Pretty interesting take... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/s...tml?ex=1179979200&en=f293e60a5bb82deb&ei=5070 The Short Supply of Competitive Balance By DAVID J. BERRI Published: May 6, 2007 Last Thursday the Golden State Warriors eliminated the Dallas Mavericks. That was a shock, since it was the first time since the N.B.A. went to a best-of-seven format in the first round of the playoffs that the lowest- seeded team in a conference defeated the top seed. The significance of this event moves beyond the monumental nature of the upset. In finishing the season with the N.B.A.’s best record, the Mavericks were regarded as the favorite to win the championship. And had that happened, they would have joined a surprisingly small fraternity of teams that have actually won an N.B.A. title. Of the 30 current N.B.A. teams, 14 have never won a championship. Five franchises — Celtics, Lakers, Bulls, Pistons and Spurs — have won 70 percent of all titles. Although the Celtics and the Lakers were not serious contenders this season, with the defeat of the Mavericks, there is a better chance that the Bulls, the Pistons or the Spurs will once again be crowned champions. This pattern, in which the same franchises keep taking the league’s top prize, is not seen in other sports. In the past 20 years, 11 different N.H.L. teams have hoisted the Stanley Cup. In the N.F.L., 12 different teams have won the Super Bowl. And in baseball, the league in which competitive balance is perpetually thought to be a problem, 14 different teams have won the World Series in the past two decades. Across the same time frame, though, only six teams — Bulls, Heat, Lakers, Pistons, Rockets and Spurs — have taken the N.B.A. title. Of these six, only the Heat failed to win multiple crowns. The N.B.A. apparently has a significant problem with competitive balance. Year after year, the same teams compete for the title. And when we look at the distribution of victories in a given season in the four major North American sports leagues, we observe a much greater difference between the best and the worst in the N.B.A. Why does the N.B.A. have such a problem with competitive balance? The answer lies in the short supply of tall people. The average American man is 5 feet 10 inches. The average N.B.A. player, though, is 6-7, and nearly a third are 6-10 or taller. This height requirement poses a significant problem for the league. Only 2 percent of adult men are taller than 6-3 and a tiny number are at least 6-10. Why is this a problem? The population of athletes the N.B.A. draws upon is quite small. As the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould observed, when a population is relatively small, the difference between the very best and the average athlete will be quite large. In other words, when your population of athletes is small, your league will have less competitive balance. The very best in basketball in recent years included Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and Michael Jordan. Teams that employed these talents tended to go far. Other teams, though, have been led by less-talented players. The Warriors demonstrated that occasionally a team made up of the less talented can prevail. This was such a surprise, though, because so often this is not what we observe. The level of competitive balance we see in the N.B.A. was also once seen in Major League Baseball. In the first half of the 20th century, baseball was played only by white Americans from the eastern United States. Given a relatively small population, the difference between the great and not so great was quite large. Consequently, the Yankees frequently ended the season as World Series champions. As time went by, though, baseball integrated and began employing more and more foreign talent. Consequently, the supply of great players increased and competitive balance improved. In the N.B.A., teams have increasingly turned to foreign players. But even in the world, the supply of talented big people is still quite small. Hence, it is not clear that basketball will ever have the level of competitive balance we observe in baseball today. Is this important to the league? The N.B.A. has set attendance records for three consecutive seasons. If fans truly cared about competitive balance, they have a funny way of showing it. Still, for those who want variety in their champions, it’s time to root for the Suns. Phoenix has the best chance to win a title for the first time. But the Suns first have to get past Tim Duncan and the Spurs, who are seeking their fourth title in the past nine seasons. Nevertheless, if competitive balance is your thing, it’s time to say “Go Suns.” David J. Berri, an economist at California State University-Bakersfield, is a co-author of “The Wages of Wins.”
Very interesting. But I would think that the fact that only 5 players are on the court at once, that those players are better able to influence the outcome of the game. And since the teams at the top have the best players, naturally they will stay at the top as long as those players continue to play. Once they retire, those franchises pretty much start over...... Still an interesting analysis. DD
Measuring competitive balance by the number of championships is a little misleading. It's much easier to go from a bottom dweller to contender in bball then in any other major sport. In MLB you pretty much know who the top few teams are at the beginning of the season. (multi-page thread on the Yankees not withstanding).
The article is "interesting" but the premise is misleading. The main reason for the supposed competitive imbalance is that some franchises are well-managed and others are basket cases (when it comes to personnel decisions). A couple of very good decisions and a team can be good for a long time. A few bad decisions on long-term guaranteed contracts and a team can be hamstrung for a long time. Someone could just as easily write an article that (stupid) long-term guaranteed contracts given to undeserving players are the reason for the imbalance. A max contract given to the wrong player can mean mediocrity at best. Given to a true superstar, a max contract is a bargain for a franchise. What happens is when players become eligible, many feel "disrespected" if their team doesn't offer them the max. The team is forced to either overpay or lose the player for nothing, neither of which is good.
