Urgelt
Urgelt
Jul 27, 2017 · 3 min read

The author speaks as if there is universal agreement that ‘parity’ among 30 NBA teams is a laudable goal — a view which demands that teams which enjoy success be punished for it.

Well. We already punish teams for excelling. Here’s how it works: when they do very well, the players who excelled see their perceived valuation rise, and can demand a bigger pay check. But the cap limits what teams can pay, so some of them will depart. Meanwhile players on teams that do poorly tend to see their perceived valuations drop, which means the biggest salaries tend to stay out of their reach, which means cap space is easier to obtain for basement teams.

The league also punishes success by assigning the most choice draft picks to teams who are doing poorly.

What these rules do for the NBA is maintain *rough* parity. And we see this in league play: every team has professional-caliber players, and on any given night, almost any team might rise to beat the league’s best. No team gets through a season undefeated; not ever.

And that’s enough parity. Nothing else needs to be done by the league to preserve competitiveness. The proof is in the quality of the show the NBA puts on. Every game has plays worthy of highlight reels; and the outcome of no game is ever completely certain before the opening tip.

Here’s something to chew on: sustained success in the NBA is not *just* about the roster. It’s also about coaching, training and drilling, tactics, front-office skill, managing salaries given cap rules, developing young players, nutrition, physical training, sports medicine, injury-prevention, team culture, and much more. Teams which neglect these other aspects of success will not be successful no matter what they do with their rosters. Teams which lard up their front offices with incompetents, or who choose poor coaches, or who implement lousy tactics, or who neglect nutrition and sports medicine, are reducing their competitiveness.

Franchises do not all perform these other tasks equally well, and that matters.

It’s *good* when a team excels. We should desire and demand excellence in all aspects of the sport. We should not want to hammer down teams for succeeding, or reward teams for failing, any more than current league rules already do.

So-called ‘super teams’ are teams that do *everything* very well, and are not just the product of stuffing a roster with stars. They attract players because of this. And that’s healthy.

Super teams spur the rest of the league to strive harder. The NBA benefits broadly, and so do fans.

The Ringer’s demand for parity, as if the league needs to do more to level the playing field than it has already done, are absurd. The last thing any of us should desire is to nullify excellence wherever it appears, on the grounds that excellence is somehow unfair. What we should desire is *more* excellence; we should wish to see quality of play improve even beyond today’s game (which is pretty darned good).

Just a few short years ago, really good 3-point shooters were a bit rare in the NBA. That has changed; the league is blossoming with players who can hit 3’s at a good clip, and records are falling. Some are older players who have retooled their games; younger players have entered the NBA expecting that jump shooting would be an important component of their game. Sheer shooting brilliance has rocketed upward, with the result that the game is more amazing than ever to witness. We’re seeing skills at a level we did not see in past basketball eras.

Excellence drives imitation and innovation. And to stay ahead, teams hoping to do well will have to work that much harder, that much smarter. This is a good trend to have in a sport.

Let’s dismiss with the calls for more ‘parity’ than we already have, shall we? It’s a bit stupid, and it is not good for the sport.

    Urgelt

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    Urgelt

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