Looking over the league..who has been really hurt by all this? All these mega teams.

[Kblaze8855]

Ive seen such anger by some over the way some of these teams are coming together. I just have to ask what do these people think is gonna happen? What has happened so far? Who is being hurt?


Im not asking which teams are worse. Clearly the Raptors, Cavs, Nuggets, Suns, and so on all lost key players. My question is...is the league full of more bad teams as a result? Teams that dont have a good future already mapped out? Who is left to just struggle and have their fans stay home and...ruin the league...the way some fans are making all this out?

Im gonna not even cover the teams that clearly are loaded or at least very talented. So im throwing out the Heat, Lakers, Celtics, Magic, Knicks, Spurs(3 all star level players and like...5 quality role players?), Hawks(not loaded...but too talented to have their ability to get talent discussed), Mavs(same as the Hawks).

Middling teams like the Jazz, Blazers(even with all their curses...on pace for like 50 wins), Memphis, and Hornets. Thunder somewhere between the first two levels. Have 2 young stars and their future is not in question though.

Bad teams.

We have Minny, GS, Charlotte, Philly, NJ, Toronto, Cleveland, the Wizards, Clippers, and I guess Rockets, Bucks, Pistons, Pacers and Kings.

The Nuggets arent bad going forward. They have a flat out stacked guard/swingman lineup and a quality bigman. The Nuggets arent a team to pity right now. With good coaching they could be solid next year.

So...the rest.

Minny? Them being bad has nothing to do with the mega teams stacking up all the talent. KG got older...they decided to rebuild. Cant blame drafting mistakes and an obvious 2-3 year plan on the lack of availiable stars. They had one. Got all they could and went from scratch with a younger bigman. Didnt work out. Starting again. Cant blame anyone though. Nobody outside Minny at least.

GS? They have sucked for all but like....2 seasons since Run TMC. Anyone really blaming them being bad on the stars wanting to team up? Besides they have 2 potential all stars in the backcourt, David Less, AB, and Wright. Not an untalented team.

The Cavs and Raptors...suck. sure. Lebron and Boshs doing. But lets be real. The Cavs have only won 50 games 3 times in the 34 non Lebron years. He didnt ruin some tradition of greatness. And neither did Bosh. The Raptors have not been a team to take serious ever. They got within a jumper of the ECF I know...but...cmon. You know that team wasnt gonna do anything. They peaked at 47 wins in 15-16 years. And in year one of a rebuild...everyone sucks. Always gonna be bottom dwellers.

Wizards, NJ, Clippers, and the Kings are all in rebuild mode and 3 of them already have potential franchise cornerstones(Clippers and Kings have potential superstar duos). And one that doesnt has 2 guys talked about as all stars.

Even with Yao out...the Rockets arent a bad team talent wise. Brooks, Martin, Scola, Battier, and Hayes would be taken on any team in the league and get their minutes. Sure cant blame Yao on anyone.


Really...you have the Bucks, Philly, Pistons, and Pacers as the eyebrow raising teams that might make you wonder "If things were more even...could they have the star to push them over the hump?". But then you look at it...

The Bucks have had their presumed leader hurt for like..3 years. And Jennings and Bogut hurt lately(Bogut last year). They still have 2 young guys to build around and aren no more than 1 piece away. Could one of these jumped up star teams spare a guy to make them a 50 win team if healthy? Sure. But not like they had one of them to begin with. The Bucks have not had a team star since Ray Allen and no true elite player since Moncrief if not Kareem. Cant blame that one anyone else.

The Pistons did themselves in. Won like 59 games they blew up the team as it was aging. Nobody made them do it. And then they spent all their cap money a season early. Again...who is there to blame outside their front office?

The Pacers? I'll just say this...watch them 2-3 times. They arent untalented. They arent good...but they arent without the talent needed to be decent.

Philly again...you have to blame them. Not like Philly has historically been a place that cant draw a star. They just had the #2 pick and took Turner. Looks liek a bad decision so far...but who knows? Whatever it is its nobody elses fault they arent great. And they have played pretty well lately anyway.

The suns are gonna be god awful when Nash is gone...but as I said you always have a few. Nobody forced them not to give Amare what he wanted. I keep reading that they could have signed him to a max deal a year or two ago. Didnt want to do it. Its Amares fault he then ends up on the Knicks who would giveh im all the money in the world? Blame Phoenix for the Knicks getting talented overnight. Besides...it really wasnt overnight. It was a multi year plan that worked out. Not gonna hate on foresight because teams are dumb enough to let a star walk for nothing.



For real...look over the league. Like 12 teams have serious talent. 8 or 9 that dont are poised for a solid future and have no reason to despair. We have at best...11 awful teams who arent set with one or a pair of future stars. And half of them are in the first year or two of a total rebuild.

The teams that seem to just be treading water with no shore in sight are like....the Pistons, Bobcats, and Bucks. Pacers perhaps. The Rockets. And none of those teams aside from probably the Pistons are on some "There is just...no hope" shit. The Bobcats dont even have fans. They just have people who go to games because they have an NBA team close by(I live in the Carolinas...never met anyone who repped the Bobcats...not one time and there used to be plenty of Hornet fans).

Who is really being hurt by all this?

Why are people on here begging for change, mad at players, acting like guys are "punks" and all that?

What has actually been lost?

Is someone gonna come in here and say the NBA lost its...spirit or something?

Is anyone gonna tell me they arent hyped by the idea of a loaded Bulls vs Loaded Knicks and 4 star Celtics+ Shaq vs the Heat matchup in the ECSF and the Lakers/Oklahoma and Spurs/Mavs in the West?

Depending on how it shakes out...there might be 7-9 guys who have been on an all star level in recent years playing in the finals.

