The Year of Parity, Chapter 2: Competitive Balance and the Era of Star Duos

November 7th, 2019 | by Steve Godfrey

It’s the era of star duos. But Utah has multiple impact players who have never been All-Stars (via Utahjazz.com)

For the first time in a very long time, the NBA is balanced. The era of superteams has apparently passed and the year of parity has begun. For once in a very long time, eight to ten teams could make their case as NBA Finals contenders, and potentially even find themselves there. One such team resides in Salt Lake City. The Jazz have legitimate hope. How did the NBA end up here and will this trend last the entire season are two questions I want to answer not just now, but all the way until June 2020.  Our Steve Godfrey is taking an extended look at the NBA’s 2019-20 season: The Year of Parity. Part one can be found here. 

Chapter Two: Competitive Balance and the Era of Star Duos

Throughout the summer of 2019, the buzzword was parity. By definition, parity is the state or condition of being equal, especially regarding status. Usually connected to pay and the workplace, the definition resonated with the future of the NBA due to the fact that handfuls of teams could consider themselves on a more equal playing field than in the past. Specifically, handfuls of teams found themselves in the same social standing of contenders. 

Go through the list of NBA franchises and dial up the biggest tandems in the league. If you are trying to find the most formidable of lineups and the biggest pairings of “superstars,” you’d probably start with the 76ers. In Philly, a super-team could theoretically be argued with a combination of Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris, and Al Horford rocking their starting lineup. Technically, they have All-Stars and All-Star level talent, but age, fit, and style would leave you wondering if the term can truly connect.
In Utah, the non-All-Star super-team would consist of Mike Conley, Rudy Gobert, and Donovan Mitchell, which could all make a leap playing together this year. Last month, Tim MacMahon of ESPN wrote a piece on the Jazz titled “The no-All Star super-team?” where he argued in favor of Utah’s pitch to be a title contender despite having a bonafide superstar on the roster. MacMahon said, “an argument can be made that the Jazz have the best collection of non-All-Star talent the league has seen,” but that title, or lack thereof, doesn’t mean much to the players who deserve it.  “All-Stars or no All-Stars,” Gobert said, “we’re going to win a lot of games.” New addition Mike Conley watched best friend Marc Gasol celebrate a championship – literally Face Timed each other while champagne flew in the locker room – and it gave him a “sense of hope.” It came from his mouth and connects to the Utah Jazz, but how many other players might’ve said something just like this: 

“Seeing Marc accomplish it, seeing a different team other than Golden State or a LeBron-led team win a championship, seeing it happen, I think a lot of teams feel that way,” Conley said. “Like, ‘Hey, we can win this.”

Outside of Philly and maybe Utah, can threes or four be argued anywhere else? If you are going to stretch for Utah to make those three fit as super-team, you’d have to stretch for Boston with Kemba Walker, Gordon Hayward, and Jayson Tatum, too. After that, you jump into twos. Look at how the talent is distributed: 
  • LA Lakers: Anthony Davis, LeBron James
  • LA Clippers: Kawhi Leonard, Paul George
  • Milwaukee: Giannis, Kris Middleton
  • Portland: Damian Lillard, C.J. McCollum
  • Golden State: Steph Curry, DeAngelo Russell (until Klay Thompson returns)
  • Houston: James Harden, Russell Westbrook
I’d argue these six teams have the clearest assembly of dynamic duos, but another tier could be made with a few other teams with an argument as well. 
  • Dallas: Luka Doncic, Kristaps Porzingis
  • San Antonio: DeMar DeRozen, LaMarcus Aldridge
  • Denver: Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray
  • Brooklyn: Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, when he returns
In all, that’s 13 teams who believe they have a foundation of stars to work towards title contention with. Some others, like Phoenix, Atlanta, and Minnesota, have solid A+ stars in their youth who are just waiting to find the right sidekick to make it work. Future duos, many years down the road, could be bubbling in Memphis or New Orleans. We haven’t even mentioned Jimmy Butler (Miami), Pascal Siakim (Toronto),  Bradley Beal (Washington) or the veteran Chris Paul (Oklahoma City) who are good on name alone, but stuck in no-mans land when it comes to superstar teammates.

All the preseason polls and rankings came to the same consensus, too. When Sports Illustrated unveiled their Top 100, eight teams had two players in the Top 30. Two teams had three: Philly and Utah. According to ESPN’s BPI, five Western Conference teams entered the season with close to, or more than, 10% chance to reach the NBA Finals. The order might surprise you: Utah at 23%, Houston at 20%, Denver at 19%, LAC at 16%, and LAL at 9%. When they released their top 100 of players, it was almost identical to the theme Sports Illustrated had discovered. A Jazz fan on twitter (@Jacobrexlee) added up the rankings for starting fives of some of the biggest teams in the NBA, then divided it by five to come up with an average. By doing so, he learned that the Jazz had the best average, 33.6, followed by Philly at 35 and the Clippers at third with 44.

The point is: the talent is plenty in the NBA, and the talent is plenty distributed, too. 

 

******************

An interesting article from Salman Ali at Fansided referenced the year of 2014 as perhaps the last year where balance could be felt throughout the NBA. By the end of that season, nine teams won over 50 games. Even better, five seven-game series were in the first round. Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and LeBron James were in their fourth season together, but the west was gunning them down and the end felt near. Interestingly enough, it was Kawhi Leonard as Finals’ MVP to take down his first super-team, as the San Antonio Spurs defeated the Miami Heat 4-1 in the NBA Finals. 

Last year, eight teams crossed that 50 game threshold and a sense of competitive balance could be felt in the league, despite the stacked roster in Golden State.  Helping the case was that the East was getting better. The Milwaukee Bucks, Toronto Raptors, and Philadelphia 76ers each had 50+ wins and were title contenders, while the #4 and #5 seeds were close. Boston won 49 games in a year of chaos while the Indiana Pacers won 48, many without all-star Victor Oladipo. 

At the All-Star break of 2019, Adam Silver spoke on competitive balance. He said:

“You can point to teams like Milwaukee, teams like Oklahoma City, what’s happening in Denver now and Sacramento as signs that the system is working better than it has historically. I’d say we still have work to do, though. … We can still come up with a better system to create more competition. I look at the NFL, which among sports leagues, probably has the best parity and the best system in terms of creating competition than any league I’m familiar with. Yet the New England Patriots have been in the Super Bowl nine out of the last 18 years. And I don’t think anyone points to that as a sign that the system isn’t necessarily working. What people recognize is you want parity of opportunity.”

Ultimately, the Golden State Warriors reached the NBA Finals, again, and it was sensed they would win another championship, again. That is, until Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson got hurt and Kawhi Leonard and the depth of the Raptors went nuclear. As a prelude to the summer of 2019 and this NBA season, that Finals’ win set up the ideal of parity: a random team competing for, and ultimately achieving, a championship.

One year later, the balance is distributed even better and parity became the NBA vocabulary darling. As Silver finished his press conference mid-year 2019, he said, “When we step back, what’s best for the fan? I think what’s best for the fan is a 30-team league which everyone has the opportunity to compete with a fair set of rules.” In a quote, that is the belief of this NBA season. How long will it hold true? 

Image: Clutchpoints

Comments are closed.

© 2024 Salt City Hoops. All Rights Reserved.