The NBA's Parity Problem

If you've been watching the NBA playoffs this year, you were graced with some great basketball matchups and series, including the breakout postseason campaign of Luka Doncic, Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic, Jayson Tatum, and Tyler Herro. You'd think all this young talent would make for an exciting new generation of NBA players eager for a title shot. But then you wake up from your fantasy and realize this new wave of NBA basketball is never going to win a championship because of one man: Lebron James. Yes, he is the root of this parity problem the NBA is facing. Now, I know I'm not the person to criticize the NBA; I'm much more of a hockey fan and because I lack a hearty knowledge of current NBA stats and rosters, I've tried to avoid this subject, but I feel like I have to say something. The NBA is screwed. It's becoming washed up, unoriginal, and might I say, outright boring to watch now. How is it Lebron's fault you ask? Quite simple: he keeps finding his way into the championship. It's what is keeping other players seeking a ring out of the spotlight. Lebron doesn't like to share, which includes the limelight. He wants to be known as the greatest player ever to walk on an NBA court and he hates legit competition. That's why we keep seeing him in the playoffs dominating it year in and year out. 

"But wait," you say, "if there's truly no parity in the NBA, then why did the Raptors, a Canadian team, finally win a championship last year?" Easy, they beat a depleted Warriors team and rode the hot hand of Kahwi Leonard to the promised land. Now keep in mind, last year was the first season Lebron James wasn't in the playoffs at all due to nagging injuries and a shitty Lakers team. So what did he do? He made them pull off the trade for Anthony Davis in order to get back to the NBA Finals. Low and behold, that is where he and Davis landed, in what turned out to be a very easy road to the Finals, despite coming up against James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Damian Lillard, and Nikola Jokic on the journey there. They couldn't stop Lebron or his Lakers. This just shows Lebron's out to dominate the NBA for another three or four years, which will probably include one or two championships on the way. If Lebron keeps taking the chances of winning titles from the rest of the league, it will look like the NBA has learned nothing from the Warriors and Heat super teams. You can only have dynasties for a short period of time in today's game. Without parity or new blood, the sport becomes stagnate. I don't care if there are potential heirs for the next best in the world in Doncic and Giannis. They need to win a Finals trophy in order to be considered as some of the world's best players.

"Wait a minute though, if there's no parity, why do we keep having a different MVP each season?" Imagine you are the NBA commissioner. You know that you have one of the best basketball players to ever play the game in your league for over 17 years. His reputation has been established far and wide; everyone knows about his greatness. Do you realize the media meltdown that would happen if Lebron won the MVP every single year? They would immediately cry wolf and claim the NBA is bending the knee to House James. The NBA is obligated to find the next best player to Lebron. Durant, Steph Curry, Westbrook, Harden, and Giannis have all had MVP caliber campaigns, yet they have all suffered failures in the postseason, save Steph and KD.  Durant, though, realized joining a superteam was his best shot at winning a ring in the short term. Much like his counterpart Lebron, Durant got his when he linked up with other superstars and a genius head coach. This is where the parity problem comes into play. The best NBA players have now decided that it's easier to link up with one another for a couple years to win a ring rather than wait for an organization to get it right. It's becoming the new narrative in the modern NBA. That's why we keep seeing Lebron in the Finals. He keeps joining teams he knows he's got the best shot to win titles with. You don't see this kind of thing happen in the NHL, NFL, or MLB, or even in the MLS. These other sports teams are built by executives without player input. If Lebron James played hockey and demanded they trade Alexander Ovechkin to his team in order to win the Stanley Cup, any competent NHL GM would laugh in his face. Those kinds of deals rarely happen in hockey; they rarely happen in any sport nowadays save a handful of moments. Most players wait for free agency, then sign with a team they know are serious contenders for championships. 

