On Sunday, Adrian Wojnarowski posted this piece on Dwight Howard’s championship ambitions, and the inevitable pressure his demands place on the Orlando Magic’s front office, given his eventual status as a free agent in 2012.
This is a story all of us in Cleveland are beyond familiar with. We heard LeBron James repeatedly say that his entire free agency decision would be based on which organization gave him the best opportunity to win multiple championships. It seems that this track has proliferated throughout the NBA, from Carmelo Anthony to Chris Paul and now on to Howard. Everyone wants championships, and they want them now. ASAP. And not just one. Many.
Now that the Cavaliers are no longer competing for the title - and who knows when they will again - I’ve gained a little bit of perspective on the NBA as a whole. Basketball remains probably my favorite sport, but there is no doubt in my mind that professional basketball has a major issue moving forward when it comes to competitive balance.
Every superstar player wants a championship, but only one superstar gets to win one every year (give or take 1 or 1.5 superstars, depending on your definition of a superstar). If a superstar doesn’t win the title, he blames the organization, not himself - he’s a superstar after all, how could it be his fault? - and threatens to bolt town at the first chance he gets, whether it’s through free agency or by demanding a trade.
In the past, these threats could be seen as somewhat idle since only one superstar (Shaq) ever took less money to switch teams. No more. LeBron changed all of that.
On its own, superstar players wanting to win championships isn’t a bad thing for the league. Commissioner David Stern should want competitive athletes. Competitive spirit fuels close games, heightens drama, and makes the sport more exciting to watch. So what’s the problem then?
The real problem is that, in the NBA, almost nobody wins a championship.
Since the 1979-80 NBA season, only eight different teams have won titles.
Thirty years of basketball, eight champions.
This strikes me as entirely unsustainable.
Yet, at the same time, this total lack of competitive balance has been going on for almost one-third of a century and professional basketball in America is still in business. It is, of course, nowhere near as popular as the NFL though, and I don’t see how the owners and the league office can’t be concerned about how this dynamic effects the future of their business.
I would go so far as to argue that the lack of outright dread on this topic suggests that the owners must be making so much money that they don’t really care about the quality of their product. Despite what the owners are now saying publicly in the wake of ongoing negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, how else could they possibly be happy knowing that each year only about four teams have a legitimate chance of winning the title?
They can’t be. It’s ludicrous.
And now that superstar players, who grew up seeing Michael Jordan lauded for winning six championships while Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, and Patrick Ewing were derided for “not being able to get it done,” are placing an extreme emphasis on not just being great, but on being champions (you know, like Adam Morrison), the whole system is in real trouble.
The entire purpose of Bird Rights - allowing teams to pay the players they have more than any other team, to keep athletes, especially great ones, in a single organization for as long as possible in order to build continuity with the fan base - is in complete jeopardy.
We’re talking about a different franchise meeting the apocalypse every few years because its superstar is unhappy that he didn’t win a championship. And since, as we’ve seen, almost nobody wins a championship, that means there are going to be a whole lot of unhappy superstars, a whole lot of uprooted fan bases, and a whole lot of rebuilding teams.
I’ll let you decide whether or not this new breed of finicky superstars, all of whom are willing to relocate far quicker than they are willing to accept responsibility for winning and losing or demonstrate an understanding of precisely how impossible it is to win a championship, will actually create competitive balance or make it even worse.
Is the issue really resolved if more and different teams get to hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy because LeBron, Wade, Dwight et al decide to don new jerseys and/or team up? No, I don’t think so. Not if we enter each and every season with only 3-4 teams that are legitimately capable of standing alone in June.
John Hollinger’s statistical probability model recently determined that there is a 79% chance that either Boston, Miami, or San Antonio wins the championship this year.
In June. It’s December now.
This is a very real and very deep problem for the NBA. And it’s what worries me about the future of professional basketball in America.
