With the lockout all but over and rumors flying like crazy that Chris Paul and Dwight Howard are about to have new homes, possibly together, likely in large media markets, it seems the NBA is ready to enter into the next era. The era seems to be one of a few super teams. The only silver lining that could have possibly emerged from the lockout, and the only real reason to go through that bullshit -- other than to deny Dirk Nowitzki his right as a descendant of the Germanic hordes to throw the first pitch of a World Series game -- was to stem the tide of players abandoning small market teams in droves to go play in a few well chosen cities, effectively reorienting the league as one in which more than 4 teams could compete for a championship, maybe even gaining the parity enjoyed by the NFL. If this was the metric by which to measure the lockout, then the lockout came up shorter than LeBron in game 6. It is now easier for players to abandon the teams that discover and train them for new deals elsewhere. I think the NBA probably did this by arguing from the mistaken premise that what happened in the last twelve months will also happen over the next decade. League management and owners noticed that the decision was a huge gain to the league. It increased revenue, ticket sales, and interest, not just in the Heat, but in the entire league. People started paying attention to basketball in a way they hadn't since Jordan. Great, everyone thought, let's replicate that.
Doing so will likely prove difficult, if not self-defeating. One reason the decision stood out was because it was novel. Not just LeBron's method of delivering his news, but also his choice of going to Miami. But as more and more players follow suit, America will lose interest in Basketball and follow other forms of entertainment. (Even if America would tune in again and again for LeBron to break their hearts and stumble over his prepared remarks, not every player is LeBron, when we get to Bynum's decision, we've started the steady descent to Kris Humphries'.) The dwindling attention the US will attach to hoops will likely be accelerated, not slowed by the fact that, with teams turning players over faster and faster, only the die hard basketball fans will even know who's on their teams. Long gone will be the days the casual fan can say, Tim Duncan, he's killing for us. And, when you lose that, enjoyment of the sport becomes a niche endeavor only attempted by true devotees who try to outflank each other with mastery of the most obscure references and microtrends. This is not the fate you wish on something you want to succeed financially, something you want to avoid the egos and wailing and finger pointing and blame shifting that leads to lockouts.
But it's whatever. Like it or not, we're in the era of super teams. It remains an open question whether the super team formula will succeed. Will Shane Batier sign with the Heat? Will Greg Oden? Will these teams be able to attract enough veteran cogs to build a working machine or will they surround their stars with rosters like that of the Heat? My gut says not really. There are, after all, so many talented veterans to go around and I think they, more than anything, want a sure thing. They're likely to still sign with San Antonio, Dallas, Boston, Los Angeles, and Miami. New York is going to have a hell of a time trying to attract them. And so is whoever else wants to get in on this super teams trend: New Jersey, the Clippers, and everyone else who will try to get several of the best players in the world to join their squads. It is telling that, in the first experiment of super teams (one in which they played a classic team made of a future hall of famer surrounded by a great cadre of role players and veterans who all had a position and played it well), the super team lost to the classic team. Clearly the jury is still out and clearly we're kidding ourselves if we think that the Heat aren't about to win several championships. But when they do, it will likely be because of Battier and Oden's complimentary skills and not just Dwyane Wade and LeBron carrying Bibby around on their backs.
Let's leave that question aside and get at the root cause of the super team phenomenon for a second. There are two basic theories that explain the rise of the super teams. One is that it is a result of a new outlook by a younger generation of Basketball stars. The other is that there are now new opportunities to franchise oneself in giant cities on a larger stage that didn't used to exist. Both of these theories attempt to explain why, in the past, players would, by and large, dance with the teams that brung 'em, and seem to be shifting away from that. The first theory says that Carmello signed in New York, because for him, in our increasingly disjointed world, he didn't really care about the Nuggets and felt little connection to Denver. The second theory says that, in the past, Mr. Anthony wouldn't have been able to sell that much more in Portland or in New York, but that now he can tap into a large and growing media market and really make some money (above and beyond the national commercials that Michael Jordan opened up for everyone). The first theory is unfalsifiable, at least in the immediate, non-mind reading term. The second theory, however, can be falsified by examining the evidence of other players, those also around today but of a slightly different basketball "generation" than the current crop of all stars. These are dudes like Nash, Duncan, and Nowitzki. By looking at these guys and their behavior, we might be able to see whether they are leaving their home cities in droves. What we see is the opposite. In the last couple years, these guys, plus Ginobili, Bryant, and Pierce (delegates of what now counts for the old NBA guard) have all agreed to contract extensions with their current team, despite the possibility (except in Bryant's case) of potentially making more money elsewhere. It would seem that, so far, the trend towards super teams really is one that is based in culture and not economics. That is good in a way because it means that it is reversible and can be undone without taking the drastic step of forcing New York to subsidize Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City mattress commercials. But if we see Steve Nash going to the Heat or the Knicks, it will be too late. The culture will then have totally permeated the NBA from top to bottom, and it will be very hard to remove or change it. This could be a death knell for the sport, leading to diminished public interest, frustration of all fans who happen to not live in a few key cities, and diminished revenue which will again lead to a cessation of basketball and even less interest in the sport.
Let's not get too negative though. Basketball is back. Even if it's top level will only exist in a few locations, at least it's free of the prison of college campuses. Watching the Cleveland Cavaliers will always beat watching the Big East. And, if the super teams attract attention abroad, maybe enterprising young Chinese and Nigerian men will eschew soccer for basketball, raising the quality of NBA players, filling the ranks of the other squads with quality bodies, and, potentially, eliminating the super team trend. Either way, I now have somewhere to go to watch dunks other than here.
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