Early Monday afternoon Kevin Durant, the NBA’s top free agent, announced he would be leaving Oklahoma City for the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors are coming off their second straight Finals appearance, and far from need another top 5 NBA talent on their roster.
The NBA has become notorious in recent years for players joining “super teams” in hopes of dominating the rest of the league and winning multiple titles. The first of these teams was formed in the off-season of 2007. The Boston Celtics made two blockbuster trades in less than a month and acquired Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to team with Paul Pierce. The Celtics won 66 games and the NBA championship in the first year of the big 3. Once again in 2010 Boston won the Eastern Conference but fell short of winning their 2nd title falling to the Lakers. As Boston’s big three began to disband the Miami Heat were attempting to build a dynasty of their own.
The summer of 2010 brought on one of the most talked about free agents of all time, Lebron James. Several teams made their best pitch to the then 2 time MVP and 6 time All-Star. Then on a nationally televised special by ESPN James announced to the world that he would be “taking my talents to South Beach”. The NBA would then see complete dominance by the Heat as they would go on to make four straight Finals appearances, and won two of them. James then decided in 2014 and was combined with point guard Kyree Irving and newly acquired Kevin Love. The Cavaliers have made the finals in the past two years and of course won it all just this past season. There have been other unsuccessful attempts to build super teams in cities like New York and Houston. However, seeing success in Boston, Miami and Cleveland has set a potentially fatal president In the NBA.
With Durant now headed to a Golden State team that already has a 2 time MVP in Steph Curry and All-Star players Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, other Western Conference could find it nearly impossible to compete. Durant is a 7 time All Star, former MVP, and 5 times was named to the All-NBA first team. Combining his elite scoring and ability to take over a game at will with Golden State’s elite scorers makes a dangerous All-Star team that will play in regular NBA games. Golden State is coming off of a 73 win season which is the most recorded by a team in the regular season. With Durant’s signing, the Warriors in all seriousness could be the first undefeated regular season team in NBA history.
The NBA has a huge problem on their hands if these super teams are allowed to keep forming. Having a league with only 3 or 4 teams with a real chance of winning a championship will eventually start to negatively affect the other teams. A lot of criticism has been made about the 76ers tanking the last three seasons in hopes of acquiring enough young talent to one day form a championship team. Somehow a team trying to improve from within has been considered “bad for the league” than has star players all choosing to sign with one team to seemingly walk to a championship. If the Sixers are able to build a perennial contender through tanking, you will undoubtedly see more of the lower end teams in the league begin to do so. Having just one team tank at a time isn’t much to write home about, however if there are five or six teams all tanking at the same time then you will start to see less and less interest in the league.
Fans of NBA teams will only accept for so long seeing the same teams compete for a championship every year before they start to tune out. Losing fan interest will start to lead to other unfortunate situations for some of the teams in the league. Smaller market franchises such as the Utah Jazz and Sacramento Kings who are among the teams who are on the bubble of making the playoffs most years would begin to look for more lucrative opportunities in other cities if fan support starts to take a nose dive. In the Kings’ case, they have already discussed the possibility of relocation in recent years, and it was voted against. However, if Sacramento fans lose interest and hope, and if the organization can’t bring in players to improve the team they may have no other option. The league can only survive so long on having such predictable outcomes to their seasons.
Adam Silver and the NBA front office needs to somehow control their star players all banding together on the same team. Just as David Stern did when he blocked a trade in 2011 that would send Chris Paul to the dominant Lakers. There probably isn’t one cut and dry solution to this problem that will please everyone, but some kind of regulation has to be put in place. As a fan of a rebuilding NBA team, I find it very discouraging for the future of my team to produce a championship if the teams they are going against are made up of several top 10 players. The NBA is in trouble as I see it, and should get a handle on this issue before they lose all control of it.
