A common argument you will hear from small market NBA owners is that small market teams such as NO, Indiana, Cleveland, Denver etc. will never be able to compete with the big market city teams such as LA and New York when it comes to signing and retaining the “superstar” players of the NBA.
This argument was one of the dominating themes of the most recent NBA lockout. The smaller city team owners fought for and wanted a system in place that would instil a competitive balance in the NBA where the superstar talent was shared amongst all teams rather than just your big city teams
They claimed that the over spending big city teams were able to use their so called market dominance to lure all the superstars into their markets.
Then less than 48 hours after the lock out ended there was the proposed 3 team mega trade that would have ultimately landed Chris Paul in a LA Lakers uniform. How could this happen after a 5 month lock out? One of the best pure point guards of all time going into yet another big market team? And of all teams, the Lakers? The small city team owners like Michael Jordan and Dan Gilbert angrily opposed the trade instantly firing off emails to the commissioner to block this trade. Giving in he agreed to block the trade for what he called “basketball reasons”
This argument that the small market teams cannot compete is not as accurate as the owners would have you believe. Take the Cleveland cavaliers for example who had Lebron James, arguably one of the best basketball players of all time on their roster for 7 years, 7 full seasons and he single handily took them to play offs and NBA finals. He then up and left through free agency and teamed up with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh at the Miami heat (a small market team) forming the first of the ‘super teams’. This enraged owner Dan Gilbert. He began to blame everyone but himself for losing Lebron. It is worth noting that the Knicks courted Lebron very aggressively and he turned them down!
Had Gilbert been a lot smarter business wise, he could have kept Lebron for years; he could have built a championship team around him and won multiple titles with him.
The same goes for Carmelo Anthony who spent years in Denver before demanding a trade to New York. Can anyone blame Chris Paul and Dwight Howard for wanting out of their teams? They don’t want to leave because of the size of the market they are playing in. they want to leave purely because of the bullshit rosters their owners and GM’s have surrounded them with.
So here lays the problem, the owners would rather blame the CBA and its structure for not being able to retain these kinds of players. They would rather blame rich teams for throwing large contracts at their star players. However the blame should fall square on their shoulders, they continue to shell out ridiculous contracts for subpar talent thinking that will make their superstar players happy enough to want to stick around for ever. They continue to make basketball decisions that leave you shaking your head.
for further proof that small market teams can compete and can win then look no further than the San Antonio Spurs who built a team around Tim Duncan that not only competed for power in the West for years but also won 19 division titles and more importantly during Tim Duncan’s time the spurs have won 4 championships. All because the owners and the GM’s built a championship calibre roster around Duncan by making smart business decisions proving that small city teams COULD in fact compete with the big city teams.
More recently the OKC Thunder made smart draft choices by drafting Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook and have built one of the strongest rosters in the NBA. They will compete for the western conference title for years to come. Again another small market team competing with the power houses of the league.
Michael Jordan was an amazing player, a once in a lifetime kind of player, but as an owner of a small market city team, he is horrible and blaming the system and rich big city teams just doesn’t cut it. He needs to look at the decisions he has made. Who can forget him drafting Kwame Brown with the number 1 draft pick?
The NBA team owners need to make themselves more accountable for their decisions and start following the lead of teams like OKC and the Spurs. Championship teams are built by intelligent owners and GM’s. Big market teams didn’t just become championship teams because they are rich. They are well oiled machines that have been built with intelligence and smart basketball brains that have made the RIGHT decisions! No one gave the Lakers Kobe Bryant; The Lakers aquired him through a trade on draft day.
Posted on December 15, 2011
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