A straw premise

Has the NBA attempt at creating team parody so all teams should have a chance at a championship really created player parody at a chance for a championship?

Players seem to be driving the league right now. And of course, you can start this argument with the Miami Heat of a few years ago.

So, what seems to have happened is a few players can now get together and form a team in the city they want or in Golden State’s case where it developed and add the pieces as need through free agency. GS got to add Durant in free agency because that is where he felt he had the best chance at a championship. Pretty obvious move by him.

The real parody for the players is the players who may have a few good years, earn some money then start becoming role players behind the superstars. Or a few may have not met on their original promise and talent and fall back to being role players and work themselves to a contender.

One empirical example of my thinking is that last year the Dallas Mavericks won one game in the playoffs and didn’t get past the first round. This year three players from that team are in the Championship series. Zaza and JaVale McGee are now with the Warriors and Deron Williams managed to be picked up by Cleveland in a salary cap dump by Dallas mid-season because LeBron had been harping about a contributor from the bench.

The players were available either because of discounts in free agency or when a team decided to go ahead and start transitioning to a new future (hopefully). This allows these players a chance to play for a championship that team parody hasn’t worked enough to allow at the team level.

Another example is David West first shopping himself to the Spurs last year then the Warriors this year.

As time goes forward without changes this may become the norm. Unfortunately, this is not good for the fans of teams in the NBA. If you are just a NBA fan, you still get potentially good championship series as different role players fill out the super teams and those role players may make the difference. The individual teams will struggle because the players will try and form the super teams so they can win the championship. Loyalty to teams is on the wane for many years in all sports; the developing NBA model is potentially putting the nail on the coffin going forward.

There are still teams that are works in progress that hopefully develop such as the Celtics, Timberwolves, Bucs, Portland trying, Utah, and a couple others that may bring back real parody. If they are successful, then more players may stay with their team and let management bring in the draft and free agents to make them contenders. Let us hope so. If not, then the better players from these teams will eventually move to the superstar teams as backups etc to obtain that coveted ring. If this becomes the norm, it will be harder for the NBA to sell itself to a larger fan base. Only fans of the players will have any loyalty going forward and that is way to fickle either through injuries or faded careers to build a business.