The Death of Parity?

Success Begets Success and Superstars Beget Superstars

In months and years leading to the 2010 offseason, you remember that one right (see James, LeBron and Bosh, Chris), the prevailing wisdom from those in the know and those in the don’t know was that three superstars on the same team, while theoretically possible, was so improbable it prompted immediate and prolonged laughter.

Well it turns out the city of Cleveland was not the only one looking foolish in August 2010, the preverbal egg was all over our collective faces.

Fast-forward only half a season later and now not only has the Miami Heat, pulling-off the major coup that netted (excuse the pun) the big (LeBron), the talented (Wade) and the lanky (Bosh), broken the mold but they have also started the trend.

Followers of the NBA have been bored to death sitting and waiting with not so baited breath for the Carmelo Anthony situation to be resolved. On the surface the situation is typical, another superstar requesting a trade. However, the second layer off the onion reveals a deeper “problem” for the NBA. For the second year in a row, a superstar wants to leave a successful small-market team in pursuit of an opportunity to play with superstar friends, masked with proclamations of championship aspirations.

Chris Paul has also made deliberate overtures to his club that he’d like to be traded to a team like New York that sports Amare Stoudemire and rumored to acquire Carmelo Anothony. Combine those rumors within recent ones involving Dwight Howard and what does this all mean?

The death of parity in the NBA.

What is parity you ask, and why does it matter?

Well since you asked…

Parity is essentially the state or condition of being equal. In sports terms it means that wins and losses can fluctuate from year to year for any team. In any given year, your favourite team has a legitimate shot at the playoffs.

The four major North American sports leagues (NBA, NHL, MLB, NFL) have sought parity over the last two decades by introducing salary restrictions and caps to keep interest and attendance high in markets that cannot compete financially with major markets such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The problem is that any rule that can be made can be broken and in the NBA General Managers have found ways to circumvent salary cap restrictions and build super-teams such as the Lakers, Celtics and now Heat.

If the trend continues and the allocation of assets continues to dissipate the “middle class” of basketball, 20 of the 30 NBA communities will be made irrelevant because teams will be playing for very little.

So is parity or the trend that might produce its death good or bad?

On one hand it will create possible dynasties like in the 60s, 70s and 80s, not to mention uber-competitive matches between a handful of teams.

On the other hand hope and interest will wane for local teams, thus affecting league attendance and theoretically league revenues.

What do you think, is the death of parity good or bad?

- J.Moore