Is The Superstar Trifecta Good Or Bad For The NBA?

[bhattmagandhi]

This interesting little clip brings up a bit of a debate.

In my opinion it's good for the NBA for the same reasons that Skip Bayless mentions - it brings in the "on-the-fence" fans and creates more drama for the league. And to counter what the other guy was saying about it being bad for teams like Cleveland, Detroit or Milwaukee (and Toronto) - well although the system is designed to give players the incentive to re-sign with their teams as Free Agents, the league is also built so that if you suck you can rebuild or reacquire talent through the draft.

[Dave]

I think it's bad for the league. Creates one super team and limits competition.

[OTFP]

Teams can sign whoever the fuck they want.

Good or bad?

It's an irrelevant question.

[Marz]

I think it's bad for the league. Creates one super team and limits competition.

It actually increases competition and quality of play. There isn't one super team, there are several.

[Gman]

Would it have been good or bad if Jordan, Magic and Bird had played on the same team in the eighties? It would have sucked hugely because some of the greatest Basketball memories ever would never have existed.

What the three of these supposed men are doing isn't basketball...it's romper room. Milk, cookies and learning how to share. And I see Lebron, and Dwayne and Chris...

Who didn't want to see Lebron and Wade go toe to toe for years to come?

"It brings in on the fence fans." And that's what a sport needs...a bunch of uneducated trendoids that are here today and gone tomorrow, and the people who actually care about the game spend a few sleepless nights questioning it's integrity.

I've always hated the Yankees because I thought they were bad for baseball. I've always disliked the Lakers because they choose to ignore the reason for the salary cap and just spend lasciviously...but even those two teams don't approach this.

If you're a real fan of the sport, and thoughtful then you know that a lot of great future basketball was just taken away from us. The potentially epic rivalries and ebbs and flows of this game have been destroyed by four men with zero vision (I'm including Riley in this).

After twenty years, I may have watched my last NBA game.

[Gman]

Really? Several super teams? Name them. If they put a decent supporting cast around this team...and they're already doing it with Miller and Haslem...this team isn't just going to beat teams. It's going to roll them. This isn't an experiment. These guys know each other and have already played together.

Try to translate this a little deeper.

[heinz57]

its not great for the league... but i also dont pity millionaires

think about teams with mediocre or subpar attendance... fans only really show up when superstars are in town... now instead of showing up for 3 different teams, they're showing up for one..

plus less teams will have opportunites to have their games nationally televised, since there will be high demand for the superteams

[Nick]

They are going to deplode. When Dwade and Lebron do rock paper scissors for who is going to take more shots that game, Bosh is going to become worse, less confident, and people are going to continue to make fun of him. There's too much talent/ego on this team, this won't compliment a winning system. I'm sure these guys will roll through most of the regular season, but when it comes crunch time in the playoffs, myself, and everybody else in the world is going to laugh when these guys can't close a game.

[Brandon]

Gman, I couldn't disagree more.

First of all, from a pure business standpoint this is already the biggest thing that's ever happened to the NBA. There are media outlets talking about this that have never talked about the NBA before. This is making inroads into places the NBA couldn't have paid for had it tried. Henry Abbott already wrote a piece about this on ESPN yesterday:
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...-matters-again

As to the quality of NBA basketball, it has been in steep decline for years due to expansion. The SuperFriends are not to blame for it. Jerry West, Charles Barkley and others have been lamenting the loss of quality play and blaming expansion for it long before this free agency cycle. Here's a story about West's comments and about the effects of expansion on quality of play:
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/123...b/news001.html

In fact, I see the New Heat Order as a direct result of the 100 new scrubs that are getting playing time now compared to pre-1989 times. We all saw what guys like ...ugh...Antoine Wright were doing out there last season for the Raps. Imagine being Bosh and having to suffer such a player's presence. He's busting his ass and Wright is...doing what Wright does. Of course these three guys wanted to play together. Who can blame them?

Are there going to be nights when the Heat blows the bad guys out of the water? Yes. If you recall, there were many games in the past few years when the Raptors were blown out. But these three guys have created a situation where every great thing they do out there will add an equal and opposite resistance in the form of expectations. Additionally, they have cast themselves in the role of villains because of how they left their teams. So they'll be playing in sold-out stadiums full of fans screaming for their heads, facing the expectation that they must win by, what? 30 or more? How convincing would the victory have to be to placate critics and satisfy fans? At least with their old teams, the media would be happy to blame a loss on bad teammates -- like Antoine Wright. No more excuses for these guys.

