylor21

    johnny Bravo!!!!!

  • burnt_chicken

    I think you overstate your case as being a prescient and fearless writer awash in a sea of trembling/drowning fear-mongers. People like parity because league-wide competitiveness is good for, you know, competition. If you’re so sold on superteams, sell us the idea of a superleague–an NBA+. THAT I would go for.

  • burnt_chicken

    very well written though. Your argument is well said.

  • MikeC.

    Main difference between now and then is the lack of overall depth in the league. There are more stars, and more superstars. Not enough good role players.

  • http://www.quora.com/Jonathan-Brill Jonathan Brill

    Sooooo glad someone finally said something that makes sense on this subject. Rick Reilly published a piece after the Melo trade talking about how bad it would be for talent to consolidate and all I could think of was the Golden Era and whether he knew anything about the history of the league.

    One angle that isn’t getting a lot of play: This is not just about small markets vs major markets. Sure, for a select few it is, but Toronto is a bigger (and better) market than Miami. You could make the argument that it’s not as nice a place to live, but that’s not why Bosh went to Miami. The Toronto basketball organization just isn’t very good and that has nothing to do with talent aggregating in NY and LA.

    The Golden State Warriors own one of the best media markets in the country with fantastic fans, the occasional celebrity, one of the highest-rated living areas in the world, and great proximity to LA, Vegas, and one of the largest concentrations of Asian Americans in the country (see Javale McGee highlight his new Chinese sneakers at the dunk contest? See LeBron hitting China every year in the offseason? See Yao getting voted to the all star team even when he doesn’t play?) but THERES NO WAY ANY TOP TWENTY PLAYERS WANT TO COME HERE.

    This has nothing to do with major markets (although it definitely did in Melo’s case). This has to do with good organizations doing what they need to do to build attractive destinations. In all of this handwringing it seems to be lost on people that before Booz left for Chicago he signed with Utah. That when Kenyon Martin was good he went to Denver. That Amare didn’t sign with the Knicks because he wanted to flee to a major market, but because they offered more than the team he really wanted to sign with: The Phoenix Suns (who through mis-management lost their GM and most of their hope).

    The small market to big market migration narrative is a compelling one to be sure, it just isn’t the right one.

  • Allenp

    Burnt chicken
    The general tenor seems to be that super teams are glib to kill the league. I wasn’t puffing myself up just responding to what I have noticed from fans and media.
    Remember I actually support contracion. But even witout it the general talent level in the world is much higher than it ever was. There are enough players to create good teams even if every team didn’t have a mega star. And we still have the draft which binds players to teams for at least four years. Melo and bron played for heir teams for seven years that is long time for teams to assemble talent. If they fail why shouldn’t players move on?

  • http://nobulljive.com/ Enigmatic

    Dope article as always, Allen.

  • paul

    How does crap like this get published? You take complicated issues and simplify them into a straw argument that you can pretend to boldly and bravely demolish.

  • LA Huey

    Love the article, Allen. Unfortunately, your style of writing (which I do like) leaves you preaching to the choir.
    And as already mentioned, the only problem I see is the Finals becoming a coronation for the Eastern reps rather than a series.

  • http://slamonline.com Bryan Crawford

    Platinum is still hot?

  • Niles

    Errrr…..if Pip was the second best swingman in the game, who was the best?

  • Allenp

    Jordan.

  • james

    Good article,

    But Laimbeer for those champion Pistons teams was not a “roll” player. He was a complementary player, and in the hierarchy of those teams was second fiddle to Isiah Thomas. To put Rodman above him on those teams, is not quite accurate.

  • http://sdfklf.com Jukai

    Great piece Allen, totally on the ball.
    Also, when I first read the article, I thought that quote game from Christopher WALKEN, and I said “huh… that… that’s pretty bold of Christopher Walken to say that”

  • http://sdfklf.com Jukai

    It’s really funny that if we think about the greatest players in the 80s…. Magic, Bird, McHale, Worthy, Abdul-Jabbar, Thomas, Dumars, Moses Malone Dr. J…. that is all five teams. FIVE TEAMS. F it, even Olajuwon and Barkley started out on those teams.
    The 1990s were actually stock filled with more parity due to expansion, and some rules about trading players, drafting, collective bargaining and how much money you can give a player etc… but if it wasn’t for the Bulls, people would have hated it. Trust me.

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/officerbarbrady what

    If super teams and big market dynasties are really better for the NBA, they should quit insulting the rest of America’s intelligence and just go ahead and contract about 15 or so teams already.

  • allenp

    Damn I hate typos. I apologize folks.

  • http://twitter.com/BeezKneezy LA Huey

    Jukai’s right about the 90s if the Bulls hadn’t dominated.

