Last night, the Knicks made a statement when they beat the Heat 91-86 in a nail-biter. The game was exactly the type of game that the NBA has been waiting to market to its fans, filled with big names like LeBron, Wade, Bosh, Carmelo, A'mare and even Chauncey Billups. The NBA is finally back to being exciting again, and David Stern must be jumping for joy over the fact that New York once again has a great basketball team, and that the Knicks-Heat rivalry is on its way to being renewed.
Ever since Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett joined forces in Boston, it seems as if the new fad in the NBA is friends creating super-teams. This past summer for example, LeBron decided to take his talents to South Beach to join Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on the Heat. Now the Knicks are hoping to form a similar trio of superstars; in addition to signing A'mare Stoudemire this past summer, the Knicks recently acquired Carmelo Anthony to form a dynamic duo and a trio if you count Billups. Based on what happens with the labor situation in the NBA this summer and whether a hard salary cap is installed or not, there are rumors floating around that Chris Paul or Dwight Howard may be the next big acquisition for the Knicks this upcoming summer.
On the surface, these super-teams seem great for league publicity, as it seemed as if ESPN was on constant LeBron watch for a week during last summer's free agency, something I know I followed every hour of every day. The teams also provide great games to watch; Sunday games featuring teams like the Lakers, Celtics, Knicks and Heat make for some of the best entertainment in sports. So sure, it's nice to have the big talent in the big cities, but with the majority of the NBA's top 10 players in four markets, what are the 26 other NBA teams left with? Not much.
There is only so much grade-A talent to go around and if it all goes to the same place, a lot of teams are going to be left out of the picture. The quality of basketball that the majority of the country will be seeing, especially fans living in small markets, will plunge dramatically, and the marketability of teams in small markets, who may have even less of an ability to attract big names, will also go downhill. As a result, fans of these teams will instead turn to their city or state's other sports teams, opting for the likes of college basketball, baseball or God forbid, hockey.
The league can always take the road of promoting big market teams however, and hope that fans from small markets without big stars tune in not just to watch their local team, but also to watch the superstar teams that are beginning to take shape. If the NBA markets its big teams the right way and is able to have at least one big game most nights of the week, ratings may keep going up and the NBA may keep making gains in popularity.
Of course, there is always the possibly of contraction. A lot of the small market teams were already losing money before super-teams started forming - hence the possibility of a lockout this summer. However, if the NBA decides to cut some franchises, the amount of talent on each team would increase, and the gap between the top teams and the bottom teams would diminish. This move would also bring back the attention of fans in smaller markets whose teams would get a boost. Cutting teams like the Clippers and Nets, who have other franchises like the Lakers and Knicks for fans to switch allegiances to could be a good move; the NBA saves money without losing fans.
The league is undergoing a huge transition phase right now. Its young stars - from the 2003 and 2005 drafts especially - are now all grown up, and entering their primes. The magnitude of talent that the NBA currently has does not come around very often; the league better know how to use it.
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