11 different champions in 14 years and only one dynasty, we’re in the most wide-open era ever

The last 8 years being 8 different champs is brought up often, but if you cut off at 2013 it’s even crazier. Every NBA champion since then:

Heat, Spurs, Warriors, Cavs, Warriors, Warriors, Raptors, Lakers, Bucks, Warriors, Nuggets, Celtics, Thunder, Knicks.

That’s 14 seasons, 11 different franchises and the only repeat is the Warriors winning 4.

Think about how insane that is compared to the Celtics/Lakers 80s, the Jordan Bulls, the Duncan Spurs and 00-s Lakers.

For most of league history it’s been all about dynasties, but not anymore. Crazy how it coincides with Adam Silver taking over the league in 2014.

Who could continue the trend next year? Wolves, Rockets, Sixers, Pistons or Pacers are the likeliest candidates, but they are all underdogs against Spurs, Knicks, Thunder or Nuggets.

MakeShiftDie

72 | 12 hours ago

Parity project seems to be working. And now people are complaining how impossible it is to keep teams together.

Takemyfishplease | Lakers

38 | 12 hours ago

Yeah people seemed to have some idea the league would have parity *and* teams would be able to keep their cores and fan favorites together,

That’s not how it works and the players voted on it. The Nbapa needs some serious work done, especially informing its members that getting no weed testing in exchange for the aprons was ridiculous

TheWesternMythos

11 | 11 hours ago

I think you can have both.

A big thing preventing that is the governors essentially make the rules and since only a few of them are actually trying hard to win , the collective group wants to make it easier for the not try hards. Stuff like the salary cap and aprons prevent teams from being allowed to spend too much. The way the league decided to pursue parity is the simplist way possible , make it so the best teams have to constantly remake themselves (as opposed to helping teams get better faster) . Again , the current strategy is to make an artificial ceiling to limit spending and team building as opposed to raising the floor constantly which accelerates spending.

No one should want the league to become tiered based on the governors bank account. But I do think there could be more middle ground.

The NBAs biggest stars aren’t going to play elsewhere if their salaries are slightly reduced so I may want to start with lowering each of the Maxxes up to 5% (to spread the money more evenly among the players ) and bump the second apron way up. I’d also revamp luxury tax, so most of it goes to the teams. The goal being if a team wants to spend crazy amounts of money ,the mechanism forces them to also cover payroll for other teams( with a certain spending range not too low or high ). So if the clippers go spend crazy then they also make it easier for the rockets to aquire players because clippers are covering some of the cost.

The reason you have to spend a certain amount is the make sure governers can’t sit back and collect money for being bad. It’s meant for competitive teams to go out and bring in an upgrade or two to move into title contention. Even if the clippers match that by bring in higher paid guy, they are also covering their biggest competitors to do the same (the goal is to make partiy by making it easier for teams 9- 4 to challenge teams 3-1, not make teams 3 -1 shed good players every year )

With this and the flattening of salary by lowering maxxes I’d think /hope there would be two large groups of nba players. The franchise anchors with long term deals (across the salary scale) and the mercenaries with short term deals to take advantage of shifting payroll sizes as luxury tax payouts move around each year.

Thought about this for ten minutes so the system may need a tweak or two. And the big down side is the worst governers will be exposed even harder. But with any system you end up catering to the bottom middle or top. I’m a fan of catering to the middle as the top shouldn’t need much institutional support and the middle should have minimal incentive go to the bottom. Normally you want another system(s) to help push the bottom towards the middle , but since we are dealing only with very rich people /groups the bottom will be fine if they choose to stay down. Fans will be fine if they choose to support trash.

lucky-me_lucky-mud | Spurs

2 | 6 hours ago

I feel like long term continuity would foster more mature cultures and attitudes that would go along with franchise identity. Toxic personalities will still poison the pots but with less incentive to move around all the time or be constantly testing the waters every few years, the best options would ideally be to swallow one’s ego and play team ball. The talent level in the NBA is crazy but it takes veterans with the right mindset and vibes to get these kinds of teams to coalesce and what you’re describing seems like it would lead that happening a little more often. Eventually.

tangential_quip | Lakers

-2 | 9 hours ago

I don’t think either side actually gave full thought to how the aprons would interact with the supermax contracts which were relatively new at the time.