[mo-sales]

Every Heat game will now be a national event. I don't see how it is anything but good for the league. Every game they play on the road will be the hottest ticket in town. They are a hurricane of hype and their first loss whether it be in 2011 or earlier will be hailed as a mini-coup for the opposing team.

I'm not sure if people actually believe they won't dominate or just like to swing from the other side of pendulum, but the Heat will be the most dominating force in the history of sports. To suggest anything else is naive and foolhardy.

Of course Cleveland is screwed, but I don't see how Gilbert blames anyone but himself for surrounding Bron with the worst supporting talent of any superstar in recent memory.

When the schedule comes out, RR should have a pool to pick the first loss.

The biggest blow-back of this will be the competitiveness of smaller market teams, but in the NBA only a handful of teams have a real shot of winning anyways so now the point is simply hammered home a little harder. The super team creation doesn't make me any less a fan of the raptors even though they have no chance of winning a title in the next 5 years.

[Selects87]

I think it's good for NBA business but bad for the league. I think parody is is a good thing but at the same time Lebron's decision was headline news on every corner of the globe. In South Africa at the World Cup the soccer took a back seat to Lebron. The exposure is the best thing that could have ever happened to the NBA but I still like parody and that's not gonna happen now.

[Priest]

If teams start targeting the Heat, which they will, it brings in some great games to watch during the season let alone the playoffs. 3 years down the road if Miami has just won 3 championships in a row and going for their 4th, I will be pissed. It basically means we all know who wins the playoffs year after year until their contracts are up which is annoying. Every time the team wins means more veterans and role players sign on for cheap which=stronger team. The odds are with them to win 3-4-5 in a row...I just hope they dont because thats when they ruin the NBA for me. If they win 1-2 not (back-back) then I hope they enjoy themselves.

[geebee]

Setting aside the emotional response, there are two direct results attributable to the precedent that Bosh, Wade and LBJ have just set:

1. League division: as players become more and more media and advertising savvy, they will inevitably gravitate towards the larger, more lucrative markets. That means, in short, that the small market teams will lose out on free agency and be left with the window offered by draft picks to run at a title... and their fans know it.

2. Competition: with elite players grouping together on specific teams (LA, Boston, Miami, potentially NY) fans will have less and less opportunities to see the best talent in the NBA compete against each other on the court. Unless you're a die-hard Raps fan, why would you pay go to see the Bucks or Blazers, when for the same price you can wait and watch Miami come to town?

I can't see how either result would do anything but hurt the league. Will it pull in the occassional gawker? Sure. So what? They're not going to be consistent, reliable fans... and you're going to lose a lot of small-market fans once they realize they're wasting their time.

I'm also afraid you'll see a lot more tanking as small-market teams fight for those critical top lottery picks to give themselves a chance to compete.

[Nick]

Of course Cleveland is screwed, but I don't see how Gilbert blames anyone but himself for surrounding Bron with the worst supporting talent of any superstar in recent memory.

Every move Gilbert did was derived from what Lebron wanted to do. How is this his fault?

[Marz]

Every move Gilbert did was derived from what Lebron wanted to do. How is this his fault?

LeBron's not sitting there working the phones trying to find ways to better his team. That's the GMs job. The GM just came to LeBron and said "What do you think of this move?" It is definitely the fault of Cleveland for providing LeBron with such a poor supporting cast, just as it is Colangelo's fault for not providing Bosh with a supporting cast that works.

[Mess]

I forget who it was that posted it on twitter, it's a quote from some team executive saying "Lebron has done more recruiting in the past 4 days then he did in 4 years in Cleveland."

[heinz57]

I forget who it was that posted it on twitter, it's a quote from some team executive saying "Lebron has done more recruiting in the past 4 days then he did in 4 years in Cleveland."

thats awesome... i am slightly interested in seeing what kind of menagerie of decrepit old half broken veterans, d-leaguers, and forgotten roleplayers they can convince to play for minimum salaries and the faint dream of a championship

the sad part is less nationally televised games for the smaller market teams.... which is too bad, i'd much rather watch a thunder game

[mo-sales]

Every move Gilbert did was derived from what Lebron wanted to do. How is this his fault?