Between LeBron, Chris Paul, and practically everyone else in the NBA any time there’s a trade of any significance, I’ve come to a strange conclusion: I’m sick of hearing about championships.
I don’t mean to say that I believe NBA players shouldn’t be thinking about winning or trying to win. By their very nature, every professional athlete should be wired to compete, to dominate, to conquer. If they’re not, they should be making their living doing something else instead.
My problem is with the way championships are now perceived. From what I can tell, the title of every professional sport has become a check box—something that every player with an eye toward his legacy believes he must be able to mark off. If not, the thinking is that the player automatically becomes second-rate.
Since it’s always the default comparison in this case, just consider the difference between how Charles Barkley (off-court issues aside) and MJ are perceived. Barkley’s empty ring fingers seem to have made him a cautionary tale to every pro basketball player of subsequent generations. Yet, during his career, Chuck was an absolute monster. If you don’t believe me, check his stats—and keep in mind while you’re doing it that he was putting up those numbers at power forward while standing a mere 6’-6”.
Unfortunately, the first thing that comes to mind at the mention of Chuck’s name is the glaring lack of a championship on his resume. Now, players like LeBron, Chris Paul, and everyone else born after 1980 look at Barkley like the poster child of some kind of pro basketball “Scared Straight” campaign. (“Don’t lift the Larry O’Brien trophy, and you’ll end up like him!”)
Championships have somehow become the be-all, end-all in every sporting discussion. There’s an entire segment of the population that believes the “Kobe vs. LeBron” discussion is idiotic simply because LeBron is ringless. Therefore, how can he even be considered in the same breath as Kobe Bryant, 5-time champion?
As a result, the possibility of potentially doing something historic, of assuming greater risk for the possibility of greater reward, has become irrelevant. There is nothing—not loyalty, not an emotional connection to a place or a fan base or teammates—as important as a championship. Because without one, what are you, really?
This, I believe, is the primary motivator behind the power moves this generation’s superstars are now pulling. LeBron willing to go to Miami to play a supporting role to Wade? Better than not winning a championship. Chris Paul making every effort to burn the sports fans of one of the most unique and real-life ill-fated cities in the country? At least he won’t be the failure who could never win the Finals.
This isn’t necessarily the fault of the young players themselves. It’s the inevitable result of how we as a sporting culture have set our priorities. In team sports, the teams are obviously made up of individuals. Especially in the case of baskestball, where only 5 men are on the court for a team at any given time, the impact of a single player can be enormous. At the same time, no player is ever alone on the court, so pinning the ultimate success or failure of the team on one person is inherently illogical.
There’s a paradox at work, too, because we certainly honor individual greatness. But in a bizarre way, we respect the individual’s impact so much that his team’s failures become the individual’s fault. It’s even evident in the language when we discuss this topic. Very seldom do we say “Charles Barkley’s Suns never won the title.” We simply say, “Charles Barkley never won the title.” After all, why skirt around the damnation by acknowledging reality?
This is why I’m disappointed in Chris Paul’s trade demands, and in LeBron’s decision to merge with a rival rather than try to knock him out. On some level, I feel like those guys are surrendering. They would rather diminish their own greatness, the possibility of what *could* happen, for what they believe is a guarantee that they’ll be able to check off the championship box. They’re playing it safe—and doing it partially because we’ve all made them believe that that’s the only thing that matters.
It’s also why part of me wants to defend Mo Williams, who begged not to be traded because Cleveland has become his home and he believes the Cavs can get it done; or Byron Scott, who took the Cavs’ coaching job without any security that the team would be a contender next year. For all their other faults, these are men who believe in something greater than popular opinion. They understand that there are possibilities but no guarantees. (As Shaq said this past year, “I won four championships. Three of them? Lucky as hell.”) And above all else, they have values or desires that exceed catering to the fans and analysts and past greats blinded by jewelry. They stand for something.
I wish I could say the same for more of the players who make my favorite sport run.
