It's okay for a big city. With Miami, it more like "WTF, why can't my mid-smallish city be that lucky???"
Los Angeles (Lakers or Clippers): It's LA, they always need stars. You can't feature a starting lineup of Omar Asik-Jason Maxiell-Tayshuan Prince-JJ Redick-Mo Williams for an LA Lakers squad. You'd be out of your mind. New York: It's New York, baby. Chicago: C'mon Chicago is like New York, but not quite as big. Miami: Ummm ummm . . . (on one side of the aisle) ... a lone voice yells out "They got South Beach and beautiful people down there." Houston: Everyone clears out of the room.
This makes sense except your use of plural, and same with the Title of the thread. So far, free agency (as opposed to GM trades, drafts, etc) has created the Heat as a Super Team in terms of success. Where else do we see players having success by conspiring to join forces under free agency, max contracts? Seems to me that joining forces in max contracts depletes depth and no one but the Heat have overcome the salary cap problem of artificially creating a "Super Team." I don't thing the "problem" is a plural issue as implied.
Logical fallacy. That would assume that the players in this era are as good as players in past eras. LeBron is the best player in the sport right now, but he doesn't hold a candle to Jordan. Howard is the best center in the NBA right now but Hakeem in his prime would smoke him. My point is that you could VERY EASILY make the argument that LeBron and Wade are the #1 and #2 players in the sport right now. When have the two best players in the NBA teamed up in the past? I don't even know what you're trying to say here.
I think Wade is at worst #4 and at best #2. If you can point out more examples of times when two players that high-ranked in the sport teamed up I'd be interested to learn about it.
I think complete parity and even teams would be my favorite result. But that will never happen in reality. It won't happen in any sport. That said, it's not super teams that ruin the sport, it's super divas. Why do stars act like spoilt girls now?
You're just being deliberately obtuse. It is very apparent that you go out of your way to artificially set the Heat apart from great teams in the past but have no solid ground to stand on.
Parity would make for more pervasive and spirited competition; however, having some super teams allows for the possibility of huge upsets by surprise teams. Cream rises to the top, but sometimes it sours.
The playoffs the year before Lebron joined the Heat was probably my favorite playoffs. Every team in the playoffs had a star and led to several contested playoff series
There have only been two super teams in league history.... Recent Boston and the Heat. All the other teams in the past just had a Big 3. Super Team = players who were the franchise prior to assembling the Super Team.
Top players have more chance to get a ring, mediocre players have more chance to get over paid. Games are less fun to watch over all.
I think sports in general are more interesting when the gap between the elite teams and everybody else is smaller. It's one of the reasons NFL is king. Not that there aren't teams that have a lot of talent and stay good for a long time, but that there are more teams on the same level to provide competition and that there's more opportunity for the teams a notch or two below to make the jump to elite status. NFL teams can't just collect a bunch of stars and pay them what they're work because it doesn't work financially. They often have to make hard decisions and let good players go. I think the NBA would benefit from a hard cap. It would force the talent to be distributed more evenly and balance out competition which would make the games more interesting to watch.
Look, obviously not every team is going to compete for a championship, and you're always going to have poorly run teams. Here's my problem though, it appears the league is at a point (or slowly coming to a point) where the same few teams are going to be good. Take the Lakers for instance, they've had competitive teams almost every year that they've existed. Boston would probably have been the same way had Lew Bias not passed away. Ideally, you'd have a cyclical system. Team is bad, team gets better, team brings in some nice pieces, team wins one, or maybe even a handful of championships, team is bad again. With a team like the Lakers it's always been, team is good, team is great, team is good etc. Now, every sport has it's Lakers. The Yankees, the Steelers etc. But the NBA also has the opposite, the "anti-Lakers" we'll call them. Teams like the Cavs, Raptors, Bobcats, Kings etc. As we see time and time again, these teams simply don't compete. Sure, you have one or two teams like that in every league, but I'd say at least 1/5th of the league falls into this category. If you're a Toronto fan, it's like "What's the point?" if you get anybody good, they'll leave for LA or New York or wherever. That, I think, is the biggest problem the league faces. The permanent and very large gap inequality between top teams and bottom teams that has enlarged over the past two decades. And I think a lot of the rage over this, is misdirected towards super teams. The solution? I honestly, don't know. I think the league overexpanded and that's what's created this mess. I'd say contraction- but that will never happen unless the NBA becomes really money strapped.