I am pretty sure in the GM manual, chapter 1 states don't pander to your star player or you will lose him.

Reinsdorf famously never picked the guys the Jordan wanted leaving to the Kukoc beef.

Kobe wanted Bynum traded 3 years ago and now they have been to the finals three straight years.

Wade wanted Riley to throw some bandaids on the Heat so he wouldn't have to win 47 games alone, now the rest of the league has a concussion.

The former big three desperately wanted Sheed and now he's retiring two years too late.

The lesson is that player's make horrible GM's. They can't separate business from personal, are very reactionary and will never take the blame when thier 'guy' fails.

Gilbert surrounded Bron with aging vets, raptor throwaways and 3rd tier talent for 7 years. If Bron had any input in personnel decisions it was too much and as a result they either made panic trades for a dried out Shaq and a washed up Jamison or they decided the roster was fine and refused to add another gun. Bron gave them 7 of the best years of his life and all he ever asked for was another all star and the Cav's never delivered. This is why I have no pity for Gilbert as his was a self fulfilling prophecy.

[Nick]

I am pretty sure in the GM manual, chapter 1 states don't pander to your star player or you will lose him.

Reinsdorf famously never picked the guys the Jordan wanted leaving to the Kukoc beef.

Kobe wanted Bynum traded 3 years ago and now they have been to the finals three straight years.

Wade wanted Riley to throw some bandaids on the Heat so he wouldn't have to win 47 games alone, now the rest of the league has a concussion.

The former big three desperately wanted Sheed and now he's retiring two years too late.

The lesson is that player's make horrible GM's. They can't separate business from personal, are very reactionary and will never take the blame when thier 'guy' fails.

Gilbert surrounded Bron with aging vets, raptor throwaways and 3rd tier talent for 7 years. If Bron had any input in personnel decisions it was too much and as a result they either made panic trades for a dried out Shaq and a washed up Jamison or they decided the roster was fine and refused to add another gun. Bron gave them 7 of the best years of his life and all he ever asked for was another all star and the Cav's never delivered. This is why I have no pity for Gilbert as his was a self fulfilling prophecy.

I agree with your chapter 1 theory, players shouldn't be interconnected with business decisions. However: The former big three and sheed? Sheed was a big part in why the Celts went to the finals, game 7, this is contradicting your analogy because the players made a "good decision."

Lets say Bron had no input. You talk about these players that surrounded him as being castaways, tier 3 players, correct me if i'm wrong but were they not the best team in the league? Jamison was declared the best trade at the deadline, and Shaq is still being chased by many of the top teams in the league. Regardless of all that, it was all because of Ferry, not Gilbert. Dan is the owner, NOT THE G.M.

[mo-sales]

I agree with your chapter 1 theory, players shouldn't be interconnected with business decisions. However: The former big three and sheed? Sheed was a big part in why the Celts went to the finals, game 7, this is contradicting your analogy because the players made a "good decision."

Lets say Bron had no input. You talk about these players that surrounded him as being castaways, tier 3 players, correct me if i'm wrong but were they not the best team in the league? Jamison was declared the best trade at the deadline, and Shaq is still being chased by many of the top teams in the league. Regardless of all that, it was all because of Ferry, not Gilbert. Dan is the owner, NOT THE G.M.

First off, Sheed was a close 2nd to Hedo for being the LVP of the league last year. One of the reasons he is retiring is because his body can't hold up nor his pride for mailing in another 82 game season. The guy averaged 6 and 3 at 41% for the playoffs, lets not get start rewriting history here. He was supposed to be signed for two more years at about 6 mil per, his contract was truly an abomination.

Are you really arguing for the merits of that Cav's team? They had the worst roster 2-12 of any 60 win team in history. Jamison was heralded as a steal until he made KG look young again and Shaq's methodical meander up the court was akin to shackling Bron with a 350 pound anklet. Shaq is being chased by the veteran's minimum to come off the bench and wave to the crowd like a 40 year old Babe Ruth.

Ferry was the GM, but now Gilbert holds both titles and his desire to pursue a strategy of reckless spending rather then proactive improvements is the reason the Cav's best young player (JJ Hickson) couldn't get burn over two fossils and a Simpson's parody.