Is parity ruining the NBA?

Since its inception, the NBA has always had at least one dynasty team in the league. The first dynasty to grace the NBA was the Minneapolis Lakers, who won five championships between 1949 and 1954. But since the Golden State Warriors dynasty won two championships in a row and made a finals appearance in 2019, dynasties have vanished from the league entirely.

Including this year, a different team has won the NBA Finals every year since the 2019 finals series. With this change, viewership of each NBA Finals has decreased every year, with the only increase coming when the Warriors were back in the finals in 2022. 

This spike was partially caused by casual audiences tuning in to see whether the Warriors' fading dynasty could make one last push for another championship. Casual fans love seeing historically great teams win — and they also love seeing them lose.

In spite of dynasties being known to boost ratings, the NBA has worked toward ensuring the end of them. Between salary caps, the luxury tax and collective bargaining agreements, the NBA has done everything to usher in this new era of parity in the league.

Players are constantly shuffled around the league, breaking up budding rivalries and narratives before they get off the ground. Teams are left scrambling to win a championship when the opportunity presents itself, as they likely only have a two or three-year window to do so.

In all that chaos, fans are left hoping their team will be able to retain their superstar players. More often than not, they have to watch as their favorite team is dismantled in a series of trades to stay under the salary cap.

The NBA has artificially steered its sport away from dynasties. Instead of working to make sure this new era succeeds, the NBA — and sports media — is actively ensuring parity fails.

A major failure of ESPN and other networks is their lack of coverage on smaller market teams. During the Denver Nuggets’ run to the NBA Finals, they faced off against the Los Angeles Lakers. After the Nuggets won Game 1 of the series, it would be reasonable to assume that analysts would spend time on their shows discussing the red-hot Nuggets team.

Instead, sports media predominantly focused on ways Lebron James and the Lakers would need to step up their game going forward in the series. Despite the series ending in a 4-0 sweep, with the Nuggets dominantly advancing to the NBA Finals, the focus was kept on the big-market team from Los Angeles.

In an era when a team from any market, big or small, can win the NBA Finals, it is actively harmful to the league’s success for media outlets to continually disregard covering smaller-market teams.

Another cause for the NBA’s continued lack of success with ratings in this new era is the lack of effort building narratives. 

Narratives naturally occur when there’s a dynasty: Either that team will continue to win, or one day they’ll be upset on the biggest stage. A great example is the early 2000s Lakers. As the team kept winning year after year, many felt the team wouldn’t be stopped on its way to winning a fourth championship with its core players — Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. 

When the team was eliminated in the second round of the 2003 playoffs by the San Antonio Spurs, then were dominantly defeated in the NBA Finals by the Detroit Pistons the following year, fans were shocked. 

Without dynasties, narratives have to be built by the league in tandem with the media. When the media is too busy focusing on big market teams, finals matchups such as this year’s between the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder continue to bleed viewers.

Finally, there is a problem with the league still allowing the occasional big-market superteam to form. 

When Luka Dončić was traded to the Lakers at the trade deadline this year, Los Angeles was given a superstar on a platter to pair with Lebron James and Austin Reaves. The Warriors were also allowed to extend their championship window a bit longer when they acquired Jimmy Butler around the same time.

This past offseason, the New York Knicks were allowed to bring in Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns to hopefully give Jalen Brunson the supporting cast to win a championship.

Before the 2023-24 season, the Celtics were allowed to add Kristaps Porziņģis and Jrue Holiday via trade to their already stacked roster featuring Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Derrick White. In the end, this superteam would secure the Celtics their 18th championship in franchise history.

While — at the time of writing — only one of these superteams has won a championship, it’s still problematic that these teams are allowed to form in the first place. Splashy moves in big markets pull more media coverage to these teams, again detracting from the parity the league seems to be trying to push. 

The NBA can’t have it both ways and still have high viewership numbers. The league either needs to put an end to superteams forming and get media outlets on board with covering small-market teams, or it needs to scrap the whole parity experiment and go back to having unbeatable dynasties rule over the league.

Whatever the case may be, one thing is for certain. It’s not parity that’s ruining the NBA — it’s the NBA that’s ruining parity.