The NBA Might Be Broken

LeBron James and Kevin Durant will meet in the NBA Finals for the second time this year. Since coming into the league in 2003 and 2007 respectively, no two players have been more dynamic or more dominant. However, and depending on what happens in the league's near-future, the meeting could signify far more than just a highly-anticipated matchup between two of the league's brightest stars.

It might also be first-hand proof that the NBA has a looming crisis on its hands.

The question is this: Is having the same two teams reach the Finals for three consecutive seasons a good thing for the league, or has the advent of the so-called Super Team become little more than a competition-killing virus that must be eradicated before it manages to destroy its host?

(Can you tell I recently got over a nasty case of the Norovirus? Thanks a lot, Burger King.)

If the construction of the NBA Super Team (whereby the league's elite players combine forces in the semi-shady quest for a championship) becomes a trend, then it would mean that the NBA, like other industries in America, has become a monopoly. And last time I checked monopolies weren't a good thing (especially when you're about to win the whole damn game until your conniving little brother, may his house be forever cursed, makes a bogus deal to buy up all the most valuable properties and, although it's never been exactly proven, rigs the dice so you can't help but land on said properties every effing trip around the board).

What's left is one or two behemoths whose dominance goes largely unchecked (i.e. one playoff loss among them heading into the Finals), and then everyone else. I would contend that what makes Major League Baseball (and, to a lesser extent, the NFL) compelling is that each year almost anyone can win a title. It was the Cubs last year, the Kansas City Royals (!) the year before and, if the baseball Gods are just, a team from Cleveland, Ohio will be crowned world champs come this October.

The NBA should want the same for itself.

Because as Adam Smith once said, competition is the lifeblood of a healthy multi-billion dollar pro-sports league.

This year's Finals matchup between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors was essentially set in stone the minute Kevin Durant left Oklahoma. (Rumor has it he signed his new contract in Russell Westbrook's blood, but I've been unable to confirm that.)

Can anyone really argue that it's good for the league to have its championship series determined before the season starts? Haven't we, as fans, been simply tredding water for the past four months waiting for Cavs-Warriors III? Is there any good reason to think we won't be right back here next year talking about the same exact matchup, pleading for the world to recognize LeBron's brilliance and Draymond Green's unadulterated evil?

As Cavs fans we just happen to be lucky enough to be followers of a current Super Team. For the purposes of answering the questions posed above, we should probably pretend that we're not so fortunate. In other words, would we think the NBA is in fact broken (or at least has a problem) if the Warriors were about to face the Chicago Bulls for a third straight NBA Finals?

Or perhaps I'm just being dramatic. Maybe this is nothing new and thus nothing to worry about. The 1980s was basically a two-team decade, with the Lakers or Celtics winning all but two titles in the 10-year span (76ers '83, Pistons '89). After that you had a Chicago Bulls 3-peat, back-to-back by the Olajuwon-led Houston Rockets, and then yet another Bulls 3-peat (during which the Mormon Church reportedly considered moving its headquarters out of the state of Utah). The Lakers won three straight from 2000 to 2002 (and another in '04). And the San Antonio Spurs won it all in 2003, 2005 and 2007.

And yet, this feels different. Safe to say Michael Jordan, the greatest player to ever do it, is an outlier who shouldn't be used to disprove today's disconcerting concentration of wealth and power. It would also be difficult to classify those Spurs squads as anything close to the highly contrived Super Teams of today. They replaced one NBA legend with another and, through organizational efficiency and a coach who doesn't waste time answering silly questions, built a championship contender.

Further, and as far as I know, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal never conspired in the summer of '99 to join forces and win "not three, not four, not five, not six" NBA titles.

Another obvious difference is that those teams had at most two superstars. Jordan and Pippen. Shaq and Kobe. Duncan and Parker. Olajuwon and . . . Kenny Smith? Mario Elie? Oh wait, I remember. The Rockets' second superstar was the ghost of Michael Jordan. Duh.

But now championship teams feature three or even four All-Stars. If this trend of talent consolidation continues, the league could devolve into little more than a sad representation of America itself, where the rich keep getting richer while everyone else twiddles their thumbs and waits for football season to start.