In the era of NBA player empowerment, more superstars are banding together in the quest for championships. Whether dynastic dominance or competitive balance (not to be confused with parity) is better for the league and whether superteams have existed to this extent throughout NBA history are points of endless debate among fans.
A couple of factors may explain this. First, fans on either side of this debate usually disagree on the definition of a superteam. Secondly, many that have brought this debate into the public sphere don’t realize the root of fans’ frustration isn’t the existence of star-studded teams; it’s the way that they are constructed.
What’s a star?
On the former, the fact is no foolproof definition of a star exists, so we need to make one up before going any further. While a popular metric used is Value over Replacement Player (VORP), for simplicity we’ll consider players in or entering their primes (say under 34 years old), and choose 1 of these options:
- Strong — three or more future Hall-of-Famers
- Semi-strong — three or more current or ex- All-NBA Teamers
- Weak — three or more current or ex- All-Stars
Let’s take the middle road and go with the semi-strong definition, which is by all means stacked if 3 of the top 15 players end up on the same team in a given year, even when considering the political component of the award. For a casual fan and the 10-year old in me, these conditions are typically enough. I loved the Jordan-Pippen-Rodman Bulls, the Bird-McHale-Parish Celtics, and the Duncan-Parker-Ginobili Spurs. However, the debate goes nowhere with this criterion alone, as it results in an abundance of superteams throughout history. You get the impression that you need one to win a championship, which is the message a lot of stars today have taken to heart. An additional problem is that it leads to endogeneity — i.e. stars may be All-NBA Teamers due to individual dominance, but also as a result of the team’s success.
Should we care about how rosters are constructed?
This gets us to the latter, more important, part of the definition that gets at why, for instance, the Curry-Klay-Green Warriors were so likable while the Durant-Curry-Klay-Green Warriors were somehow one of the most unlikeable teams. For context, the growing perception is that stars increasingly hold more power in deciding where they are employed, with organizations increasingly having to cater to their desires. Fundamentally, very few fans, including me, have problems with player empowerment — coddling star performers exist in the corporate world as well. On the other hand, whether players should be able to form clusters at will is a legitimate question.
An ESPN article recently pointed out that while star player movement has always existed, the rampant star migration only trended over the past 10 years. It highlights that, until 2010, 34 out of 41 Finals MVPs won the award before ever changing teams. Since 2010, 8 out of 10 won Finals MVPs after changing teams. Moreover, the concentration of talent in big market cities is astounding: 9 of the 17 active players who have been named to All-NBA first teams at least once are currently playing in LA or New York. They have combined to switch teams 22 times. By comparison, modern era champions and multi-time All-NBA first teamers like Bird, Magic, Jordan, Pippen, Nowitzki, Kobe, Duncan, Robinson, and Olajuwon switched teams a combined 5 times — all near the end of their careers after winning championships.
A few words on why this is a game-changer in the superteam debate: a holistic NBA fan may want to watch 4 rounds of competitive playoffs series and see teams rewarded for shrewd personnel decisions and patience in developing prospects, rather than see the fate of the next decade decided by the top 3 or 4 players and which superstar friends they take with them. After all, the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) explicitly tries to prevent stacked teams and to promote competition across cities (see Leonard-George recruitment investigation). Competitive balance was the intended byproduct of having drafts, supermax contracts, Bird Rights, the Rose Rule, and luxury/repeater taxes.
Indeed, since the modern era of free agency officially began in 1988, organizational control in the NBA has diminished for most geographies. A small- to mid-market organization that signs its own draftees to long-term contract extensions have less and less assurance that they’ll stay for the duration of the contract. Players are increasingly demanding trades outright or playing below their ability to force trades (see Vince Carter, Anthony Davis, and the Harden fat suit conspiracy). To be clear, trade demands occurred prior to 1988 as well, just to a much lesser extent.
As such, contracts have become more like call options on the place of employment, which can be exercised at the organization’s expense should a player outperform his paycheck. In essence, the benefits of shrewd drafting and player development have become more uncertain save for a few big market teams, which expose the shortcomings of the CBA’s speedbump measures.
