Part V of a five-part series ahead of the 2024-25 NBA season, chronicling how the league reached this era of parity and the key questions that remain.
• Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV
Going back to the days of George Mikan’s Minneapolis Lakers and continuing through to Stephen Curry’s Golden State Warriors, dynasties have been a hallmark of the NBA.
But perhaps not anymore. Not in the Parity Era.
For the past week, The Athletic’s reporters have explained how and why dynasties appear to be remnants of the past. And, now, we’re expanding the conversation further.
Why would the NBA want parity? Are dynasties good for the game? And just how wide open is the league, really?
To answer those questions and more, The Athletic has assembled Darnell Mayberry, who covers the Chicago Bulls; Law Murray, who covers the LA Clippers; and Josh Robbins, who covers the Washington Wizards.
Why do you think the NBA wants parity?
Darnell Mayberry: Parity sells. Just look at the NFL model. The more each fan base believes its team has a chance to win it all, the more interest the NBA will generate. Fans will shell out more money to attend more games and buy more merchandise. From city to city, business will boom. And the NBA, already heavily investing in its in-season NBA Cup to drum up more interest, will lean on marketing a level playing field come playoff time.
The league also continues taking strides to usher in a more competitive — and more compelling — regular season. The NBA recently took measures to curtail incentives for tanking teams. Now, the new collective bargaining agreement targets teams at the top of the standings. It all should help to make the marathon regular season more enjoyable.
Law Murray: I do not believe that the league wants the kind of parity where a broken clock is right twice a day or a garbage can gets a steak. I believe that we should be clear about that part at least. There has to be authentic parity, not artificial parity.
With that said, you never know who may emerge out of the good teams. And parity in the NBA helps to avoid the artificial super teams that highlighted the 2000s and especially the 2010s. (Who are we kidding, though? It’s sports. Someone is always going to find something to complain about.)
Josh Robbins: Darnell makes a convincing case here: Hope sells, and in team sports, hope creates revenue.
To amplify the point, if the answer to all your questions is money — a saying Tony Kornheiser has, for decades, attributed to the late TV executive Don Ohlmeyer — then we shouldn’t underestimate the power of the second-apron’s harsh penalties to create a de facto hard cap on team salaries and limit team owners’ expenses. It’s good business to prevent costs from spiraling out of control.
But here’s something else to consider. Adam Silver, wisely, has attempted to turn the NBA into a league that captures fans’ attention for 12 months each year. Because the second apron is so punitive and restrictive and because bad contracts are more onerous than ever, drafting well and making smart roster-construction moves have never been more important. We already know that a large segment of fans have an unquenchable interest in the science of roster building; the new collective bargaining agreement should only heighten that interest and, in turn, help the league further its quest to command fans’ attention. This might not have been one of the rationales behind the new CBA, but heightening year-round interest will be a welcome byproduct.
Because of the new collective bargaining agreement, are super teams a thing of the past?
Mayberry: Don’t bet on it. The CBA can’t stop super teams. Nothing can truly dissuade players from teaming up when they have their hearts set on doing so. Given how much players make now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a star sacrifice top dollar to get his team a smidgen closer.
We saw a preview with Jalen Brunson inking a team-friendly extension with the New York Knicks this summer. While I don’t envision a star signing anywhere for the minimum, it would be nothing for him to take significantly less to chase a championship on a one-year deal. Somebody somewhere will someday take a massive pay cut to pursue a title. And the rest of the league will be incensed.
Murray: It depends on what we’re calling a super team. Sure, free-agency loopholes helped create The Decision in 2010 and Kevin Durant’s next chapter in 2016. It’s rich when the old heads discuss how they would never have teamed up with their friends or rivals to win earlier in the 1980s. You don’t have to team up when you’re fleecing Ted Stepien’s teams for future first-round picks.
But I digress. There will always be super teams because they’re always going to be subjective. To Darnell’s point, there’s always going to be some owner, or front office, or even players who simply don’t care and will challenge the limits of what you can do in terms of team building and earning potential. The real query might be whether or not those bold line steppers get rewarded accordingly or not.
