Was there Parity in the NBA before Kevin Durant joined the Warriors?

As most people expected, the Golden State Warriors won the 2017 NBA Championship. To most people, this was certain since July 2016 when Kevin Durant joined the arguably greatest team of all-time in the 73–9 Golden State Warriors. Although Parity was regarded as nonexistent even before Kevin Durant joined the Warriors, it was well accepted that even if you thought it was there before, it was completely gone now. Although I do agree with the thought that Parity is completely gone now, I believe that this is the first season in a very long time where there has been none. My opinion isn’t a very popular opinion (not many of mine are) but almost 90% of NBA fans say that Parity hasn’t been a thing in the NBA almost ever. Today I’m gonna be tackling the question Has Parity ever existed in the NBA?

To most people, even the ones who don’t agree with me, this is an easy answer, that of course it existed at one point; but what most people say is that it’s been a really long time and where people say it became nonexistent was when Bird and Magic got drafted, people started to say “The Celtics or Lakers are winning so what’s the point of even watching” but although that was the case, it wasn’t necessarily guaranteed. The Celtics and Lakers still had to battle to make it and played in some of the greatest playoffs series ever and even when one team made it almost every year (not only was it not easy) but the other team wasn’t there every time. After the Magic and Bird era ended the Jordan era started and as most people Jordan and the Bulls dominated the 90's and once again most people said there was no point in watching cause we knew who was winning. Well not only did the Bulls have series and years where they had to battle to win, but had series that were one or two shots from changing the entire series and the Bulls might not have been perfect in the Finals or even had 6 Finals appearances. Here comes the 2000's which is the only one where I start to agree but I don’t really agree till 2011 and even then I don’t fully agree, but I’ll get back to that. Starting in 2000 the Lakers seem unstoppable and virtually were, but actually this could have been completely different if it weren’t for some questionable reffing, and Shaq and Kobe were only there 4 years until things went south real quick (which is a story I might cover later) then the NBA for the next few years had what I felt like was no guaranteed winners. Then the Miami Heat assembled the big three and it became pretty obvious they were making the Finals every year, but the West was much more interesting as the only team during the Heat era (other than the Heat of course) to make the NBA finals two times in a row, was the San Antonio Spurs who won one and lost one. 2015 was where the real argument came in as most people knew the Warriors and Cavaliers were making the Finals, but even 2016 the Conference Finals went to 7 and the Thunder at once had a 3–1 lead. Plus the Warriors who were easily the favorites to win ended up losing in a nail-biting Game 7 which had one of the most iconic NBA moments ever. 2017 is the only season where I say there was absolutely no Parity at all and unfortunately looks like we have 3 or more seasons of that.

I think I made a pretty good case for Parity for Durant on the Warriors, and it is truly unfortunate that we’ll probably have even more seasons without it.

Also I have put some consideration into making a YouTube Channel and doing something like Dom2K and Mike Korzemba do, I’d probably just tell most of the story’s I do here but in greater detail, tell me if you would like that I’m not too sure how I feel about it

Thank You