Is this the Death of the Superteam Era

[Dino-Might]

I think people that fixate on whether there were "superteams" in the past are missing the point. Many of those historical superteams were prior to the NBA instituting a salary cap in the 1984-1985 season, specifically in order to level the playing field because of these superteams (specifically the Lakers).

The specific feature of the modern superteams is having 3 superstars buddying up together taking max salary and then forcing their teams to cobble together minimum level players to fill out the rest of the team. These teams ONLY work, even in the regular season, when all three stars are healthy. It worked for the Heat because all three superstars were in the prime of their careers and stayed relatively healthy throughout the run.

But when the superstars are aging or injury-prone, even one going down means replacing that superstar level player with a minimum level player - so you are going from a top 10 player in the world to someone in the 200-300 range.

And you are now relying on 1 or 2 superstars to carry the team with everyone else in the rotation being a minimum level type player. That is too much of a burden to carry throughout a 82 game season.

If you only have two max players, then EVEN if one goes down, the superstar player is still playing with rotation filled with talented role players - NOT minimum players.

I am mostly talking about the regular season - in the playoffs, any team will need their superstars to be healthy in order to win a chip.

But for a team like the Lakers, they couldn't even make the playoffs, let alone the play-in tournament. And the Nets are barely making the play-in tournament by the skin of their teeth.

And in fact, the Nets making the Harden trade was actually an attempt to move away from this superteam model - they traded away the megastar in Harden for a lesser star plus good role players to fill out their bench and provide more depth.

[Meat]

It’s not the end of superteams, but we may be nearing the end of the era of player orchestrated team ups. Really it was LeBron and Durant who have made these happen over the last decade, as they age out of the league the younger generation of stars saw the backlash they got for these moves and may not try it.

makes perfect sense, pandora can easily put her contents back in her box. Moreso it's not like players these days are closer than ever, nor do they have an example of how to get easy rings

[Meat]

the "superteam era" was a lebron dreamchild.
it was borne from him,
it was named as such because of him
it's a reason why people don't like him
it'll die with him
it is an anomaly

the lakers
the celtics
the 76ers

What do you call them with 3-4 hall of famers per team?

if youre talking about the 80s,,dont f'ing try to excuse lebron by bringing them up. they had super players is what was.

INTENT is what differentiates the millenia superteams from the 80s teams that were super

excuse? I praise him for it, why should players be loyal to lame front offices?

[harlem_ball]

The Heat have a superteam right now.

Lowry - hall of famer
Butler - hall of famer
Adebayo - hall of famer
Herro- hall of famer

[Schiltzenberger]

lol.... 90% of the replies are pointless.
People just whining about 'there's always been superteams!!!!!'..... Did any of these clowns actually read the OP?
That point was addressed, as in he is refering to the actual player driven 'I can't do this, I need help' superteam phase which started with LeBron and Miami.

I don't care how good teams were back in the day, they were naturally built superteams. Maybe a question mark over McHale's involvement in getting KG to Boston, that always stunk. However, it's not like KG, Peirce and Allen planned it.

As someone else mentioned, this probably dies off when LeBron retires.