Does the NBA have a parity issue?

Parity

Let’s define parity first. Parity, when used in the sports realm, refers to the fact that teams in a league have roughly equivalent levels of talent. This creates more competitive games as the ‘best’ team is not significantly better than the so called ‘worst’ in the league. Winners cannot be easily predicted in advance and makes for a more thrilling environment.

NBA

One of the reasons I have not been able to enjoy the NBA over the recent years is the lack of parity in the league. From the four year span of 2015-2018, the Cleveland Cavaliers won the Eastern conference all four years. On the Western side of the conference, the Golden State Warriors came out on top all four years as well.

So, the same two teams battled for the Larry O’Brien trophy in June. This lack of different teams in the championship showed the lack of parity of the league during this time span.

And this all stems from the players deciding to take their fate into their own hands. As a player, you feel like you have all the answers and can start deciding what is best for the team, and ultimately yourself.

Nothing wrong with that, right? While it may have been beneficial to the players themselves, it has been detrimental to the league.

Player Movement / Super teams

In the 2003 draft, LeBron James, Chris Bosh, and Dwayne Wade were all selected in the first five picks. Yet in 2010, all three of these players ended up on the same team, thanks to LeBron James joining the Miami Heat in free agency. Welcome to the Super team era!

What this effectively did was increase the gap between the NBA’s best team and worst team, significantly I might add. Now you have 29 other teams scrambling to try to keep up with the Miami Heat to try to give them a run for the title.

Naysayers will say LeBron did not start the super team era, because the Heat lost to the Dallas Mavericks in their first season together, so they were not the overwhelming best team. Sure, they lost that first season, then went on to win the championship the next two seasons. After making the finals for the 4th straight time, the Heat lost to the San Antonio Spurs.

LeBron James left Miami after four years and joined forces with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love with the Cavaliers. Ultimately, if other teams wanted to compete in the NBA, what are they going to do? Build a super team as well. This is exactly the formula that the Golden State Warriors used. A couple years later, the Warriors went out and signed Kevin Durant, to try to further separate themselves from the league.

Easily Predictable

This leaves the rest of the league a couple notches below the top 3/4 teams in the league. And what ends up happening is that at the beginning of the season, we can start to predict who is going to make the championship and win said title quite easily. This makes sports as an entertainment purpose irrelevant. No parity.

As a future sport manager, if people know who is going to win, why bother watch the game? This affects attendance directly and creates lack of interest from the fans.

Conclusion

With the creation of super teams in the NBA, it has furthered the gap between the good teams and the bad teams. This creates a lack of interest in the fans because the games become easily predictable. It all comes back to the NBA’s lack of parity in the league.

Did LeBron James start the super team movement? Leave a comment below! Thanks for reading!