Robbins: With Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal on his roster, the Phoenix Suns’ deep-pocketed Mat Ishbia certainly seems to think super teams can work. The Suns will provide an interesting test case. Can the Phoenix front office surround Durant, Booker and Beal with enough high-level role players to win a title? The CBA is working against them.
But the short answer is no, I don’t think super teams are a thing of the past. In the modern NBA, trades are the new free agency, and the biggest superstars continue to hold tremendous power over their own teams.
Would parity in the NBA mean every team is average?
Mayberry: Not necessarily. But it probably depends on the eye of the beholder. One person’s view of parity easily could clash with how another feels about bunched standings. And we’ll always have one or two elite teams, as well as the also-rans who can’t get right.
I actually thought last year provided a great example of how parity can exist even while the league maintains quality play. Eight franchises from the Eastern Conference won at least 46 games. Ten franchises from the Western Conference won at least 46 games. I view it as quality. I wouldn’t need to look far to find an opposing view.
Murray: I feel like we have to put some more respect on these teams. Wins don’t come in the mail, you have to go out and earn what you get in the NBA. And some teams are going to be built better, players will maintain and establish star status, coaches will coach better. The level of competition is rising, not plateauing. Teams can’t rest as much as they might have at the end of the 2010s. The NBA Cup made the autumn portion of the season more eventful than it had been in years. The Play-In Tournament has made the playoff bubble more interesting. There’s more to play for, and it’s not just because of the collective bargaining agreement. There are still buyers and sellers. No team wants to be in the middle, and the league is set up to accelerate some of these rebuilding efforts. If anything, the “average” teams are even more threatening than they had been in the past.
Robbins: No. A flat-out no. And why’s that? If the last two decades have taught us nothing else about the NBA, it’s that you must have at least one superstar (or, to put it another way, a truly “elite” player) to win a championship. OK, it’s true that six different teams have won the last six NBA titles, and that variety of winners is one measure of parity. But each of those champions — the Raptors, Lakers, Bucks, Warriors, Nuggets and Celtics — featured at least one player who already was considered a superstar when that postseason began; those superstars were Kawhi Leonard, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Nikola Jokić and Jayson Tatum.
I’m talking about the elite of the elite. The reality is, that uppermost tier of truly great players is composed of so few members that there simply aren’t enough truly great players to populate all 30 teams. So, no, not every team will be average. The teams with elite players will have a chance to separate themselves. The teams without a transcendent player will be so far behind the eight ball that total parity, in which all 30 teams have a chance to win a title, does not, and will not, exist.
Are dynasties good for the NBA?
Mayberry: I don’t like dynasties. I respect them. I appreciate the enormous commitment they require from all corners of any franchise that achieves it. But I don’t have to like dynasties to believe they’re still good for the NBA. It’s almost impossible to argue that they’re not.
The Warriors, Celtics, Lakers, Bulls, Pistons and Spurs have all built rabid fan bases in large part because of their dynasty days. The league will always have a robust market of loyal customers whenever a franchise forms a dynasty. Scores of fans here in Chicago (and around the world) still reminisce about the Bulls’ glory days from nearly three decades ago.
Murray: I’m with Darnell on respecting dynasties. But let’s call it what it is. A lot of fans and media want permission to not care about a lot of these teams. I get why some people need dynasties to be interested in the league, and how those dynasties carry crossover appeal. I just feel like that’s a casual approach. I always despised hearing how the league is better when “Team X” is good. I’m over here thinking about “Team Y” and “Team Z,” the ones where I guess the league isn’t at its best when those teams are dominating. If dynasties are good for the NBA, cool. Keep that same energy for the Charlotte Hornets and New Orleans Pelicans dynasties then.
Robbins: Who wouldn’t respect a dynasty? Winning one title is difficult as hell. Winning several titles in a compressed timespan is a remarkable achievement.
