I still don’t understand what NBA period you are longing for.
If that’s the ultimate result, it looks like I’m gonna need to be a Nets fan for the next month.
The NBA peaked in February 1989.
I don’t like “super teams,” either, but it’s hard for me to put a finger on why that is, exactly. I think it’s, for lack of a better term, because they “feel bad.” I’m totally for players being able to have the careers and lives they want and not have to constantly get jerked around by owners, but it “feels bad” for some reason when superstar players conspire (maybe that’s a loaded word) to form a super team.
That’s certainly what happened in Miami with Bron/Bosh/Wade and that’s definitely what happened in Brooklyn with KD/Kyrie/Harden (true, Harden was traded, but he wanted out of Houston and totally orchestrated the move). Bron/AD ranks lower than those, namely because it’s only two players, but I think it already felt kind of gross that Lebron went to L.A. and then AD forced his way out of NO, clearly wanting to go to the Lakers.
Teams are mostly made up of players acquired as free agents and via trades, but most don’t feel weird. I think it just feels better when teams are built more “organically” and the free agents/trades are used to fill in role players or get that last piece. The Suns two young stars were draft picks. The Bucks have two starters (Giannis and DDV) that they drafted and one All-Star in Middleton that they traded for well before he was an All-Star. The rest are role players and the “final piece” in Jrue (who they also mortgaged the future for).
I don’t know, it just feels kind of shitty when you get three HOFers who want to go play together somewhere “cool” like Brooklyn, actually do it, and then win a ring. Teams in most other cities can never do anything like that.
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That’s fine, but there were always ‘super teams’. This one in particular makes people extra angry because they hate KD, Kyrie and Harden (which is a discussion by itself).
I don’t see any reason to miss the days when players were stuck their entire career in places they didn’t want to be in or they got screwed with bad contracts
I have issues with market disparity. It’s going to be damn near impossible for a team like the Indiana Pacers to win a title when not a single superstar would go there because it’s Indiana. Costal and major cities have such a high edge in team development due to location and weather. I don’t fault the players because I would probably do the same, but it definitely hurts the league.
literally every team left in the playoffs didn’t win a championship in at least 38 years.
I don’t really remember this as a thing before LeBron went to Miami. Which 90s or 00s teams would qualify?
Drexler, Barkley, Olajuwon.
Chamberlain going to the Lakers.
Shaq, Kobe, Payton, Malone.
But it’s fairly irrelevant imo. Jordan wouldn’t have 6 championships if Pippen didn’t take a terrible contract to keep that ‘super team’. So sure, it was “organic”, but not really.
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Good ones. What separates these teams in my mind is that they were collections of aging vets, characterized by fading stars looking for One Last Championship. Whereas the modern super teams sometimes have loaded lineups of players in their prime. Maybe I’m imagining a pattern that’s not there.
That might be true, but it’s only because players had no control over their careers until they reached some mythical status. That’s not a good thing.
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I don’t blame the players for doing it, but it does make me enjoy it a bit less. I’m a semi-casual fan, so I like having continuity in teams and watching them grow together (how Denver and Utah have done - and even Phoenix, while they added Paul it was basically a salary dump). It’s less fun watching a newly formed super team dominate.
I can see this. Ultimately for casual fans sports is all about narratives and there’s a traditional satisfaction in the stories. Jordan is probably the best example of this, his championships have this nice narrative to them where he saved a franchise with his individually spectacular skills then had a heroes journey of conflict and challenges culminating with championships when he got a better team around him.
I obviously can’t argue with a subjective feeling, but i feel like it’s mostly a concept thing. We all enjoyed the Bulls dominating for a decade. Brooklyn has 3 players who have been hated on for years for reasons that include a lot of prejudices. They are only “dominating” now because they are playing out of their minds.
I personally love seeing those 3 (hopefully Harden plays again) play, but in no way were they suppose to be some unbeatable force.
Also the Nets took a huge gamble on KD coming off an achilles tear and Kyrie who teams didn’t want to touch.
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Interesting, as someone who has really likes the NBA but is not a super fan and doesn’t really have a favorite team, the fact that Utah, Denver and Phoenix were built organically doesn’t make me want to watch them one iota more. The disappointment this year, imo, is that the Laker superteam failed and thus we are deprived of the potential of the battle of the super teams (Brooklyn vs. LA).
That is the only really boring thing, imo, when it feels like a super team skates through to the championship unchallenged but obviously you can still have a dominant unchallengeable team in a more “organic” NBA environment.
And would also add that this feeling of Nets inevitability is really the result of Steve Nash doing a sublime job as a rookie coach. Going into the playoffs, nobody had the Nets whooping ass on the Bucks without Harden.
There have always been super teams but 3 out of the top 10 players in the NBA going to the same team is unprecedented.
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No one would have ranked Kyrie top 10 before the season started (or now, tbh). Post achilles KD had a lot of question marks around him as well.
I bet most people would have him in their top 20 and the people not having him in their top 15 were suffering from recency bias.
I’m not even making a judgment about the formation of super teams. Lebron changed the way some teams are built. That is an objective fact.
Kyrie is not top 10.
Lebron, KD, Giannis, Jokic, Harden, Doncic, curry, embiid, lillard, kawhii. That’s 10 no one should ever have kyrie over.
15 is debatable.
I can’t imagine not putting him in your top 15. I don’t think people appreciate how good he is.
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