Nice try, but it didnt quite cut- analyze something else. That guy did a bad job. Theres what 200-250 nba players. How many guys over 6'3 are there in the U.S. in college alone. Thousands! Big men (6'10") have always been rare but the greatest player in nba history and one of the best champions was 6'6". I think that there is a lot of competition for those NBA slots. The 'disbalace' was because of money at first. Now theres a salary cap but way before and much like in baseball the richest team had the best team and thats why they won so manny championships.
when you say bball you mean basketball, i assume...right? i don't really agree. i think are some outliers of this argument (yankees on one side, royals on the other) that speak to your point. but they are the exceptions. in 1990, both the braves and twins made the world series after both finished in last place in their respective divisions the year before. it seems like that happened recently too...the marlins maybe? when was the last time you had that happen in basketball? when was the last time a team won a championship in the NBA on the heels of a season where they finished in last place? or even where a team played for the championship after finishing in last the season before?
it's because one star can make a huge difference in basketball (unlike the other sports) and stars can last for a decade plus. so when you combine a superstar with quality management, you get about a decade for one team to start bringing in titles. the lakers did it for 3 years with kobe and shaq, the spurs are going to get 4 from duncan, the lakers got 5 from magic and kareem, celtics 3 with bird, bulls 6 with jordan, rockets 2 with hakeem. save for detroit's 3, there's all your titles, superstars who gave their teams a decade to put good players around them and a few years of actually getting solid role players. in baseball and football, it doesn't work that way. baseball players can't have that impact and their stats seem to vary wildly from year to year, unlike basketball stars, so it's not just a given one will even help you to a title in a given year even if you've got other good players. plus, baseball is a sport about the law of averages eventually working over 162 games, except the playoffs involve about 15 games, so once you get there, just about anything can happen depending on what sort of run a team is on, no matter how good or mediocre a team is. in basketball, it's hard to fluke your way to a 7 game series victory. even the warriors just had to own the mavs because of matchups to pull it off, they didn't fluke their way to a win. and the nfl pretty much forces parity to happen with a hard cap and imbalanced schedules. sometimes parity is good for the nfl, sometimes it breeds mediocrity. can't really argue with their revenues, just saying sometimes the mediocrity stands out. basketball allows a very nice competitive balance if you ask me. a soft cap allows teams to grow, reach a peak, retain their players, and then eventually fall when they get old, and then the rebuilding cycle starts over. then new teams can rise. you can't buy all the talent in the world like baseball, but you don't have to give all your talent up b/c of a hard cap like in the nfl. and poor management has nothing to do with competitive balance, because every sport has the same mix of great, good, average, poor, and crappy gm's and owners running the teams. basketball wouldn't be affected any differently than the other sports.
I wonder what the top 5 teams are that have MADE the finals...Celtics, Lakers, Bulls, Detrioit, and probably the Rockets tied with several others.
I guess my impression is that it's much easier to improve in basketball. We have people posting about how good Portland's become through one draft. Cleaveland went from dismal to good with one player. You don't get that in Baseball or any other sport. Not without a major overhaul to the team. I admit I don't follow baseball with the same zeal as you do (does anybody?) and I wasn't aware of the histories of the WC participants 16 years ago. So I'll defer to you that they are representative and yankees, bosox etc are outliers . As F4P stated...it's the nature of the sport and the impact of a single player. As well as salary structure. Just saying...that championships alone are a poor measure of competitive imbalance. There aren't many teams in the NBA that couldn't be very good in a few years given the addition of one or two players. Except the Jazz. They may win...but they are still evil.
Is this his roundabout way of saying that he wants the league to contract? There's another popular reason that fits his facts that he didn't mention. Of all the major sports, basketball is the most individually minded. One guy can make a greater impact on a basketball team than other sports. The outcome of a basketball team is more luck than the talent picking skill and foresight of a GM. Other sports don't get crippled as much with busts and can compensate with a GM who has a good picture on how the pieces should fit.
Maybe the writer from the NEW YORK TIMES should transfer to a city where the basketball team is ran by a competent individual. It's easy to b**** and whine about non-parity when you're local team has dropped the ball time and time again. Did New Yorkers feel any sympathy for the Washington Bullets when they were in MediocreLand in the 90s? I bet they sure didn't because the Knicks were competitive year in and year out. Did these same New York writer try to point this out when the Knicks were battling the Bulls in the the Eastern Conference Finals while the Vancouver Grizzlies were losing every other day? A team run by a competent GM can do wonders for the organization. Look at Toronto. Look at Chicago. It takes some creative managing and some luck to have success in any professional sports league. And this guy has the nerve to try bring the Yankees into the talk about parity. Yea the Yankees stopped winning because other teams in the MLB brought in cheaper Latin players. Get real. If the Yanks weren't trying to outspend everyone in every offseason and put together an actual TEAM like in the late 90s, maybe they would still be winning pennants.
