With the San Antonio Spurs set to meet the New York Knicks in this year’s NBA Finals, the parity that the league is currently experiencing will result in a different team winning the NBA Championship for the past eight seasons. This is the longest stretch the league has had without one team winning multiple championships since the NBA-ABA merger, and it indicates a historic level of parity in the current NBA. Since 2019, the Raptors, Lakers, Bucks, Warriors, Nuggets, Celtics, and Thunder have all won the title. A Spurs-Knicks matchup guarantees that trend will continue for at least another year.
What’s Driving This Historic Stretch Of Parity In The NBA?
The league has put certain measures into place to create a more level playing field, which may be the culprit for the competitive balance that is happening now. Policies like the salary cap ensure that teams from large markets can’t just outspend teams from smaller ones. Free agency also makes it difficult to keep a core group of elite players together if any of them can find a bigger payday elsewhere. These aspects of the NBA have been in place for decades, so the culprit for the current level of parity must be found somewhere else.
The reason that the NBA is going through this time of unusual parity is due to the resistance of foreign-born superstars to the phenomenon of creating superteams. Foreigners have begun dominating the NBA to such an extent that there hasn’t been an American winner of the MVP Award since 2018. Given the current state of the league, there is little evidence that this trend will change.
Foreign Superstars Typically Stick With Their Teams
There appears to be far less desire among non-American NBA greats to join other great players and great teams to win a title. Superstars such as Giannis Antetokounmpo of Greece and Nikola Jokic of Serbia each won championships with the team that drafted them. Elite Canadian guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander won his title with the Oklahoma City Thunder team that traded for him following his rookie season. Overall, there seems to be less of a desire to “stack the deck” to obtain a ring from elite players born in other countries.
The last two times there has been a repeat champion was when an American superstar has chosen to join with other great players via free agency. LeBron James signed with the Miami Heat in 2010 and won back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013. Kevin Durant went to the Golden State Warriors after the 2016 season and won titles there in 2017 and 2018. Without this tendency to partner with other superstars, winning multiple championships in today’s NBA seems to be an elusive accomplishment.
Some might say that this era of parity is coming to an end with the 22-year-old Victor Wembanyama leading his team to the NBA Finals this season. An imminent Spurs dynasty isn’t as guaranteed as the perception might indicate. After all, the same could have been said about the Thunder last season after they won a championship as a young, elite team led by a legitimate superstar.
The reasons foreign-born superstars are more likely to remain with the teams that draft them or obtain them early on cannot fully be known. Perhaps they feel more obligated to stay with their initial team due to the conditions they grew up with in their native countries, and how vastly different their lifestyles become playing in the NBA.
Perhaps American superstars feel a greater connection with other great American players from around the league due to the AAU teams they were a part of in their youth, and are more likely to join each other’s teams as a result. Regardless of the reasons, the parity that the league is currently experiencing coincides directly with the foreign player dominance that’s expected to continue.
