Well Many sports are dynasty based: football (⚽️), F1, MotoGP etc

Free agency was much different before the early 00s.

What about the 1970s? I don’t believe anybody went back to back in that decade

I still find it crazy and shortsighted to think parity is a good thing, it goes against the essence of the sport because it’s artificially created making teams unable to pay their players if they dare to develop them well. it’s stupidly designed atm, it’s a merry-go-round of owners and each one gets to claim they got a chip for the city, fans are hyped about having their whole roster changed every two years idk it’s so bad on many levels

Dynasties bring hate and nothing sells better than that

Ten years ago I quit watching the finals for a few years because I was sick of Cavs/Warriors or LeBron vs. whoever. It’s been refreshing the last few years.

NGL, it kind of sucks. You get an All-Time group of players and they’re forced to break it apart. IMO, there needs to be a balance between maintaining home grown talent and not building superteams. You draft a guy they should be able to stay there if they are a HOF talent.

Parity has been pretty great so far! That being said, we can stop with it now for ~10 years maybe and just have the most recent champions go on a dynastic tear. Could have different teams make it from the west each year though to spice it up

LeDinasty

It was the same finals matchup from 2013-14, and then a separate repeat matchup 2015-16, covering those years. Commenter did not forget anything.

From 1994 to 2005 every NBA champion had Robert Horry, Steve Kerr or Darko Millicic

Tacos!!!

Could just say Shaq since he carried Kobe to the 3peat and then won in Miami. Kobe was the best player on exactly 2 finals teams.

DWade won 3 and went to 5 finals and 6 ECFs?

Crazy how much shit Wade gets from young fans when he was a personal injury away from repeating 2005-2006 and a Bron meltdown from 3peating 2011-2013.

Man, I know I lived through it and watched it, but Phil Jackson was just on another level. 11 titles in 19 years. What the hell man lol

College basketball was actually more popular than the NBA in 1970s America, as crazy as that sounds today. Magic and Bird entering the league after dominating college, and Kareem going to the showtime Lakers completely changed the league forever in the early 80s. Then this guy named MJ came in the league in the mid-80s, and the NBA become a global phenomenon

In 15 years, the NBA went from being less popular than college basketball to an international brand.

Im not agreeing with everything here, but even as a fan who gives credit to every era and likes to compare players relative to their era, 70s is definitely the asterisk decade for me. Most of the eras have talent concentrated to specific teams (dynasties), the current era has talent spread out, but the 70s had talent depleted. Kareem is like the only top 20 player off the top of my head who had his prime/played majority of the 70s, and he unsurprisingly ended up with most MVPs in league history as a result. Hondo is next up, who was great, but doesnt compare to top 3 greats of other eras.

It’s very weird how such a large portion of NBA fans think it’s the league’s responsibility to make sure bad teams stop being bad. Winning loses a hell of a lot of its prestige if you’re only winning because the league is intentionally handicapping the good teams and artificially blowing up the bad teams.

Bingo

If you look at the expansion timeline too, things almost match up too well. Starting with that second Lakers title, the league had three different expansions from 1988-89 to 1995-96, going from 23 to 29 teams. Definitely played a factor in how dominant the dominant teams of that era looked

Yep the Bulls overtaking the Pistons was huge both for starting the Bulls run and ending the Pistons. Now it’s just not the same.

This is well said. When no team manages to win multiple championships within an era/decade, it feel as if we don’t have any defining player/team of that era.

The 2010s were defined by Lebron and Steph; the 2000s by Duncan, Kobe, Shaq; the 1990s by Jordan and Hakeem; etc. But who defines the 2020s? Giannis got 1, Jokic got 1, SGA got 1, plus a ring each for the Knicks/Celtics/Warriors/Lakers… but none have replicated their run thus far. And consequently, each ring feels more like a perfect storm than an iconic run.

Historically, the NBA has always been defined by its greatest teams and players from era to era. The 2020s are a major deviation because it’s not even clear who those are.

Especially considering some of the teams he was dragging into the Finals early on.

It is actually 13 unique teams in the Finals. You’re missing the Thunder on your list.

32?

Yes it is. If the new CBA didn’t exist, created in the wake of the superteam era of the 2010s, Jokic and Giannis would have had another superstar go team up with them, and then those 2 teams would have bulldozed the league. The elite teams got weaker, and the cap levelled the playing field.