In the NBA, there are strong, absolutely strong teams on both sides of the east and west. But the league produced its fourth different championship team in years last season. This gives new hope to other championship contenders.
In the NBA, there's a modern adage: You either chase championships or chase hope for the future. Only a handful of teams are likely to win the title each season, and every other team is looking for hope for tomorrow: like the sports genius they just selected, like the shrewd managers they just hired, like the draft picks they just collected.
Sometimes hope manifests itself in a more practical and seductive way: a young marksman, for example, dominates his playoff debut, silences a frantic audience, and deliberately bows. Or an organizational genius as an international player who touched a triple-double in the second season of his career.
Eagles fans are dazzled by Troy Young's sudden rise to superstarhood, as well as the possibility of becoming a strong playoff contender for nearly a decade to come. Lone Rangers fans also cheered on Luka Doncic's every dazzling pass and every crucial shot.
In either respect, 23-year-old Trae Young and 22-year-old Doncic are rising superstars who are the kind of players who can undoubtedly change a team and define an era. You can even imagine that in the near future, these two top geniuses, who were swapped in 2018, will meet many times in the finals.
But the wise choice is not to bet on whether they win championships, whether they make the Finals, or even whether they make the playoffs all year round. At least not when the two young stars were in their current squad. That's not to say they're not capable of making these achievements, it's just that in the current NBA, nothing lasts long.
We live in an extremely changeable era. With the tide of superstar turnovers, short-term contracts, harsh luxury tax penalties, and pervasive impatience balancing the balance of power on NBA teams almost every year, we may even be witnessing the disappearance of the NBA dynasty as we know it.
Consider sports illustrated list of the NBA's top 100 players, where nine of the top 19 players (5 of them in the top ten) have changed teams at least once in the past three years.
Consider that four of the five players who have won the NBA Finals MVP in total over the past decade (LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Cowy Leonard, Andre Iguodala) have changed teams at least twice.
Think of the 76ers, a team with two young All-Stars that looked like a long-time contender in June, but now looks like it's in chaos.
Think of the Rockets, who went from being a Western powerhouse to bottom in just a few months last season after james Harden and Russell Westbrook both asked for trades.
Think of the Blazers, who could lose one more game, Damien Lillard, and ask for a trade. Or the Wizards, who could play another bad season and Bradley Beal would leave the team to become a free agent.
Consider the Pelicans, who lost a star (Chris Paul) on a trade application in 2011 and his successor (Anthony Davis) for the same reason in 2019. Now there is a renewed fear that the frustration of continued losses will also have an impact on their new key player, Cain Williamson, who has just entered the third year of their career.
Or think about it, if the Bucks fail to defend their title this season — it's a reasonable scenario, given the strength of the Brooklyn Nets as a super team — then the NBA will have its fifth new championship team in five years. This has not happened since 1977 to 1981.
That is where we are now. It's hard to find a star, it's even harder to find a suitable partner for him, and it's even more difficult to assemble and maintain a high-quality supporting cast for plastic surgery. At least not without incurring a luxury tax of up to tens of millions.
That's why we're seeing such a less coordinated, former 2020 NBA championship, the Lakers. In the championship squad a year ago, they retained only five players, two of whom left the team briefly and returned to the team during this period (Dwight Howard and Rajon Rondo), and one player who failed to play in the 2020 Finals (Tarren Horton Tucker).
The 2019 champion Raptors were quickly crushed by leonard after he left the Clippers in the same year. The Warriors' failure to complete a triple-title streak in 2018 was due to injury, but Durant's defection to the Nets was also one of the reasons.
Even if 2021 champions the Milwaukee Bucks return to the season with their strongest three main players — Giannis Antetokounmpo, Chris Middleton, and Juil Holliday — they've lost a key starter (PJ Tucker) to luxury tax considerations. The luxury tax was also responsible for the demise of James's (immature) Heat dynasty in 2014. During Harden's Rockets period, the Rockets repeatedly declined the quality of the rotation lineup because of the evasion of luxury taxes, which gradually increased Harden's dissatisfaction and eventually led to Harden's trade requests.
Admittedly, it was also the Thunder who first prompted harden to trade to the Houston Rockets in 2012 for avoiding the luxury tax. At the time, the NBA first established a penalty system as part of a collective bargaining agreement issued a year earlier. At the same time, the league has reduced the maximum length of bird rights contracts to 5 years and other contracts to 4 years, which gives the stars an unprecedented advantage in terms of transactions and contracts.
The league management's departure from Harden at the time could almost be described as euphoria. Player sharing was an Orwellian term coined by then-NBA president David Stern to distribute the stars of Hope League more evenly across the 30 teams. The 2011 collective bargain didn't kill super teams as some team owners and league management had hoped, but it made it more difficult to sustain super teams.
"Previously, you might have looked at the next 7 to 10 years of planning," says a long-time team manager who has worked on multiple teams, "now you can only plan for the next 3 to 5 years at most, after all, after that everything can change drastically, and even the plan may be suspended." ”
The Nets showed overwhelming prowess after the additions of Durant, Harden, and Irving — but, given their age, injury history, and some quirky quirks, that doesn't guarantee they'll win a championship, even just one, let alone a dynasty. The Lakers shoved Westbrook into James and Davis, but that cost the Lakers dearly in team depth. Even in the best of circumstances, this is not necessarily a perfect fit. Therefore, this behavior itself is not guaranteed, more like a gamble.
Betting site The oddsmakers predicts we'll see the Nets vs. Lakers finals next June. But if we end up seeing the Bucks vs. Jazz, the Heat vs. Suns, or the Hawks vs. Nuggets, would it really be that shocking? The disappearance of the dynasty, the dispersion of superstars, and the destruction of the Nets and Lakers. But this provides at least one benefit: things do become somewhat even. "It looks like they did get what they wanted," salary cap expert Larry Coon said of the NBA's management. "The question now is:"
Is it better now? ”
This is today's NBA: ephemeral, impermanent, dizzying, and at the same time full of ever-changing rules.
Even the NBA's most recent dynasty, the Warriors of 2014-2019, was built on a once-in-a-lifetime wage cap hike. Because it makes it possible to sign Durant. (Symbolizing that era, their only dynasty rival was not a team, but a man: LeBron James, who led three different teams to the Finals nine times in a decade.)
Can this rearmed, re-out-of-the-box Warriors, with healthy Klay Thompson and MVP-playing Stephen Curry, regain their strength? Will James, who will turn 37 in December, be able to continue to rule the League and establish the Purple And Gold Dynasty? Can the Bucks, who just won their first championship with the All-Star team, win the championship again without a top 10 player except Alphabet Brother?
Can any team maintain their core squad after three to five years? Can the hopeful Hawks be a formidable contender before the luxury tax slowly erodes the lineup that surrounds Trae Young? Can the Lone Rangers find a really suitable partner for Luka Doncic before luka Doncic starts dreaming of going to other wonderful teams after betting on his investment in Kristaps Porzingis?
Possibly in 2025, with the alliance's new televised contract, another wage cap increase will also appear. This could lead to the creation of the next warrior empire. Maybe another figure like LeBron James will come out and rule the league. Maybe some smart general managers can assemble an elite squad without incentivizing a hefty luxury tax. "Someone will always come up with a way." An experienced team executive assured.
Maybe that's true. It's also possible that the NBA we're seeing now — star players wandering around, a changing roster, and a general manager who is anxious all the time — will be a new normal. Whether they are looking for champions or hope for the future, it will not be a long process.