  • Sam J

    “The truth is, casual and hardcore fans love when “super teams” duke it out for supremacy.”
    Disagree with this. 5 teams have won 27 of the last 31 titles, you really think the fans of the other 25 teams in the league (the majority of the NBA fanbase) wouldn’t prefer their team actually having a shot of winning the league instead of watching Lakers v Celtics for the billionth time? I think not.
    The way the league has been and is trending now, if you’re a not a fan of one of those teams or in a a major market, you may as well give up hope of your team ever winning anything. This argument may make me stupid as you say, but just as stupid is a 30 team league which due to the players being celebrity-craving divas, only has a few teams ever likely to have any kind of success.

  • SwaGG_SeaN

    This was well written article, the writer could have done more to expand on the point or his overall thiesis but this will suffice. One reason why small market teams don’t grow is because the organizations don’t build attractive destinations,example the clippers are in a LA one of the biggest media markets in America however no on wants to go there because its not an attractive destination that’s compelling to in and win because the mis-managers of the organization don’t make it a good destination same with the timberwolves, its just not an attractive destination. So its up to the GM and the owners to build their organization into a more compelling one so that it can look attractive to players, this is why I think the CBA won’t work because its up to the owners and

  • SwaGG_SeaN

    The GM to build better organizations no amount of arm twisting can help you from being a poorly managed organization.

  • SwaGG_SeaN

    General managers to build better organizations no amount of arm twisting can save the fact that you have have a poorly operated organization which will not make it an attraction for free agents.

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/officerbarbrady what

    The bigger problem seems to be that you can’t draft a super team, because once you draft one superstar you no longer suck enough to be in position to get another superstar. The draft is the equalizer that allows small market teams to compete in the first place; without it, great players wouldn’t end up in places like Cleveland and Denver at any point in their careers, and those franchises would just become de facto minor league teams. So why not combine the current age limit for PLAYING in the league with allowing high schoolers to be drafted? Suppose you could draft a high school player, but that player still couldn’t play in the league until he was a year removed from high school, and a team could hold on to that player’s rights (similar to how teams draft Europeans and hold on to their rights before bringing them over). That would give your team an extra year of sucking to be in position to pair your first superstar up with another one.

    Say for example the Cavs drafted LeBron in ’03, but LeBron had to wait a year before he could come into the league. During that year, the LeBron-less Cavs suck bad enough to get the #1 pick again and get Dwight Howard. Now instantly you have drafted a “super team” of your own. Now maybe LeBron decides in 2010 that he wants to leave anyway, but if the Cavs had had a chance to amass a core of superstars of their own, would LeBron be as likely to leave? Maybe not.

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/officerbarbrady what

    In other words, it’s not the “super teams” that’s the problem (at least to me) as much as it is the fact that only big markets have any shot at building these super teams. If places like Utah and Indiana could draft their way to super teams, there probably wouldn’t be nearly as much of an outcry. But the fact of the matter is that 24 out of 30 NBA fan bases have no realistic shot of seeing a super team in their city, because super teams can really only be assembled easily through free agency, which gives big markets an inherent advantage.

  • allenp

    San Antonio is small market. Utah had dwill and Boozer and decided to sink a boatload of money into okur and ak47. That is what killed them because then they got scared oluxury tax and made no more moves. It is about profits. Big market teams are more willing to bite the bullet and pay the tax because tay have revenues from other areas. But even small market teams can pay the tax and still turn a profit just not the same level ofprofit.

  • allenp

    Oh and I wanted to write more but really once you get pass 1000 words hints get dicey on the web. Particularly in an opinion piece.

  • http://www.slamonline.com AllDayEveryDay

    AllenP, nice article man… Bryan Crawford can learn a thing or two (he’s horrible)

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/officerbarbrady what

    San Antonio is an exception because they were able to find Parker at the end of the first round and Ginobili at the end of the second round. Finding an All Star caliber player that late in the first round, let alone the second round, is like winning the lottery; it’s great when it happens, but it’s extremely unlikely. That’s not exactly a sustainable strategy that other small market teams can rely on.

    And it isn’t really about big market teams being more willing to spend past the luxury tax level. Suppose Utah hadn’t signed Okur or AK47, and instead they had the cap room last summer to bring in LeBron and Bosh to play with D-Will, but they would have risked going into the luxury tax in future years by doing so. You think they wouldn’t have done it? Of course they would, but there’s no way LeBron or Bosh would have agreed to go there. The point is that players given the choice are not going to go to places like that regardless of the money or situation, which is why the draft exists in the first place. Sh*t, even the Cavs had a trade in place last summer to bring Bosh to Cleveland to pair with LeBron, but Bosh didn’t want to play in Cleveland so it got nixed.

    I’m a Hawks fan, so I can agree to an extent with your point about teams managing assets poorly being a big reason for stars departing. It’s one thing to criticize franchises like the Warriors and Hawks, who are in player-friendly destinations, for making dumb decisions and precluding the possibility of assembling super teams. But for teams in places like Utah, Indiana, Memphis, etc. how likely is it that they can get free agents to sign even if they run their organization well and put themselves in position to assemble a super team?

