It is already common for NBA teams to bring together several star players to win the championship. So-called ‘superteams’ were formed for that purpose and recent speculation that James Harden might be traded from the Houston Rockets to the Brooklyn Nets and team up with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving could lead to one more ‘superteam’ in the group of respective ones created over the decades. Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the era of ‘superteams’ in the NBA.
How Did the Story With ‘Superteams’ Start?
Although it is not a new practice, currently there are several teams that in an almost incredible way managed to accumulate a number of players considered ‘stars’. These ‘superteams’ were created even in the old era, such as the Lakers with Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, and Elgin Baylor, or the Celtics with Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, and Dennis Johnson.
How about the Lakers again with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, and James Worthy, or the Rockets with Hakeen Olajuwon and Charles Barkley. The Lakers had another ‘superteam’ with Gary Payton, Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone, and Shaquille O’Neal. And pay attention – not all of them were champions, despite having a lot of talent.
In modern times, we must mention the Boston Celtics who brought together Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnet as well as the Miami Heat who teamed up Dwyane Wade, Lebron James, and Chris Bosh. Both teams became NBA champions. Others, despite bringing together great players, were an absolute failure, such as the Lakers with Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, and Dwight Howard.
In the past seasons, the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers were putting together a lot of great players in order to be champions, and it paid them off: two championships for the Warriors and one for the Cavaliers. Also, last season, there were several teams that made up so-called ‘superteams’:
- WARRIORS: Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green.
- CAVALIERS: LeBron James, Isaiah Thomas, Dwyane Wade, Kevin Love, Derrick Rose.
- SPURS: Kawhi Leonard, LaMarcus Aldridge, Pau Gasol.
- ROCKETS: James Harden, Chris Paul.
- CELTICS: Gordon Hayward, Al Horford, Kyrie Irving.
- THUNDER: Russell Westbrook, Paul George, Carmelo Anthony.
- TIMBERWOLVES: Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins, Jimmy Butler, Jeff Teague, Jamal Crawford.
The Power Is on the West
Warriors, Spurs, Rockets, Thunder, and Timberwolves are in the Western Conference of the league, concentrating a lot of talent and making it a very attractive conference to watch for the audience.
In contrast, in the Eastern conference, only Cleveland and Boston have gleaming teams, setting big differences against other teams.
Ambition Costs a Lot
So much ambition to gather many players in one place comes at a cost: luxury tax. The league has strict regulations that limit the amount teams can spend on players‘ salaries. If a team exceeds this limit, it begins to pay a luxury tax that is around $ 1.5 for every dollar that is exceeded, and up to $ 3.25 for every dollar that exceeds the limit. As an example, last season the Cleveland Cavaliers spent $ 107 million on player salaries for which they had to pay $ 54 million in tax alone.
These large sums of money are out there thanks to the new collective agreements between players and the league, which renewed television contracts and changed its supplier of Adidas uniforms to Nike. Large sums of money were received for this, which forced the increase of the salary cap to all teams. With all this, we will see if these great teams will really play at the level of their great players next season.
