For those complaining about the NBA’s age of parity, be careful, your Gen Z is showing.
If there’s a common criticism of Gen Z, it often centers on a perceived lack of work ethic and heightened sense of entitlement. Painting with a broad brush, I don’t disagree, but I’m a screaming-at-clouds millennial.
I’m being mean for no reason but, admitting that, I can’t help but roll my eyes when I hear people (of all generations) complain about the NBA’s age of parity. You know that talking point by now: Seven different champions in seven years – and specifically no repeat champions since 2018 – has led to declining TV ratings.
It’s easy to look at the fact that Major League Baseball’s World Series has outdrawn the NBA Finals in four of the past six matchups, including three championships by the dynastic LA Dodgers – and draw the easy path from A to B.
People love dynasties. MLB embraces the Dodgers, while the NBA is working actively to prevent the next Golden State Warriors.
Ethan Strauss recently blamed Adam Silver’s CBA changes for the NBA being lapped in ratings:
The NBA has undermined its potential for broader popularity in pursuit of parity. The latter was by design; I just don’t believe the designers anticipated that the former would be a consequence.
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The issue, though, is that the 2023 CBA undermined continuity, and, ultimately, dynasties. Yes, the public wants every team to have a shot, but more than that, they enjoy familiarity. The optimal is a league where the big market New England Patriots have an equal chance of protracted dominance as the small market Kansas City Chiefs. The NBA instead entered into an era of a revolving door at the top. A new champion has been crowned for seven consecutive seasons. The democratization of “best” makes “best” less interesting. If every team has 15 minutes of fame, then glory becomes devalued.
While it’s hard to disagree with Strauss’ point that dynasties draw casual fans – and I agree that cheapening the champion is bad business – he misses an important detail.
Dominance for its own sake also cheapens the product. If the NBA were to rhythmically transition from one dynasty to the next, wouldn’t those dynasties feel less special? Eventually, the steady drumbeat of dynasties would fall on deaf ears.
In other words, dynasties are supposed to be hard.
And rare.
That’s why, when they do happen, they feel special and capture our attention.
Even then, prolonged dominance risks alienating other fanbases. In our attention-seeking era, there’s inherent value in new. It’s easy to look back at the NBA Finals ratings between the Cavaliers and Warriors and say Now THAT’S when the league had it right!
But the regular season suffered because, frankly, it didn’t matter. It hit a critical point in 2018, when the Cavs and Warriors advanced rather easily, even though neither team was the No. 1 seed in its own conference. (Golden State was the No. 2 seed, Cleveland was No. 4.) Nobody was surprised.
Basketball sickos like Michael Shearer (and frequent RealGM Radio guest) at Basketball Poetry don’t look back at that era with as much nostalgia:
Was that fun for you? I apologize if it sounds like I’m framing this negatively. “Yes” is a perfectly valid option. James is widely regarded as either the best or second-best player ever. He was in full command of his powers. The Durant Warriors were arguably the best team of all time (certainly, given the league’s advancements over the years, they were the most skilled). Watching them operate on a purely basketball level was a religious experience. On the right nights, you caught a glimpse of a higher plane.
I certainly had fun! I’m not the right guy to give my opinion here, because I love the trees too much to care about the forest, but I do wonder how much the last decade of basketball has changed people’s memories of that era one way or another.
Here’s where I come down on it: Too much dominance is bad, but so is too much parity.
It’s not only that we’ve had seven different champions over the last seven years, but it’s also that of the 14 Finals participants, only three were in the Finals multiple times during that stretch (the Warriors, Heat and Celtics).
Sports need a final boss, and right now there isn’t one.
(Related: I do think it’s a problem that three of the four consensus top players – Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic – were on teams considered darkhorse contenders at best last season. But I’m not ready to call that a trend.)
The parity conversation is having a moment right now, in part, because the Oklahoma City Thunder are freakin’ awesome.
At 17-1 with a historic point differential for the second-straight season, they are the latest challenger to Silver’s parity era.
Can they do it? Sure. Will they? We’ll see.
But there’s no question that these Thunder – with a buzzsaw defense, perennial MVP candidate in his physical prime, an embarrassment of depth and the draft capital to keep the good times rolling – are the best-positioned team to buck the trend since we entered the Apron-verse.
It took a lot of time, skill and luck to build this particular team and set of assets. If the Thunder do what no team has done in more than half a decade, the bar is high.
Again, it’s supposed to be.
If every pack of Pokémon cards had a Charizard in it, then finding a Charizard wouldn’t be special. The Thunder are Charizard.
For all the handwringing from Warriors and Celtics fans who claim the CBA is unfair because it breaks up great teams, I ask: Do you really think those were dynasty-worthy teams?
There’s been enough reporting that the new CBA that harshly penalizes tax spending was born in part from the Warriors dominance that I won’t refute it, but that doesn’t also mean that the new CBA prevented the Warriors from winning more championships.
Kevin Durant’s departure in 2019, Klay Thompson’s career-altering injuries and Draymond Green’s fist ending up in Jordan Poole’s face have nothing to do with any aprons.
Celtics fans, on the heels of the team trading away half the roster, like to blame Silver’s CBA. But how can we blame the CBA for tearing down a potential dynasty if, at the same time, we poo-pood those Celtics for not having a top-tier star and taking an easy path to the 2024 Finals? (And if they were on their way to losing to the Knicks in the second round even before Jayson Tatum’s Achilles tear?)
THE CBA PUNISHES TEAMS WHO DRAFT WELL!
The Celtics drafted Tatum and Jaylen Brown. The Warriors drafted Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. Those teams were championship-caliber because of their homegrown talent. They were in dynasty conversations because of their outside additions.
Kevin Durant, Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis were expensive but temporary luxuries. Both teams took calculated steps back and reduced payroll after injuries to their star players. That’s not the CBA punishing them for drafting well, it’s economics.
It’s also a reminder that a lot of things have to go right to be considered among the most elite alongside the 50s/60s Celtics, 80s Lakers, 90s Bulls and 2010s Warriors.
Dynasties are supposed to be hard. Nobody is entitled to them – not even great teams worthy of being one.