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/officerbarbrady what

    Also does anyone know how to do line breaks when you comment on this website? I hate when my comments appear as one big ass paragraph.

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/officerbarbrady what

    Also, does anyone know how to do line breaks when you comment on this website? I hate when my comments appear as one big ass paragraph.

  • Armando

    @Jukai: Did I misunderstand you when you said “It’s really funny that if we think about the greatest players in the 80s…. Magic, Bird, McHale, Worthy, Abdul-Jabbar, Thomas, Dumars, Moses Malone Dr. J…. that is all five teams. FIVE TEAMS. F it, even Olajuwon and Barkley started out on those teams.” …Barkley, OK, but he left the Sixers to play in a smaller market in Phoenix, and Olajuwon, he never played for “one of those teams” in the 80s… And the players you mention only played for four teams during the 80s”.

  • Armando

    …yeah, and although I somewhat agree with the reasoning of the article… I think it’s sad, and I do understand Jason Whitlock: http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/selfish-players-are-wrecking-NBA-with-shortsighted-moves-022411.

  • http://sdfklf.com Jukai

    Armando: Uh… five teams includes the Rockets, who Moses Malone also played for. I included them because they got to the Finals twice (once with Moses, once with Olajuwon) and were very close to winning a title.
    So yeah, you did misunderstand me.

  • http://slamonline.com Mars

    There WAS no difference today from the early 80′s and 90′s. Before, in an owner’s market, star players were forced to carry teams IE LEBRON, CARMELO, DWADE, KOBE, DIRK…all of whom just repeated JORDAN, DREXLER, MALONE, BARKLEY, WILKINS early success as individuals. In this NEW players market, STAR players will combine to supercede the(ir) owner’s market, evolving into the purist NBA, thus filtering out mediocracy destined for the CBA, and most important avoid lockout seasons. This is better for the fans, and for the business of basketball. Jersey sales will suffer for the next 3 yrs though. Great article.

  • http://sdfklf.com Jukai

    And Barkley left for the sixers in the 90s

  • el_larsen

    cosign paul 2 :49

    you can’t compare superstars go-to-guys to excellent sidekicks.
    80 ‘s celtics were bird ‘s team.lakers were magic ‘s team.all were surrounded with great players but you can’t compare to now ,where teams add up STAR FRANCHISE PLAYER together.
    i mean worthy,mchale,parish,and old kareem were good but they wouldn’t carry a whole teams by themselves like lebron melo or bosh(well maybe)could.

  • el_larsen

    bird,mchale,parish big 3 is NOT the same as bron ,wade, bosh going together

  • http://itsahardwoodlife.blogspot.com omphalos

    I’ll just say this, the brilliance of the Jordan-led Bulls is that it just sort of happened. Pippen was never supposed to be that good, and Jordan was taken 3rd overall, which indicates how well people thought he could perform. The problem I have with these super-teams is that they are so forced they lack all meaning; sure, you could just all team up in one team, but that just seems like cowardice, whereas nobody can blame the Bulls for drafting Pippen and him turning out well. Also, another reason super-teams are boring to me is because I love seeing two superstars matching up, actually leading their teams. When you have a super-team, you never really get to see that great leadership, the individual struggle within the team contest.

  • allenp

    Bird and mchale are top fifty players and parrish is a hall of famer. Mchale is probably top five at his position all time bird is top ten overall all time and top five at his position and parrish was a regular all star. You are staying that doesn’t compare miami? Are you serious?
    that doesn’t even influx DJ, former finals mvp or bill walton or feed maxwell. That boston team was stacked.from top to bottom as were the Lakers.
    magic, kareem worthy perkins cooper scott rambis wilkes tompson…
    Both those teams make miami look like a second tier squad.
    Paul didn’t explain what strawman I constructed but I would be willing to discuss it if he does.

  • arthur

    I agree, but I think that the big difference between now and then is that it’s been the player’s decision to load up onto “superteams”, whereas the dynasties of the 80s were created in major part by clever front office maneuvers, especially by Red Auerbach and Jerry West. It’s the “player is bigger than the franchise idea” – which is, incidentally, untrue for Bird or Magic – that frightens people.

  • allenp

    Arthur
    I agree. I dent spend as much time discussing that (only dedicated one graph) because I wanted to talk more about how the league got where it is and that it is not that new. People fear certain types of changes.

  • el_larsen

    saw you coming allen p!!
    i m not bashing parish and mchale,but can i say LARRY legend was the man,the top ,the frnchise tagPLAYER?
    well for the heat they v got wade and bron in their prime . 2 supposed franchise tag player.like bird playing with do and clyde

  • allenp

    Or magic with kareem?

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