I don’t think of the aprons as something the owners did to the players detriment, so much as a thing that the owners of the 22-25 teams who didn’t think they could compete imposed on the winning franchises and sold as a way for them to control costs.

lucky-me_lucky-mud | Spurs

17 | 12 hours ago

Both can be true. I think in an ideal world there’d be relatively even odds among a tier of contenders while rosters remain mostly stable, rather than being broken up, especially because they drafted too well.

Wise-Photo7287

3 | 7 hours ago

CBA Second apron seems to be the team killers these days.

Takemyfishplease | Lakers

2 | 6 hours ago

How does this happen tho? Good players are gonna want to get paid, and teams are not equal when it comes to drafting. Force them to stay with the team that drafted them cause the fans like em?

lucky-me_lucky-mud | Spurs

0 | 6 hours ago

It’s not forcing them to, unsure how to respond to points like that. No one is implying the league needs to be equal or that players don’t want to get paid

According_Source_167

2 | 12 hours ago

Its a damn if you do, damn if you dont argument. It may move to the other side if nba will lose its profit.

RicoGemini | Knicks

1 | 5 hours ago

The parity is great but I do think there needs to be adjustments. Teams like the Thunder for example get punished for drafting well due to the aprons.

LuckyStax | Trail Blazers

47 | 12 hours ago

looks around hopefully Couldn’t be us?

Ramikadyc | Thunder

20 | 12 hours ago

The world’s ready for a true overdog story.

Vast_Performer_7755

3 | 4 hours ago

Anyone but not a team with an israeli on it

chinesefox97

1 | 11 hours ago

NBA Champion Hansen Yang will have billions of fans.

Apoplexy | Warriors

1 | 10 hours ago

gonna be tough when your biggest obstacle to success is the owner

ContinuingAnyway

1 | 4 hours ago

You got a squad now

kyleh092

14 | 12 hours ago

And it’s not like the warriors were in rebuild mode after dominating prior. They went from a league laughingstock, to one of the most storied franchises. No ring in 50 years straight to a dynasty is still so nuts

Edit- the cap changes since the start of the dubs dynasty easily could have stopped a few teams from going back to back. They really took advantage of the new tv deal lol

Babashaq

11 | 11 hours ago

Your list literally started with a team on the back end of a back to back championship. The next year a dynasty had it’s last championship. The next year a dynasty had it’s first

JaLeBrunSon [OP]

10 | 10 hours ago

Well I had to make a cutoff somewhere ! Haha

the1slyyy

4 | 8 hours ago

Cutting it off partway through the heat winning 2 and going to 4 finals was a weird choice

Nice_Cash_7000 | NBA

3 | 12 hours ago

I dont disagree with what you said, but your “most likely candidate” list is pretty bad lol

The Heat have like 2x higher odds to win than the Pacers.

Obviously sports books isnt the perfect way to determine whos gonna win, but its pretty much the best thing we got. The most recent top 10 is:

1)Oklahoma City Thunder

2)San Antonio Spurs

3)New York Knicks

4)Boston Celtics

5)Philadelphia 76ers

6)Miami Heat

7)Minnesota Timberwolves

8)Detroit Pistons

9)Denver Nuggets

10)Toronto Raptors

And when looking at the teams, I find it hard to disagree with this list, I’d probably have philly a little lower.

JaLeBrunSon [OP]

4 | 12 hours ago

The Heat or Toronto would not follow the trend and they would be repeat champions. I was talking about teams who hadn’t won yet in the last 14 years.

