The damn Spurs either won the title in Tim Duncan's first season or in his second season. Of course they got him when they shamefully tanked and finished near the bottom of the league. Just another reason to hate that team.
The competitive imbalance is that one team can double the salary cap, imagine if Les had that kind of money. We should be very thankful that team doesn't have great management, if they ever got competent they would be very tough to stop.
This isn't true. Detroit made the World Series last year after years of being terrible. The White Sox did the same the previous year. Both teams basically came out of nowhere. Another point is that it's much easier to totally overhaul a team in baseball since chemistry isn't as vital. You can have a firesale and rebuild fairly quickly (see the Marlins). In baseball, there are only 4 playoff seeds in each "conference" yet a wide variety of teams make it and any of them can win. Same in the NFL w/ their 6 seeds. For the past several years, the only legit contenders in the NBA have been the Spurs, Mavs, Suns, Heat, and Pistons. Previous to the Suns/Heat getting good, you had LA in the mix. Everyone else has been a monumental longshot for the past 5+ years.
Yes, you are right. Organizations win championships. Under the previous Rox regime with a good GM, Rox put together good players to win 2 titles. After Les bought the team, well, everyone knows the result.
This point he was making was the for the Cleveland & Portland and all, it took 1 player. If you have that amazing player you relevant again immediately in Portland & Seattle's case, and in a few years for like Cleveland, Utah, Denver, NOK, etc. Detroit & ChiSox have spent a few years gathering prospects and developing them before they materialized. the Marlins trade many good players after they do well in playoffs to get a bunch of new prospects. That would equate to say the Pistons this year, trading their starting 5 for Oden Durant & Paul. In sports such as NFL & MLB that isnt so. NFL (with except of Vince) no player coming into the league has really single-handily led the team to contender in 2 years (Bush came into a very good Saints team). In MLB, Upton (who will be the next A-Rod) has taken 2 years just to reach the majors.
NBA has a salary structure problem. Like MLB they have guaranteed contracts, but like the NFL they have a salary cap. If you sign a bad contract in MLB, you can just go out and sign someone else (if the owner wants to spend the money). In the NFL, if you sign a bad contract, you can cut the guy and only pay the signing bonus. In the NBA, if you sign a bad contract, it can cripple a team. Look at the TWolves with Garnett. He is a great player, but with that contract, they can't do anything to improve the team. They will usually be good enough that they won't get the top tier talents in the draft, and they don't have the cap space to get the top tier free agents.
so statistically the rockets have an awesome chance of a dynasty thanks to yao. sweet. and about the competitive imbalance... alot of this stems from how the nba conducts the lotto. the lotto teams should be the 14 worst records. not the 14 teams who didn't make the playoffs which include at least 3 lotto teams from the west who are better than at least 3 playoff teams in the east.
What was this tangent about the small population of big men in the general populace? Oh, it was the New York Times. Who believes, or even reads, them anyway?
So according to this article's thinking...we should be favored to win automatically because we have both athleticism (rare) and height (rarer)...interesting.
The Rockets' first championship team had the worst collection of talent of any team prior or possibly since. Kenny Smith was basically out of the league after the '96 season. Vernon Maxwell was bought for 25K, and then did little to nothing after he left the team in '95. Horry had his best years with Houston. As a starter he was very limited. Thorpe was the only really solid player other than Hakeem.
