-OT - how can you watch the dodgers and not want super teams back in the NBA

[Loneshot]

We haven't seen a super team since the 80s Celtics. KD/Warriors were not a super team. Unfortunately you all overrate how great Curry/Klay were, not realizing they actually needed a player like KD to close out games and not make silly errors during crunch time.

Bron/Miami were not an super team. I know you all love overrating Bosh, but he was just a very good role player that looked like 1A in Toronto because it was Toronto. When Bron went to Miami, Wade had already started to decline compared to those "Flash" days. Wade needed a 1A to his 1B or even so he could be the clear #2 guy, which he was. Til this day Bron takes all the heat for any Ls.

Basically, most of you are stuck on marketing gimmicks that hype up players to influence popularity, yet many of these players are not real superstars. They are very good at their job, but there are only handful of actual superstars. You know who they are because they essentially do it all on their team. James Harden is an amazing scorer, but he's not a superstar because his stats don't usually lead a team anywhere worth mentioning. Tatum is not a superstar because he pretty much is on a stacked team, so he's never had to be the sole leader.

There's levels to becoming a superstar. Jokic may be the only active superstar. Maybe Shai.

[Special_Puppy]

We have the Thunder and fans don't really care for them

[snaquille oatmeal]

What is a dodger?

Trump v accountability, the justice system, the draft, bullets

Please don't derail sports threads with politics. We have a Current Affairs board for that stuff. On the GB it's just going to start a fight and get the thread locked. -b

[threethehardway]

We have the Thunder and fans don't really care for them

The Thunder are not a superteam yet.

We haven't seen a super team since the 80s Celtics. KD/Warriors were not a super team. Unfortunately you all overrate how great Curry/Klay were, not realizing they actually needed a player like KD to close out games and not make silly errors during crunch time.

The Warriors won without KD, won with KD and won again without KD. The Warriors were historic without KD. If Draymond wasn't an idiot they would've went back to back.

Come playoffs time with KD, KD was mostly single covered when he used to be doubled because of Klay and Steph.

KD didn't provide anything besides an elite iso player with size that they can just dump the ball to.

Saying the one of the best iso scorer ever, with the best 3 point shooter ever, with one of the best defenders ever isn't a superteam is silly.

It's THEE super-team.

It had two MVPs in their prime on the same team. It's by definition a super-team.

[dballislife]

it is great that teams pay 500 million on their team while others 50 million

[Shock Defeat]

Dodgers can afford to pay the best scouts and coaching staff while also never having to let players go for salary reasons while also being able to sign the best free agents.

They are more like a soccer team like Manchester city.

[NZB2323]

2017 was quite possibly the most boring season in NBA history. The Warriors destroyed every team in the West, the Cavs destroyed every team in the East, and then the Warriors dominated the NBA finals. There was no point in watching the games. It’s like watching a movie where the Avengers beat up a common criminal.

The new CBA was introduced to stop that from happening, and we’ve had different NBA champions every season since 2019, which makes the season more intriguing, and most of the time the runner up is different.

And I don’t watch the Dodgers. I’m not a baseball fan, but I for sure have a lot of respect for Ohtani.

[Doctor MJ]

I think fans enjoy a super team a few times a decade. I believe overalll that non traditional teams winning has been good for the NBA but it would get boring if it happened all the time. Silver is taking notes.

I think gets mostly to the core of things.

I’ll put it like this:

Casual fans are more drawn to dynasties than the are to parity except when parity gives their team a moment in the sun.

Intensely engaged fans in the moment crave novelty on a shorter scale and thus tend to advocated for parity.

Intensely engaged fans looking back to the past are more drawn to the dynasties and tend to ignore eras of parity.

All of this relative of course - if we literally know the Lakers are going to win every year for decades, that will lead to less interest even among Laker fans.

To me the through line is in the idea of “information gain”. For any given duration (game, series, season, etc), do I expect to get new information that feels meaningful?

In a league with absolute parity, where each teams has a 50% chance of winning any given game, no meaningful information is gained from the result.

The same is true if one teams always win.

So what people are essentially looking for is a situation that maximizes their own personal information gain. And this will be different for different people but relatively predictable given how closely they pay attention.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Scoundreldays]

it is great that teams pay 500 million on their team while others 50 million

As an A's fan that is the fault of these cheap billionaire owners. Maybe they should look at themselves before pointing at the Dodgers. Yes LA has its geographical and popularity advantages but the A's were a prestige franchise decades ago and have now turned into a joke thanks to cheap ownership.

[LockoutSeason]

The Dodgers playoff run has been pretty boring so far. Not very competitive.

[LockoutSeason]

What is a dodger?

Trolley Dodgers. Back in old timey Brooklyn, people would dodge the trolley crossing the street.

[UcanUwill]

American sports have systems like draft, that fundamentally break the game and have teams that actually want to lose, and the only reason why they fundamentally break the entire league, is so they would have ''parity''.

Ironically neither the draft nor the cap create parity. There should be no draft or cap in my opinion, just a punitive luxury tax, but all you here in America is people crying about how their **** city wouldn’t be competitive under those circumstances. It’s a lot crying and complaining over on this side of the pond about fairness even if it is hyper juxtaposed to the supposed American ethos. Just pure hypocrisy from sports fans in the US.

I do not get how its parity, when some teams draft top 5 all the time, while others don't. If we want parity and giving everyone same chance, shouldn't draft be rotating and every team would draft first once every 30 years, second every 30 years etc? I do not care for rewarding teams just cause they are crap, it is asinine premise in sports IMO.

Parity is more a sham anyway, because same few markets attract starts, while most aren't and that never going to change no matter the rules. No one forcing their way to play in New Orleans, they always face their wau to Los Angeles. American system does give more hope, it is not Euro model where most teams will never ever compete for the title, but I think the system where teams try to win every game every time is still a better system over one where there are teams trying to actually lose, in sports...

