The Dominoe Effect

         We’re fresh off of round three of Warriors vs Cavaliers in the finals this year and it has lived up to expectations. As much entertainment and media hype that these two dominant forces created, it set off a chain of  debates and talks with the question on whether or not super-teams are good for the NBA. Well looking at the past 3-4 years we have seen the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history by a team who never one a championship, the greatest regular season by a team in NBA history with 73wins, see Lebron James go to his 7th straight NBA Finals, see Kevin Durant get his first ring, see Kobe drop 60 in his final game, the best regular season by an individual in Russell Westbrook, and the list goes on. What's been the most entertaining to watch over the past three to four years are those “superteams” that everyone seems to not like being apart of the NBA face off in high intense regular season and playoff matchups. 

         First off what is a “superteam” ? Well the NBA society’s definition is a team with 2-3 superstars or more who are surrounded by players either on the bench or in the starting five that set themselves apart from the rest of the NBA.These superteams have been around in each era of basketball; from Jerry West’s Lakers & Bill Russell's Celtics to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Bucks & Willis Reeds’ Knicks, from Larry Birds’ Celtics & Magic Johnson’s Lakers to Isiah Thomas’ Pistons & Michael Jordan’s Bulls with a hint of Hakeem Olajuwon’s Rockets in between Jordan's reign. Then after Jordan’s reign over basketball, there was the dynamic duo of Kobe and Shaq’s Los Angeles Lakers & Tim Duncan’s Spurs that lead to a Paul Pierce led Celtics team and another Kobe Bryant led Lakers team. By now if you were keeping up with my babbling you may have realized we have now reached the summer of 2010, the summer where the media pronounced “Chosen One” Lebron James decided to test free agency after spending seven years in Cleveland with no ring. 

        In this free agency Lebron James took matters into his own hands from being the only superstar surrounded by average to sub par talent to being a superstar now surrounded by two other superstars along with average talent. Lebron teamed up with friends Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh(who also tested free agency after seven years with Toronto) and signed with the Miami Heat. “The Decision” as it was called was edged into NBA history as it was the start of something that the NBA and it's fans never saw coming…or at least they thought. This power move by Lebron James came from losing too many times in the playoffs from not having a good enough supporting cast to help carry the workload and also not coming up big enough for his team at times when he should've. This became the first “superteam” constructed through the players themselves instead of through draft picks and usual block buster trades. From this point Lebron, D Wade and Chris Bosh went on to participate in the next four NBA Finals with the Heat while winning two championships and going up against of course the always relevant San Antonio Spurs who still had Tim Duncan but with a new young superstar into the mix known as Kawhi Leonard twice. 

         After those four years Lebron again switched teams in the summer of 2014 and goes back to Cleveland. He created another big three of his own as he teams up with a young scoring machine in point gaurd Kyrie Irving and All Star power forward Kevin Love who came from Minnesota in a trade for the Cavaliers number 1 pick Andrew Wiggins. From there the Cleveland Cavaliers established themselves as the one and only powerhouse in the eastern conference for the next two years as  the Golden State Warriors suddenly became something the NBA and specifically the western conference couldn't adapt to. With the soon to be two greatest shooters the NBA has ever seen in Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson paired with versatile forward in Draymond Green, who always seemed to be everywhere on the court, golden state suddenly became a problem. What made the Warriors so interesting was that their star players were all acquired through the draft and developed in their system then surrounded them with players who also fit their system and built chemistry; they went from an exciting young group who won a championship in 2015 to a 73-9 team within one year. So for two years the Warriors and Cavaliers faced off in the NBA finals as they clearly separated themselves from the rest of the NBA and gave us some of the most exciting and heavily talked about NBA finals matchups to date. 

       When everyone couldn't wait for part three of Warriors vs Cavaliers while remembering the last NBA Finals they just witnessed, someone in the NBA wanted to win and was also tired of losing time after time in the playoffs just like the man that just came off his 6th straight finals appearance. Kevin Durant like Lebron James took matters into his own hands and signed with a different team after several years with the one that drafted him. Kevin Durant decided to sign with the Golden State Warriors in the summer of 2016 which propelled them into the even bigger powerhouse that we know them to be today. Both Lebron and KD’s moves to join superteams changed the picture of the NBA but they were drawn a little bit differently. 

      Kevin Durant decided to join an already championship contending team after just losing to them in the playoffs months prior after being up 3-1. Lebron brought a team who didn't make the playoffs the year before to the playoffs and created a championship contending team. That's the difference, Lebron created a superteam of his own as Kevin joined one and enhanced them which ultimately led him to his first ring over ironically Lebron James. Now with that finals over  it seems that this isn't going to be last time Warriors and Cavaliers face off of assuming Lebron and Kyrie stay in Cleveland after 2018. Here's the “problem” that people around the NBA media societal world seem to have with that; knowing that there's 2-3 select teams that we expect to see in the finals brings boredom to the regular season and ultimately playoffs. What they fail to realize from this Warriors and Cavaliers dominance is that it's forcing players and GMs to make moves to rivals these teams and that's where this current off season comes in.

        This current off season has given us Jimmy Butler Jeff Teague and Taj Gibson to Minnesota, Paul George to Oklahoma City, Chris Paul to Houston, Paul Millsap to Denver, Rudy Gay to Spurs, Gordon Hayward and Marcus Morris to the Boston, and young players out the draft that seem to brighten up the future of their franchise few years down the line. Players like Lonzo Ball and Kyle Kuzma for the LA Lakers, Jayson Tatum for the Celtics, Sacramento with De’Aron Fox Justin Jackson Harry Giles and Frank Mason along with the veteran signings of George Hill Vince Carter and Zach Randolph, Philadelphia 76ers with number 1 pick  Markelle Fultz joining the last number 1 pick in Ben Simmons and Joel Embid and company who's process seem to actually be working as their years of tanking seek to be over. 

          Nevertheless we know nothing until next season starts but this far into free agency we know one thing, the superteams in Golden State and Celeveland are the two dominoes that are currently putting the NBA into a frenzy. The NBA is just adapting to what those two Goliaths are doing so they can compete with them which is resulting in players being in places we wouldn't imagine they would play for. Be thankful that you are all witnesses to this era of basketball because things are about to very interesting after the rest of the dominoes fall into place.