For as long as the NBA has been around, it has run not unlike one of many European monarchies, lurching from one dynasty to another. That, as much as anything, has been one of the league’s defining traits.
That period of successive rule, however, may be coming to an end.
Last year, the Boston Celtics became the sixth different champion in the past six seasons. It was only the second time in league history that has happened. If another team that has not won since 2019 wins a championship this season, the NBA will be in unprecedented territory.
While aberrational, it may also be a part of an emerging new normal. The NBA may be in its great era of parity.
It is a changeover of its own making and a drastic leap from the very principles that helped make the league what it is today. The league is hoping a break from its past can help with its future.
For decades, the NBA rode its stars and dynasties, helping the league reach immense heights. Now it is engineering a new path while trying to adjust to a turbulent media environment it argues demands leaguewide competition, not just a few great teams.
“It’s not necessarily artificial parity where we keep moving the chips around and saying we want to go into every season and make sure every team has an equal chance,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said last month. “It is parity of opportunity in that you want each team to be in a position where if, well managed, they’re in a position to compete.”
The changes, both self-enforced and thrust upon the league by a dynamic local and national media infrastructure, have brought it closer to a NFL-like model. Now, when Silver goes to the podium, he can tout how many teams are still in postseason contention late in the season.
The demise of the super team — as unsuccessful as they have been in recent years — has been overstated. But the latest collective bargaining agreement was negotiated to engineer a flatter playing field. More teams are given a taste of the postseason each year with the Play-In Tournament. Roster-building and financial penalties have been instituted to punish, or snuff out, the high-spenders. All while the last two decades have shown the NBA it can cultivate and nurture superstars in small markets, and a tumultuous media ecosystem may incentivize teams to hold on to them.
Going forward, each team might need a star to build around, not just for its roster, but to increase viewership and sell subscriptions to digital content, including the streaming of games. Victor Wembanyama will be supremely valuable in San Antonio for more than just his basketball skills.
Still, it is an interesting maneuver. The NBA has long sold stars and rivalries and risen on the shoulders of its dynastic franchises. They have been the ones to push the league forward, creating characters and plotlines to pull in even casual fans.
The George Mikan Minneapolis Lakers of the 1950s gave way to the Bill Russell Boston Celtics of the ’60s. The Celtics and Lakers shared control of the NBA in the 1980s. Michael Jordan cleared the field in the ’90s. Tim Duncan, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, and Stephen Curry all had their reigns.
But the league has chosen to pull away from that model even as it says it is trying to create different opportunities, not outcomes.
“In this league, superstar players are still going to win a disproportionate number of championships, and well-managed franchises are still going to win a disproportionate number of championships,” Silver said. “Where I thought it wasn’t good for the game and it wasn’t good for the league, that there was no question that there’s a correlation between spending and the quality of the team, and that while I understand that dynasties are something that fans will get behind, at the same time what you hear from fans is they want those teams to be created the right way. So people aren’t that interested in seeing teams buy championships, so to speak.”
The great boogeyman of the modern NBA might just be the what the CBA calls the second apron, a draconian measure added to the league rules inside the 2023 CBA. Just as the 3-point revolution loomed over the league last decade, the second apron may be the defining part of the next one.
The second apron is a salary-cap threshold set this season at $188.931 million, about $18 million above the luxury-tax threshold ($170.814 million). With punishments for exceeding it that range from frozen first-round picks to ghastly luxury tax rates, it was designed to curb balloon payrolls and instill a sense of fairness to the league’s economic picture. Whereas the NBA had several levers to pull to control for revenue discrepancy across the league, it has now built a potentially powerful one to throttle spending as well. Some agents and executives have already come to describe it as a de facto hard cap, a ceiling long resisted by the National Basketball Players Association.
“I don’t know if anyone intended to make it this challenging to make moves, to make trades, when you’re above certain aprons,” Timberwolves president of basketball operations Tim Connelly said. “But you gotta be smart, you gotta be lucky, you gotta hit on some of your draft picks. Then I think you have to, as much as possible, build teams that can stay together for multiple years.
“Because I think there will be a lot of turnover just because of the finances becoming rapidly so big for some of these teams. I don’t know if it’ll be exactly like the NFL, but we’ve studied different leagues, we’ve studied the NFL extensively how they’ve kind of done those things but it would be disingenuous for me to say I know. We’re still learning as we get deeper and deeper into this CBA.”
The NBA has had just one full season and two offseasons under the new CBA. Its strength has yet to be tested.
The full pain of its most stringent measures haven’t gone into effect yet, and neither have the most punitive tax rates. The belief is that it will limit super teams and even potentially tear apart franchises such as the Celtics, who won a championship thanks to shrewd drafting and deft additions but now have to pay everyone. As one team decision-maker cautioned, teams “will have to be honest with themselves” about whom they pay to keep.
“The goal is certainly not to stop dynasties,” Silver said. “But I think a dynasty that’s created by drafting well, potentially by trading well, is very different than a dynasty that’s created by virtue of a team having unlimited amount of spending power?”
The Second-Apron Era, so far, has been defined by teams that continue to level up.
The number of teams that have had to downsize because of the second apron is short. The LA Clippers blamed the CBA when they lost Paul George this offseason but still offered him a three-year, $150 million contract, according to George. The Denver Nuggets lost Kentavious Caldwell-Pope as they skirt the second apron, but the organization had always been loath to pay the luxury tax anyway. The Minnesota Timberwolves traded Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks recently, which gives Minnesota significant financial leeway in seasons to come.