[wegotthabeet]

American sports have systems like draft, that fundamentally break the game and have teams that actually want to lose, and the only reason why they fundamentally break the entire league, is so they would have ''parity''.

Ironically neither the draft nor the cap create parity. There should be no draft or cap in my opinion, just a punitive luxury tax, but all you here in America is people crying about how their **** city wouldn’t be competitive under those circumstances. It’s a lot crying and complaining over on this side of the pond about fairness even if it is hyper juxtaposed to the supposed American ethos. Just pure hypocrisy from sports fans in the US.

I do not get how its parity, when some teams draft top 5 all the time, while others don't. If we want parity and giving everyone same chance, shouldn't draft be rotating and every team would draft first once every 30 years, second every 30 years etc? I do not care for rewarding teams just cause they are crap, it is asinine premise in sports IMO.

Parity is more a sham anyway, because same few markets attract starts, while most aren't and that never going to change no matter the rules. No one forcing their way to play in New Orleans, they always face their wau to Los Angeles. American system does give more hope, it is not Euro model where most teams will never ever compete for the title, but I think the system where teams try to win every game every time is still a better system over one where there are teams trying to actually lose, in sports...

Exactly. The concept that parity can or should be achieved by doing x, y and x is completely flawed. Even the idea you described, which is called the Wheel, is horribly flawed. It assumes that every 1st overall pick is of equal value.

Just let someone like Baller spend a billion dollars on a roster and tax them 3 billion. The Clippers still wouldn’t win ****.

[HotelVitale]

Greatness sells

Maybe for casuals.

kD / Curry warriors was the last era of must see by a team

Luka series vs Suns, Nuggets championship run, Giannis, Celtics etc - if you didn't enjoy any of it, it's just sad.

Last playoffs was awesome, bunch of great series with legit mega stars and it was all pretty unpredictable.

Lots of people don’t actually live basketball but rather cultural things to feel part of, Guess there’s nothing wrong with that.

[HotelVitale]

The Dodgers playoff run has been pretty boring so far. Not very competitive.

All three wins against the Phillies were very close but I get what you mean. No game 7 drama or anything.

This brewers series was a joke though, no one besides a Dodgers fan thinks this was super compelling baseball.

[JDR720]

Baseball, even with some teams spending way more than others, still has a lot more variability than the NBA does. Cal Raleigh for example came out of totally nowhere and led the league in homeruns. That sort of thing never happens in the NBA, where a formerly obscure player turns into a star overnight.

So "superteams" in baseball just don't have the same anti-parity impact as superteams in the NBA do.

[Lalouie]

Greatness sells

kD / Curry warriors was the last era of must see by a team

greatness is also something to aspire to. that is how greatness moves the game forward. that is the legacy of greatness

it would be a sin to cap teams as some have suggested...because you would never see this.

but the mlb won't cap teams because this has been the mlb's best advertisement

[Michael Bradley]

The Dodgers/Phillies series was very competitive. Philly easily could have won that series. Every game was close. The Brewers series was definitely not competitive though. Not sure that’s a “super team” issue as much as Milwaukee choking happens every year in baseball.

Ohtani can make the argument of being the best baseball player of all time, and does things at a level that no player is ever doing again in our lifetimes. That’s what will drive the interest for the Dodgers, not the fact that they are a “super team”.

[Mephariel]

American sports have systems like draft, that fundamentally break the game and have teams that actually want to lose, and the only reason why they fundamentally break the entire league, is so they would have ''parity''.

Ironically neither the draft nor the cap create parity. There should be no draft or cap in my opinion, just a punitive luxury tax, but all you here in America is people crying about how their **** city wouldn’t be competitive under those circumstances. It’s a lot crying and complaining over on this side of the pond about fairness even if it is hyper juxtaposed to the supposed American ethos. Just pure hypocrisy from sports fans in the US.

I do not get how its parity, when some teams draft top 5 all the time, while others don't. If we want parity and giving everyone same chance, shouldn't draft be rotating and every team would draft first once every 30 years, second every 30 years etc? I do not care for rewarding teams just cause they are crap, it is asinine premise in sports IMO.

Parity is more a sham anyway, because same few markets attract starts, while most aren't and that never going to change no matter the rules. No one forcing their way to play in New Orleans, they always face their wau to Los Angeles. American system does give more hope, it is not Euro model where most teams will never ever compete for the title, but I think the system where teams try to win every game every time is still a better system over one where there are teams trying to actually lose, in sports...

But it is not just parity. I don't want all the stars to be on one team because then I will never know how good they really are. Sports is great when you truly see someone's potential. If Curry played with Lebron and MJ, we would never know how good Curry, Lebron, and MJ truly are. Their stats would be lowered. But also, can they lead a team as the 1A? We would have never found out.

Also, what is the point of winning games if you can't win the ultimate price?

[JellosJigglin]

The Dodgers/Phillies series was very competitive. Philly easily could have won that series. Every game was close. The Brewers series was definitely not competitive though. Not sure that’s a “super team” issue as much as Milwaukee choking happens every year in baseball.

Ohtani can make the argument of being the best baseball player of all time, and does things at a level that no player is ever doing again in our lifetimes. That’s what will drive the interest for the Dodgers, not the fact that they are a “super team”.

That Philly series was fun to watch. Both teams pitched really well and ultimately the series ended on a panicked error that will live in that pitchers head for the rest of his life.

Honestly this Dodger team is beatable. It's just that Shohei really didn't do much this entire postseason before that last game, so they've been advancing with little contribution from him. When he's on his game, that's when this team goes from really good to scary, like we saw.