And some people are upset? Because several teams that have always sucked suck again...and a few other teams waste lottery picks or have injury issues?

There are almost NO teams in the NBA that dont have talent or a future and almost all of them either brought it on themselves on purpose for a rebuild...or had an instant rebuild forced on them by not trading stars who were clearly headed out of town(Bosh...Amare...). The ones who didnt bring it on themselves are in the first stages of a rebuild.

I dont see that having 30 stars on the top 10-12 teams has actually hurt the league...or how it could going forward. The loss of fake fans? Anyone who would bail on his team when down...isnt a real fan to begin with. And would no doubt be replaced by a gang of bandwaggoners hopping on some other team(bey your life...the Knicks got new "fans" tonight).

Is the league even gonna lose fans at all? I find it unlikely.

There arent any more untalented teams than usual.

It seems to be the talent pool has caught up with expansion and there are more than enough good players for everyone to have 2-3 to build around.

Problem is like...12 teams are run by idiots, have stars who are hurt, are or in the process of building teams from stratch. All but 3 of the from scratch teams are by choice. And 2 of the 3 could have done with the Nuggets did...and chose not to.

What signs are there that in the future some small market or non attractive location wont be able to compete?

Most of the teams that suck now...always sucked anyway.

What has actually changed about the league going forward...that will hurt it...more than a gang of godly matchups will help it? I think its far more likely the league is headed for what will be looked back on as a golden age than anything that has happened will sink the league into...whatever the angry people think is going to happen that clearly wont.


Also...

Anyone searching for a "did not read" picture...at least make it a funny one. I like the ones with animals or babies..

[EleganceD]

Anyone searching for a "did not read" picture...at least make it a funny one. I like the ones with animals or babies..

Done.

[DuMa]

the nba has always been a top heavy league since the mid-70s. the sucky teams that kept getting added every 5-10 years will always suck, with the exception of miami, thats the way the NBA has always worked. frankly the NBA will never be a competitive all around, revenue sharing league like the NFL. it just doesnt work that way with the economics and the scheduling.

[bdreason]

How about the Nets who almost broke the record for worst record all-time last season, and the Cavs who broke the record for most consecutive losses this season...


It isn't a coincidence that the NBA is now producing some of the worst teams in the history of the league (statistically).


Is it bad for league revenues? I don't know.


From a competitive standpoint it certainly isn't helping the other 20+ teams in the league who enter the season with no chance of competing.

[ashbelly]

The return of the golden age With the east dominating I really surprised at how poorly the bucks have performed. They looked good on paper but with the Knicks trade, even if redd is coming back, they are basically screwed for this season atleast.

[eliteballer]

The POINT is...that fans of smaller markets "less sexy" teams feel like they have way to compete and thus no reason to follow the NBA/basketball.

[RedBlackAttack]

As I posted in the Melo to NY thread...

Complete parity has never really existed in the NBA. But, parity is one thing... This massive concentration of franchise-level players all in their primes is something else. There will always be really great teams, mediocre teams and bad teams in every sports league.

The thing that leagues try to do is to find that balance between maintaining its great teams and still putting out a quality product in the other markets. This new trend is threatening that balance.

[MavsPoke]

[Jasper]

will the league go into contraction ... heII no.

The league has increased in quality players , and back in the 60's , 70's when I first started watching you had 1-2 players on a team that were stars and the rest role players.

My Bucks have a deep team , with only one star in Bogut , yet they have some very good players.

1/2 league will get fresh talent as well as current talent that is in the league world wide.
The teams with 3-4 stars like the Lakers will start to have issues with the new contract the NBA is going to put into place.

Melo , screwed Denver as a small market team as did Kareem with Milwaukee , but yet Milwaukee was very competitive in the 80's as will the Nuggets in a few years.

The real issue is that the league is not balanced with ALL-STARS and elite players , and as history shows us , championships are only won by a few team franchises , which really needs to change to give fans some real go to power.
----------------
I hate the Packers , but here in my home state of Wisc. it was huge, not only for the economy and spirit of the fans , but also for the league.
THAT IS WHAT needs to happen in the NBA.

[crisoner]

The Cavs.......

[bdreason]

And I wanted to add that these "superteams" kill the one great equalizer in the NBA; the NBA draft.

Now bad/small market teams can't even dream of getting lucky in the draft and building a contender. Even if you draft a LeBron James like player... so what? You need 2-3 LeBron like players to win a title.



Small market teams literally have nothing to look forward to. Landing a superstar in the draft does little but gaurantee a playoff spot. The NBA draft means nothing.

[ILLsmak]

I read most of it... lol.

The thing is, man, you are looking at it in the wrong way, too. Even though there is a ton of talent on those big teams, and there is... they are also stealing the quality role players, too. Any experienced role player wants to play on a contender, and they go to a top team.

If you look at teams like Sacramento and LAC... they have talent, but they need some quality role players. They need guys that can do it every night. They are never gonna get those guys unless they get insanely lucky and even then they might lose out to them because even though they could win there, they are better off for their legacy in a larger market.


Look at Miami and what they took in on that team. not only did they get 3 stars (2 greater than the other, but still) but they pulled in Eddie House and Mike Miller... two great role playing shooters. At least, that's what they were looked at as. Big Bodies... they picked up Z and Dampier.

Same with the Celtics team that won. They get Eddie House, they get James Posey, they get PJ Brown. That's something that really puts a team over the edge.

And look at the Bulls. They pull in Boozer, but they also got quality role players.

-Smak

[Gundress]

NBA = Hip-Hop

[DeronMillsap]

NBA = WWE

FIXED

[DuMa]

no offense to small market teams but the nba will be the most popular professional sport in the USA, if all the big market teams are contending for a title every year. its just the way the NBA model works.