The NBA is having an identity crisis
Published 4:36 pm Tuesday, May 8, 2018
It is becoming a chore to watch the NBA.
The league has been heading toward this problem for a long time, where fans are getting sick of seeing the same teams looking far superior to everyone else.
Cleveland just swept Toronto. Houston, Boston and Golden State are up 3-1 against their semi-final opponents and will each likely take their fifth games.
The best players are no longer spread out across a dozen or more teams throughout the country. Rather, four or five teams have a high concentration of superstars, and the other teams have nobody else.
The Warriors began this new era of the Super Team when Kevin Durant started his “next chapter” and left a middling Oklahoma City team for the sun and fun in California. The Thunder have tried to regain ground with a few big name players added to a roster headlined by Russell Westbrook, but not even that could work.
Now, the Thunder are watching the rest of the playoffs on TV while the team that beat them is getting crushed to the high-powered Rockets duo of James Harden and Chris Paul.
It’s easy to miss just how good some of these teams are in the regular season, but it becomes so insanely obvious when the playoffs come. I’m not saying a lot of the other teams aren’t good, but the best teams in the NBA are so many leaps and bounds ahead of them in terms of raw talent that those other teams hardly matter.
I fully expect Cleveland and Golden State to meet in the Finals. Again. For the fourth year in a row. I’m not quite ready to call who will win the title, but my point will already have been proven by then. The Super Teams always last until the end.
Outside of the Warriors and Cavaliers fan bases, who wants to see that? The only thing that would make it interesting is a back and forth series that goes to Game 7, filled with iconic moments and highlight-worthy plays.
There is still a lot of basketball to be played, but the NBA should be wider than the same small group of teams duking it out every postseason. How boring.