Is this owner interested in basketball, or extracting community wealth for their personal fortune?

Depends on the owner. One looking for profits would want sustained success, one looking for egomaxxing would want the dominance

If we’re talking fiscal reality, having a stars/superstars is what matters most - puts butts in seats, gives you national coverage and most importantly, sells a ton of merch (and with increased local revenue generation overall). Yeah, winning is a huge factor as well but winning chips is less important for net income so long as you already have stars/superstars on the roster.

One of the reasons why we held onto Giannis last season that doesn’t get talked about enough; I mean, obviously, we also wanted to ensure the best return possible but had we traded him earlier, Bucks would have also lost out on a half season’s worth of jersey revenue.

Or another way to look at this, look at the Bulls - consistently top 5 for total revenue but meanwhile, they’ve barely had any success since Jordan. And Reinsdorf knows it, which is why he’s fine being perpetually mid because all the filthy lucre just keeps rolling in.

As a fan Ofc a title. Any other amount of success is irrelevant. An owner without love for the game might pick whichever makes more money 

The titles. Winning is the whole point and championships make owners an absolute truckload of extra money. How much did Golden State’s fanbase grow between 2015 and 2019?

If you own an nba team you’re not in it for the profit but the ego. When you’re 80 years old facing death and looking back at life you want the highs of those titles. The cap keeps owners from getting ahead of themselves and outspending their wallet.

sustained success because selling the hope that you are just a few moves away is way more profitable than what you have to pay people after they bring a title in terms of tax etc

Profits. Just like players only a very small percentage of owners care about winning more than money and the ones that do a generally secure with money. Ballmer cares about winning. Ishbia cares. Joe lacob cares. Mickey Arison cares Outside of that? Ehhh.

Championship. Gives them something to brag about.

So basically a run like the 90s Knicks (13 straight playoffs + 2 finals) or the Giannis Bucks (1 chip, 1 ECF run, 1st seed thrice, nothing else of note)

As an owner, gimme the Knicks run ngl. Everyone gets a bonus for making the playoffs which is something I didn’t know till a few months ago 

Sustained success has diehard fans. Quick dynasty has a lot of bandwagon hype fans. Going with the diehards and believing we’ll get ours.

Take the titles and sell the team at the peak

People keep saying it depends on the type of owner, one who prioritizes basketball or one who prioritizes profits. I disagree with this. I think the pick is a short stint of titles over sustained success.

Fan interest will wane over time with sustained success and it’s really expensive to keep that level of success up. So in the name of profit chasing I think you’re putting yourself in a pad spot in the 2nd half of that 15 year stretch. Also, after 15 years of not titles you’re going to be looks at as a disappointment. People won’t be comparing you tot he kings and saying look how sustained their success was, they’ll be comparing you to the warriors or spurs and saying look at how mediocre they were.

There will always be a baseline of fans coming to games, and if you sprinkle in 1-2 championships in a 15 year span, no one will care that the other 12 years were fringe playoff performances (remember OP said mediocrity, boy basement dweller, so these are like jimmy butler heat teams not Francisco Garcia Kings teams). Look at what most owners do in baseball where they plainly have this choice (obviously they can’t guarantee championships, but they could theoretical spend up to be a “sustained success” team if they wanted) and most owners choose to be mediocre/bad and try to get lucky once every decade or so with young cheap guys.

So in conclusion the correct choice, regardless of what type of owner you are, is 1-2 years of brilliance followed by 12+ years of mediocrity.

I’m a Steelers fan, it’s the rings all day. I don’t give a shit about making playoffs for 15 years just to always come short. It’s infuriating being good enough to make the playoffs, but not good enough to win, along with never bad enough to get good young talent.

I feel like you could frame this as: Would you rather be the Thunder or the Rockets (in the last 15ish years)

You want the title. Look at Knicks of the 1990s vs 1970s and now 2026. The title makes such a big difference to how those teams are remembered. Knicks fans basically will memory hole the 2000-2019 terrible teams and celebrate the 2026 championship forever

Depends

I’d rather win with my guys and ride with those same guys I drafted that wanna be here

A mercenary ring isn’t as valuable to me as 18 years of Russell Westbrook

They all want the ring to shove into people faces

All owners fucking suck.

From both a psychological standpoint and a financial one, chip+following mediocrity. I know tons of international NBA fans who are Bulls fans despite not being alive when the Bulls won their last championship; that Michael Jordan halo has sustained the Bulls brand for nearly 30 years of mostly mediocre or worse teams (missed the playoffs 17 out of 28 seasons, one conference finals in that time).

Look at 90s bulls, dominated for nearly 6-8 years then piss poor beside a year or two where they were ok for 28

You’ve got to analyze the business model, the sources of revenue (ticket sales, concessions, merch, tv rights, etc…), operating costs (salaries, etc…) and evaluate how each of those is impacted

Celtics have both

A championship is nice but I’d certainly take losing 15 finals in a row over winning 1 and then being a 15 win team for the next 14 years and so would almost everyone here. Winning playoff series is very exciting. I’d probably take losing 4 finals in a row over winning 1 and missing the playoffs 3 times. Following a bad team SUCKS. Getting to the finals is incredibly exciting even when you lose.

Depends on the historic state of your franchise, the level of success achieved in either of these scenarios, and how long you wanna stay in the game after these 15 years, if at all.

Like, Warriors were an afterthought in the league before the Curry era. Now they can live off that legacy for the next few decades.
If it was “just” two chips and they weren’t won in as domiant of a fashion (hell even that 3-1 fumble against the Cavs added to the team’s legacy because it made for a great storyline), then they wouldn’t be anywhere as valuable from the ownerships perspective.

Still, for a smaller market team, you kinda need that one, or to get close to it, in order to mobilize the fans properly.
Like, it took the Nuggets quite a few years in the Jokić era, even after he broke out as a star of the team, before their fans started regularly outnumbering the guest crowd.
The Can was cheering (!) when Russ dropped a 50/16/12 triple double on us to basically seal the Nuggets’ playoffs hopes.

Can’t really market a team whose target market ain’t even behind it.

Without any real thought I would do the sustained success. I might get lucky once or twice.