Would you give up your whole team at a shot for an NBA championship?

Would you give up your whole team at a shot for an NBA championship?

The NBA salary cap has been a blessing and a curse to the NBA since its inception in the mid-1940s. It has been altered several times since then. In the 80s and 90s, teams could keep their players together for years.

Teams like the Houston Rockets, Chicago Bulls, and Detroit Pistons all benefited from this, eventually winning championships. After the infamous Kevin Garnett six-year contract extension for $126 million, the NBA changed how players got paid. Rookie scales were put in place as well as max contracts for star players. In the current NBA role players can be highly overpaid because of the pay scale that is based on years of experience.

With all the rules and regulations it makes it almost impossible to build a championship team the way you could in the 80s and 90s. Can you imagine John Paxson leaving the Bulls in 1990 because the Knicks had more money under the salary cap and the Bulls didn’t want to go into the luxury tax to re-sign him? In this current NBA sadly this happens often.

Teams with championship aspirations have lost key rotation players because the player gets a huge contract from another team or the team is not willing to go into the luxury tax to keep him. Oklahoma City Fans remember when the Thunder lost James Harden after making it to the NBA finals in 2012. Harden, who won 6th man of the year was unproven as a star player but wanted a max contract.

When the Thunder declined to give him one he was traded to the Houston Rockets, where they gave him a five-year extension, worth $80 million. The Philadelphia 76ers had to choose between two key players in Tobias Harris and Jimmy Butler when both were free agents. Feeling that Harris was a better fit with starting point guard Ben Simmons, management chose to keep him and let Butler walk in free agency. When the Bucks decided they didn’t want to go into the luxury tax to resign starting guard Malcolm Brogdon, it ended up being a move that plagued them for years.

Losing an extra playmaker to help superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo in the playoffs led to them bringing in veteran guard Jrue Holiday. This offseason the Bucks lost starting forward P.J. Tucker because again management didn’t want to go into the luxury tax to keep him.

As a consequence of teams not being able to keep their players together for a long period of time there is a new trend in the NBA that is starting to happen. Superstar players are choosing to go to teams that play hard with role players and boarder line All-Star players. The two examples that come to mind are the LA Clippers and Brooklyn Nets.

Going into the 2018-19 season NBA experts didn’t have the Clippers or the Nets making the playoffs. The Clippers were a team full of journeymen, unproven young players, and great role players. Despite that, they were hard to play against due to their tough nose defense and not taking possessions off.

Players like Patrick Beverley and Montrezl Harrell played with a chip on their shoulder, while Tobias Harris and Danilo Gallinari were journeymen that play well on every team they are on. While Lou Williams was instant offense off the bench, Ivica Zubac and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander were young players out to prove themselves. Doc Rivers doesn’t get enough credit for getting the most out of that year’s Clippers team. After trading Tobias Harris to the 76ers, they still made it to the playoffs, losing in the first round in six games to the Golden State Warriors.

Now that they proved they were a good team, it was easy for superstar Forward Kawhi Leonard to sign with the Clippers in free agency. Superstar Paul George would also come to the Clippers in a trade for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. After George was added, the Clippers went from surprise team the previous year to the favorites to win the championship. The thought among most people was that the Clippers were adding superstars to a team with great role players.

The season didn’t go as planned for the Clippers when they blew a 3-1 lead to the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference semifinals. Last season, Kawhi was injured in the playoffs, and they ended up losing to the Phoenix Suns in the conference finals. With Kawhi’s status doubtful for this season time will tell if this group will ever win a championship. The tough-minded, blue-collar team is gone.

Over the last three seasons, all but one of the players who played with a chip on their shoulder and were vital to their success in the 2018-19 season are gone. Ivica Zubac is the only player left from that team. The team is more Hollywood and star-driven, but that doesn’t always win you championships.

As mentioned before, the 2018-19 Nets came into the season expected by NBA experts to be a lottery team. They surprised their opponents by playing hard every night and never giving up. Their team was made up of tough-minded and underappreciated players with something to prove. D’Angelo Russell, who was drafted number 2 by the Lakers was cast away by Magic Johnson in favor of Lonzo Ball. Russell would not only have a better season than Ball, but he would also make the all-star team.

Spencer Dinwiddie was a lock for the all-star team until he injured his thumb. Before being drafted by the Pistons in 2014, he was a solid college player that fell to the 2nd round in the draft due to an ACL injury he suffered in his junior year of college. Although he didn’t get a lot of minutes in the NBA in his first two seasons for Detroit, he saw his minutes increase in his first two seasons with the Nets. He proved he was a valuable point guard for them, whether starting or coming off the bench.

Sharpshooter Joe Harris couldn’t get off the bench his first two seasons in the NBA, but like Dinwiddie Harris’ minutes went up his first four seasons with the Nets. Harris went from a cheerleader on the bench to an elite 3-point shooter who is underrated on the defensive end.

Big man Jarrett Allen may have been one of the steals of the 2017 NBA Draft. Drafted at 22 in the 1st round, Allen brought rebounding, shot-blocking, and a consistent lob threat. Allen also showed the ablitity to move his feet when switched to a smaller man.

Jared Dudley and DeMarre Carroll were not players that blew you away with their stats, but they provided much-needed leadership to a young team. Caris LeVert, who was one of their most talented players saw his ppg average go up his first four seasons in Brooklyn. The Nets were a team on the come up and most people who covered the NBA said they were a star away from winning a championship.

The next season the Nets were able to sign Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. Last season when the Nets traded for James Harden, Joe Harris and Spencer Dinwiddie became the last two players from the hard-nosed, tough-minded team. Dinwiddie would leave in the off-season and since acquiring the superstars Brooklyn has been laughable at times on the defensive side of the ball. The once tough-minded fight on every possession team has been replaced by an offensive juggernaut.

In the Pre-Garnett salary cap days, the Clippers and Nets probably would have met in the NBA Finals. These teams would look like the 2018-19 teams, but with their offseason acquisitions. Neither team would have had to get rid of all their key players that made the team appealing to those free agents. This is the new NBA and don’t expect this trend of teams that play hard without a superstar attracting a superstar free agent to stop anytime soon.

If the Clippers and Brooklyn Nets don’t win a championship in the next three to four years, If I were a general manager that had a solid team with no superstars I would be leery about trading away half of my team and letting key players walk in free agency for a few superstars that don’t guarantee my team will win a championship.