Distinguishing superteams from star-studded teams
If management decisions are a desirable criterion of contenders to you as a fan, then let’s distinguish star-studded teams built through this channel from actual superteams that are primarily built on the back of superstar ‘coercion’ with two additional criteria:
- At least 1 of the top 3 stars must be signed via free agency or a sign-and-trade of a free agent.
- The signee must make an All-NBA team during or within the last two years prior to the team being formed (to help account for injuries and endogeneity).
The addition of these simple criteria disqualifies a lot of star-studded teams since 1988, including these popular picks for ‘superteams’:
Bulls — Jordan-Pippen-Rodman
Sonics — Payton-Kemp-Schrempf
Rockets — Olajuwon-Barkley-Drexler
Celtics — Garnett-Pierce-Allen
Lakers — Kobe-Gasol-Howard¹
Clippers — Paul-Griffin-Jordan
* Bold denotes draftees/draft day acquisitions
The key distinction is that these stars did not come together via free agency decisions but from multiple positive management maneuvers requiring significant exchange of assets. An example worth highlighting is the Boston Big 3 since they’re often viewed as the original modern era superteam. However, aside from Pierce and Allen a few years removed from being All-NBA Teamers, they were arguably the antithesis of how superteam cores have been formed. Despite requesting a trade, Garnett initially refused to go to Boston. In fact, Pierce was prepared to demand a trade from Boston as no star free agents wanted to join a rebuilding team. The KG trade required significant contract and roster reconstruction by management to come to fruition, as opposed to the core simply deciding to band together in a big market (full story here). Similarly, Chris Paul ended up on a non-preferred team after his initial trade demand.
The true modern era superteams
In accordance with these criteria, here are the qualifying superteams since 1988 and the stars’ ages and individual accolades through the year they joined forces:
2004 Suns
Steve Nash, 30 (1 first team; 2 third teams; 3 total)
Shawn Marion, 26 (1 third team)
Amare Stoudemire, 21 (1 second team)
2010 Heat²
LeBron James, 25 (5 first teams; 2 second teams; 7 total)
Dwayne Wade, 28 (2 first teams; 3 second teams; 1 third team; 6 total)
Chris Bosh, 26 (1 second team)
2014 Cavaliers
LeBron James, 29 (9 first teams; 2 second teams; 11 total)
Kevin Love, 26 (2 second teams)
Kyrie Irving, 22 (1 third team)
2016 Warriors
Kevin Durant, 28 (5 first teams; 2 second teams; 7 total)
Stephon Curry, 28 (2 first teams; 2 second teams; 4 total)
Klay Thompson, 26 (2 third teams)
Draymond Green, 26 (1 second team; 1 third team; 2 total)
2020 Nets
Kevin Durant, 32 (6 first teams; 3 second teams; 9 total)
James Harden, 31 (6 first teams; 1 second team; 7 total)
Kyrie Irving, 28 (1 second team; 1 third team; 2 total)
Blake Griffin, 31 (3 second teams; 2 third teams; 5 total)
*Notable misses include the 1998 Rockets and 2003 Lakers due to the age criterion.
Clearly, this past decade has seen an uptick in modern era superteams. What’s more, the 2020 Nets embody the next evolution of superteams in that none of the core was homegrown (drafted). It was formed with an unprecedented 3 free agent signings (including post-surgery Blake) and a high-profile trade demand, requiring much less deftness by management aside from not squandering cap space and future draft picks. Said another way, would Nets management have been able to pull this off in Memphis, OKC, or the 20+ other non-coastal franchises?
Given the increasingly unlevel playing field, the potential for adverse impacts to the league are likely points of discussion in the not-so-distant future. Part 2 explores these concerns and some remedies.
[1] While the trio was assembled without a star free agent signing, Howard got his preferred destination via trade demand, reflecting player empowerment. Still, key assets were exchanged, requiring tough management choices.
[2] Chris Bosh was not an All-NBA team selection within 2 years of joining, but was a perennial all-star throughout his career. Also, LeBron and Wade were consensus top 5 players at the time, so I included this trio for your judgement.
