As is always the case around this time of year, a lot happened in the NBA over the weekend. Blake Griffin dunked over a car. The West All-Stars beat the East in a game that featured 291 combined points, an alarmingly low total by NBA standards. And now that the All-Star Weekend festivities have concluded, the second-half drive to the playoffs begins for the Association’s 30 franchises.
Or at least it would if the standings reflected a little something called “competitive balance.” Alas, it appears parity in pro basketball has gone the way of defense and traveling violations. Be honest: How many teams realistically have a shot at a championship in 2011?
Boston, Miami, and Orlando in the East, obviously. And hey, throw in Chicago for good measure. And out west? San Antonio (the NBA’s top team), Dallas, and, as always, the L.A. Lakers.
That’s seven teams listed above. Thing is, a total of 16 teams make the NBA playoffs. And yet less than half of those teams can realistically dream of bringing home the Larry O’Brien Trophy in June, a fact that seems conspicuously absent in most discussions of the potential impending lockout. But this is a far more pressing need than Carmelo Anthony’s next team or what share of basketball-related income the players should receive.
Last year’s NBA Finals: Lakers over Celtics. The year before that: Lakers over Magic. And the year before that: Celtics over Lakers. Are you sensing a pattern here?
Let’s go back a little further. Since 2000, there have been a grand total of five different champions, with the Lakers claiming five titles and the Spurs three in that span. In the same period of time, Major League Baseball has crowned nine different champions since then (including seven different World Series winners from 2000-06), eight different NFL teams have taken home the Lombardi Trophy, and nine different NHL teams have had their rosters engraved on the Stanley Cup.
Now, let’s be realistic. No other North American sports league is as star-driven as the NBA, and having those stars play together only sweetens the deal. But what message does it send to fans of the Association’s moribund franchises when the league sits idly by while its best players band together, leaving teams such as the Wizards and Timberwolves to effectively feed on the table scraps of the Heat and Lakers?
Now, the Wizards and T-Wolves have some talent of their own. Kevin Love is quietly having a standout season in Minnesota, amassing 38 straight double-doubles and becoming just the 19th player ever to score 30 points and pull down 30 rebounds in a single game. The Wizards’ John Wall, the top overall pick in last year’s NBA Draft, is the third-youngest player in NBA history to record a triple-double, amassing 19 points, 10 rebounds, and 13 assists last Nov. 10. If you added a bona fide superstar alongside these young talents, these teams would be legitimately scary. But why would a free-agent-to-be such as Carmelo Anthony sign with one of those teams after he can join Amar’e Stoudemire in New York? What incentive does Chris Paul have to remain in New Orleans when his contract is up when he could join Anthony and Stoudemire and form a “superteam” in the Big Apple?
So what can the NBA do about this? The seemingly endless series of loopholes and exceptions in the current salary cap makes it possible for a select few teams to hoard the majority of the talent, so a good place to start would be to eliminate these exceptions and push for a “hard” cap that cannot be exceeded (rather than the current “soft” cap) during the upcoming negotiations on a new collective-bargaining agreement. Both the NFL and NHL have hard salary caps, and they seem to be doing just fine.
It’s also going to take a willingness on the part of the owners to do what’s best for the game. The opportunity to watch LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh play together is a prime draw for fans in Miami. The opportunity to watch LeBron James take on Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Amar’e Stoudemire, and their ilk is a prime draw for fans in all 30 NBA cities. What incentive do the fans in these cities have to buy tickets to all 41 home games when they know their teams are going nowhere?
NBA Commissioner David Stern has proven to be exceptionally talented at growing and expanding the NBA brand, making it one of the hottest properties both in the US and worldwide. Now it’s time for Stern to embrace a surefire way to help the game take hold in every NBA market: giving every team a realistic chance at success.
Cohen is a member of the class of 2010.
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