Meanwhile, the Phoenix Suns went all-in last summer. The Celtics traded for Kristaps Porziņģis and Jrue Holiday — and gave them extensions – in the last year. The Knicks added Mikal Bridges and Towns over the last few months. The Timberwolves have the second-highest payroll in the league this season.
The Celtics, as of now, are projected to run $200 million payrolls for the foreseeable future as they bring back a team that was more dominant last season than it was given credit for. The Oklahoma City Thunder are positioned for a long, successful run with a bevy of homegrown stars still on rookie contracts and just one star, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on a max deal, and a treasure chest of future draft picks that could give them a longer runway to withstand any tough choices.
Philadelphia 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey said that, despite the CBA constraints, he still believes amassing the most star players is the most prudent way for a team to act. The Sixers found a way to sign George this summer.
“We looked hard at that,” Morey said. “And I know it’s gonna sound crazy, but whatever time horizon you look at, you know, more really good players is better than fewer. I know that sounds nuts.”
The super team had its faults even under the old CBA. It became too difficult to add supporting players around the stars. Pick the wrong ones and it could sink a season. Now, that is all heightened.
But it has also made executives believe that just as periods of big success might be hard to maintain, then turnaround cycles can be quicker.
“I don’t think there’s any overwhelming teams out there,” Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. said this summer. “It gives us a chance, a team that didn’t make the playoffs last year and ourselves, how far away are we really. At times you say, man, we are quite a ways away. The way things are shaped now, there’s a push for parity, I think we can turn things around pretty quickly.”
Just as vital is the NBA’s emerging media situation. Its latest media rights deal, worth roughly $75 billion over the next 11 years, will broadcast more games nationally than the one before it. In decrying the deal, Knicks owner James Dolan said, “the NBA has made the move to an NFL model” in a letter to the Board of Governors this summer.
But that has also come at a time when it’s never been more vital for franchises to field competitive teams, and for the league to try to ensure they can. The local broadcast market is changing quickly. When Diamond Sports Group, which owns the Bally Sports Regional Sports Networks, filed for bankruptcy last year, it cast uncertainty on half of the teams in the NBA which had contracts with its RSNs.
Slowly, a number of teams have been leaving cable for over-the-air TV and their own subscription streaming apps. Franchises were accustomed to deriving their local media rights through fat RSN deals but that seems like it will be a relic but for a select few. Teams will have to draw viewers to their apps, and nothing sells like winning.
That has a trickle-down effect. With more national game windows to fill, the NBA increased the number of a team’s games exclusive to national broadcasts from 12 to 15. The franchises that have lost lucrative local rights deals are now more reliant on the national deal fees.
“Because they have to take inventory up to national now, there’s an incentive to kind of make sure there is this increased number of national inventory, the games are more competitive,” Patrick Crakes, a media consultant and former longtime FOX Sports executive.
The NBA now competes for viewership on social media and on YouTube too. With more games broadcast nationally, not just on TV but soon on Peacock, Amazon Prime and ESPN’s over-the-top app, the NBA’s media partners don’t seem to want just a few great teams on each coast.
“To the extent we’re building the best league with the best competition in a highly competitive media environment, you’re best building the league in serving your fans,” Silver said. “Differently, there’s never been more competition, and we’re competing against every other form of media. Putting aside the attraction arena business, there are truly unlimited options.
He added, “So you’ve got to put your best foot forward all the time. If you only have a few teams in the league, and I don’t know if it was that extreme in the so-called old days, but there were certainly fewer teams that were competitive, and they’re driving all your interest that almost by definition, you’re going to have fewer fans following you and fans of those markets aren’t going to feel they’re in a position to compete.”
The NBA has slowly been building to this moment. From 1975-2000, there was just one NBA Finals that pitted two teams outside the top-12 media markets; since 2001, there have been six.
The league has always seen that stars can be incubated outside of the largest markets, too, and can draw an audience. Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokić all came into the league and grew in popularity while playing for small and mid-market franchises. They have managed to build followings, earn shoe deals and acclaim.
As top talent became more diffuse around the country, no longer bound by market size, so did the nature of where award-winners came from. From 1979-2001, there were just three NBA MVPs outside the top-11 media markets. From 2002-24, there were 14.
The player empowerment movement has also been a driver of parity. It broke up dynastic teams before the NBA could step in. LeBron James left the Miami Heat despite winning two titles and making four NBA Finals. Then he left the Cleveland Cavaliers after a championship and four finals trips. Durant left the Golden State Warriors with two rings. James Harden helped make the Brooklyn Nets a super team before he decided he wanted out. Kawhi Leonard left the defending champion Toronto Raptors to go to Los Angeles.
The league is constantly on alert for the next star seeking an escape hatch from his franchise. Winning, for some, is no longer enough. The whims of elite talent might do as much to break up dynasties as anything the NBA could concoct. The players, as much as the commissioner or the owners, could determine the future of the NBA and how long this latest paradigm lasts.
If nothing else, every era of the NBA has demanded sacrifices of some sort. James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh were willing to give up salary to reign, and they were willing to give it up until they no longer did. The Warriors were willing to field enormous payrolls until the winning dried up. This latest stage in the NBA’s arc will ask teams to make other difficult choices.
Everything lasts, until it doesn’t.
(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Nathaniel S. Butler / Andrew D. Bernstein / Ezra Shaw / Noah Graham /NBAE via Getty Images)