I might be grasping at straws here but you don't see these kinds of trends in the NHL. Clubs don't make super teams in hockey; not only because financially they couldn't afford more than two elite forwards and defensemen plus a goalie, and it is also such a well-rounded team sport that we have witnessed Stanley Cup-winning teams completely miss the playoffs the next season. Do you know how much roster turnover an NHL franchise can go through in one offseason? It's reasons like this why hockey is typically a toss-up. Recently, the NBA has experienced some monumental trades like Paul George to the Clippers. That, however, shows how risky some GMs in basketball are willing to be just at the chance of sniffing a ring. (PS: The Clippers lost in the second round of the playoffs and don't have a single first-round pick...) Throw all caution into the wind and you get screwed over for years, which only adds to the parity problem. That's the difference between the NBA and NHL's parity. I know they are two entirely different sports but they share a season so I use them as comparisons. A factor these two sports share is the favorites are never actually the favorites; there are too many external factors like injuries, drops in tactical fluency, trades gone wrong, etc. However, as we saw with the Clippers' elimination to the Nuggets, trading considerable assets for big names doesn't necessarily guarantee success. I think the NBA is only going to fix its parity issues once Lebron retires, which if you can believe it, is not likely to happen any time in the next five years. He's playing at a level above Michael Jordan and all I can do is gawk in admiration. But I stand by what I said, the NBA has a major parity problem that's gone unchecked for quite awhile. You could even argue the 90s were similar with no parity, with Jordan's Bulls making it every year he played. But you have to remember he also retired and that led to the Houston Rockets winning two rings in his absence. It wasn't until Jordan returned that the Bulls kept returning to the Finals. Hell, you could even argue the parity problem was prevalent in the 60s and 80s when it was basically a battle between the Lakers and Celtics most seasons.

One thing this NBA Finals proved was the NBA is returning to old narratives as well as establishing some of the new ones I mentioned earlier. First of all, the Eastern conference is absolute garbage and the gap in talent between East and West is even wider than it was five years ago. The Lakers' total demolishing of the Heat in Game 6 showed that impeccably. A lot of this talent crisis can be attributed to Lebron and Davis's move to the Lakers, Paul George and Kahwi on the Clippers, Doncic and Porzingis in Dallas, Harden and Westbrook in Houston. Look at all those All-Stars and that's only four teams mentioned. The best players in the East are now Giannis, KD, Kyrie, and Embiid, and KD and Kyrie are teammates. They're all great players but they don't have the same kind of competition the Western teams face. Second, the Clippers are still chokers in the second round of the playoffs, which actually helps prove my point about parity. Had they gone to the Western finals, it could've been a much tougher path for Lebron to get to the Finals again. Sadly, the Clippers can't shed their demons and we saw what happened in the end. Thirdly, Lebron continues to establish his legacy as the best player in the league, and it will probably take another team with the caliber and pedigree of KD's Warriors to overthrow him again. This leads me to the last point: this will probably revive the superteam concept and we could see it happen with Giannis next summer. Everyone is desperate to get their hands on some trophies before their windows close. The bad part is we don't know when the windows were even opened. It seems like it's always been Lebron vs. everyone. 

Adam Silver should be happy his biggest and most marketable player, along with one of the most decorated teams in the league's history, won the title. In a league with more parity, we would've seen a much closer series and probably a tougher road for the Lakers to get to the Finals, but alas here we are. I think the NBA needs to seriously ponder its future. How long will it be the Lebron show? Is Giannis going to reach the next level in order to win a championship? Is he going to leave Milwaukee in free agency? How much will that change the landscape of the sport? Will the Clippers get over their playoff woes? What about some of the executive members of the NBA? They have also played a significant role in this problem. Remember how the league forced out Sam Hinkie, the former 76s general manager, for tanking? In the moment, it was a much-needed move in order to stop all the losing by Philly and inject a winning culture. However, shouldn't the NBA be looking at all facets of the team executive hierarchy? If the NBA was seriously committed to creating more competition, don't you think they would've forced out James Dolan as owner of the Knicks? Considering all the bad PR he gets, the feuds he's had with former Knicks players and Spike Lee, and the god-awful basketball the Knicks have put out for the last twenty years, this should've been a no-brainer, but instead, the focus shifted to the idea of tanking intentionally. Somehow, NBA owners have more grief with tanking than allowing guys like Dolan to run awry and keep making stupid decisions. That's bad executive management by the NBA. You can't force out a GM without taking a look at the owner who signed off on the plan in the first place. I rest my case there.

I will give credit where it is due, and I'm looking directly at Lebron James. He's done it again, in spectacular fashion, even during one of the worst crises in recorded history. I know the sports media will talk about his legacy and whether he is the GOAT or if he's still behind Michael Jordan in that regard. I don't really care who the greatest of all-time in the NBA is. We've already seen what each generation of players has to offer. The problem is we will probably see most of those guys like Harden, Westbrook, Chris Paul, Jimmy Butler, and others miss their chances to win a ring because of this lack of parity. Once KD and Kyrie come back, it will only get worse. I only hope the NBA finds a way to make it somewhat more competitive. I don't want to insinuate this was easy for the Lakers, but....I wouldn't say the playoffs were overly competitive either. I trust Adam Silver to find a solution to this problem. Ideally before Lebron James's retirement.