Nice_Cash_7000 | NBA

3 | 12 hours ago

Yeah, my bad. Gotta have my morning coffee before commenting next time lol

lucky-me_lucky-mud | Spurs

2 | 12 hours ago

Wild the Knicks are 3rd after that absurdly dominant playoff run. But also if Harper takes a year 2 leap it’s a wrap imo.

Nice_Cash_7000 | NBA

9 | 12 hours ago

Teams dont make it back to the finals after a championship run these days. If younger teams like the Thunder cant, its hard to be positive about the Knicks. These days its almost a guarantee that injuries will plague the team that won the chip the previous season.

The only reason why the Spurs get the benefit of the doubt after the finals run is because they are super young and dont have a history of injuries from their main guys.

CarBallAlex | Celtics

1 | 10 hours ago

Fatigue could definitely set in, and don’t forget the Thunder took them to 7 and were banged up. I think they would have been a much tougher matchup for NY.

If healthy, I’m still betting on the Thunder this year, especially with a chip on their shoulder from being humbled this year.

Nice_Cash_7000 | NBA

1 | 10 hours ago

Honestly I’m just happy we got so many great teams rn, especially in the east. Im super excited for next year.

If anything the only thing I would actually hope for is a Heat Celtics playoff series. The rivalry must go on, those are always amazing and we dont have many rivalries thwse days.

CarBallAlex | Celtics

1 | 10 hours ago

Yeah, there are a lot of teams to be optimistic about. I generally do a standings prediction for the upcoming year right before opening night just for fun for myself. I have a feeling I’m going to be making my list and saying “wait, they’re a lottery team?” with how many teams should be better.

Resident_Society1594

3 | 12 hours ago

spurs definitely have the highest chance, followed by pacers and sixers. denver is injury prone, doesn’t have very strong depth, and needs to go through the monsters in the west like spurs, okc and minnesota, and minnesota itself is lacking in its bench a little while dealing with the monsters in spurs and okc as well as an aging Gobert and a (maybe?) injury prone Lamelo. pistons and lakers have the same issue where they have one really good offensive star who performs in the playoffs in Cade and Luka respectively, but not too great offense around them along with a center who really needs to fully take the leap. and rockets have the issue of their best offensive weapons in KD and Sengun not working well together, Amen still needing to work on the jumpshot, Reed needing to develop and although Vanvleet returning will help, I’m not sure how good he’ll be, nor how much he’ll help

JaLeBrunSon [OP]

2 | 12 hours ago

Spurs don’t count in my concept, since they already won in 2014. It has to be someone new, who hasn’t won since 2013

Resident_Society1594

3 | 12 hours ago

technically speaking, if spurs win next year, there will still be 11 new champions in 14 years

numberonebuddy | TOR

2 | 11 hours ago

2027 - 2014 = 13 so no. It’s just the oldest team in the set that is moved out and thus can win the newest one, so it’d be the 2013 heat dropping out and our new set of years is 2014 - 2027, bookended by Spurs and (new) Heat.

ncxbeats

1 | 12 hours ago

As a Pacer fan, I truly believe this upcoming season will be electric for us. Unfinished business!

ObiOneKenobae | Knicks

1 | 11 hours ago

Pacers…?

Sixers…?

Mmm definitely not

spiattalo | NBA

1 | 8 hours ago

I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but IMHO championships are a bit less valuable when everyone gets one. At that point it sounds like luck of the draw. On the other hand, people will always remember proper dynasties.

Eltonbeef

1 | 6 hours ago

You say wide open, I say participation trophy era

Final-Ad-6694 | Wizards

0 | 11 hours ago

I prefer dynasties. Those teams will be remembered forever while teams like the bucks will largely be forgettable

JaLeBrunSon [OP]

4 | 10 hours ago

Depending on the type of a ring they won, the story of it

No one will forget 2011 Mavs, 2016 Cavs or 2026 Knicks

smokie_lokie

0 | 10 hours ago

We cannot be having this thread every day?

ThePillsburyPlougher | Rockets

-1 | 9 hours ago

When the rules are so successful in enforcing parity, championships mean even less for player resume than they did before