But I think it’s more accurate to say that great players facing other great players in as many competitive, high-stakes games as possible is what’s best for the NBA.
Yes, the Magic Johnson/Kareem Adbul-Jabbar Showtime Era Lakers were as close to a dynasty as we saw in the 1980s, but what made them so captivating is that they had to overcome Julius Erving’s 76ers and Larry Bird’s Celtics to make them great. What made those Celtics teams great is that they had to overcome Dr. J’s Sixers in the early ’80s and the Lakers throughout the decade. Isiah Thomas’ “Bad Boys” Pistons had to overcome Bird’s Celtics. And Michael Jordan’s Bulls had to unseat Isiah’s Pistons.
So, sometimes I think hot-take artists emphasize the wrong thing when they say dynasties are good for sports. Great competition and teams bringing out the best in each other is what’s good for sports. And preferably, the more charismatic the players, the better.
With the 2024-25 season just days away, do you think parity exists within the NBA right now?
Mayberry: I do, absolutely. My hunch is that we’ll see the standings jumbled similarly to a season ago. There will be six or seven 50-win teams and a lot more 46-win franchises. The amount of talent that’s now sprinkled across the league has coupled with the power of the 3-point shot to make most nights an unpredictable toss-up.
But my definition of parity starts in June before I work my way backward. The NBA Finals participants, not just the champion, tell the story of parity for me. If the Celtics and Mavericks are the last two standing for the second consecutive season, I’ll change my tune. But I can’t see a rematch coming, or even multiple upcoming finals appearances for either franchise as a safe bet.
New blood in the final round matters, at least for me. It gets old seeing the same stars and the same franchises compete for championships. I’m a fan of this new era of parity.
Murray: Well, this isn’t football, or those other sports where you can struggle to score and somehow still win your division after being the worst team in the league the year before. Basketball has a way of getting the cream to rise to the top. Unlike the other sports, scoring is expected. So if you are a bad team, you still aren’t going anywhere except the lottery. I think we should be clear on that. There are levels to this. And if you want to win a championship, you’d still better be a top-three seed. You can still count on one hand and have fingers left over how many teams have won the title without being at least that good.
On the flip side, look at the contendership. Everyone is familiar with the whole last six champions item. It goes deeper than that. No team has repeated as its conference champion either in the last five seasons — 2019 was the last time that the conference finals had four top-three seeds.
So long story short, there is parity to contend. We’re likely to get some random team breaking through to the conference finals in 2025. But if you want to win a title, you have to be really good. You also have to show signs of being close to breaking through. The only champions in the last 10 years that didn’t have at least a conference finals appearance in the prior three seasons before winning it all were the 2014-15 Warriors and the 2019-20 Lakers. One of those teams needed another guy to establish a dynasty. And the other team had LeBron James on it, a dynasty unto himself, although one that the Lakers failed to extend beyond the bubble.
Robbins: The league is closer to parity, at least among its top teams. But total championship parity, in which at least half the teams have a legit chance to win the title in a single season, remains unrealistic. We may be living in a golden age of talent, but there just aren’t enough upper-tier players to go around for the majority of times to have a chance to win a championship.
Let’s use this season’s NBA GM Survey as a rough guide here. In the East, league GMs have identified five teams capable of reaching the NBA Finals: the Celtics, Knicks, Sixers, Bucks and maybe the Cavaliers. In the West, there are six: the Mavericks, Timberwolves, Thunder, Nuggets, Grizzlies and Suns. (OK, I know I’m leaving out some teams on the fringes of conference-title contention, namely the Magic, Pacers, Pelicans and Warriors.)
Count ‘em up, and that’s roughly 11 of the 30 teams capable of winning a conference title.
That’s progress in terms of achieving parity. But it’s not total parity. As Law said, “There are levels to this.” Right now, the upper levels appear to be more inclusive than ever. It’ll be fascinating to see how much wider the group will become.
(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Patrick T. Fallon / AFP; Nic Antaya / Elsa / Getty Images; John W. McDonough / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)