People often refer to the NBA as a copycat league.
This is neither an affirmation nor a critique (unless you want it to be) but rather refers to how NBA teams react and adjust to other teams that have just won a title, a ripple effect if you will.
For example, when the Golden State Warriors rattled off multiple championships, four of them in eight years, other teams recognized their success and looked to mirror it, developing outside shooting as their business model. The only problem with that approach was… there’s only one Steph Curry. That didn’t stop teams, however, from launching shot after three-point shot with un-Curry-like accuracy.
Now that the Oklahoma City Thunder are the NBA’s darlings, you’ll undoubtedly see teams build through the draft, identify young talent, lock those players up contractually on the cheap until they no can longer afford all those stars under their salary cap (which is about two to three more seasons for OKC) and cross that “we’ll have to pay them or cut them” bridge when they come to it.
It’s no longer NBA teams that are playing copycat, however. It’s the whole league doing so by blatantly ripping a page out of the NFL’s playbook. The commissioner has even said so.
In his opening statement to all those attending last week’s NBA Draft and all those watching around the world, Commissioner Silver all but admitted to being a copycat league.
“Welcome to the new era of NBA Basketball, where every team has a shot at a title.”
Silver sounded like the Wizard of Oz welcoming you on some utopian, six-month Disney ride where Jazz, Clippers, Kings, Wizards, Sixers… and yes, even Knicks fans believe, for even a split-second, that they might be the next ones to win a championship, never mind the fact that the Jazz, Clippers and Kings have never won, the Wizards and Knicks haven’t won since the ‘70s and the Sixers since 1983.
It’s the ultimate shell game… and we fall for it hook, line and sinker.
One can hardly blame other sports leagues for looking to the NFL’s business model and doing their best to emulate it. Why wouldn’t they?
NFL ratings expand exponentially every year. Every Super Bowl remains the highest rated television program in history, a trend that continues annually and shows no sign of stopping. Every autumn Sunday, Americans stop what they’re doing, prepare their grills and fantasy lineups, tailgate with friends and family, hit sports bars, attend games, don their jerseys and lose the entire day from 11 am pregame, through every 1 o’clock, 4 o’clock and 8 o’clock game (and post-game coverage) until they get to Monday night.
Seriously, every Sunday (and most Thursdays and Mondays) from September to January, I am out of pocket, gambling, obsessing over fantasy and texting countless friends about the action at hand. Why wouldn’t I? It’s fucking football season.
But the NFL’s very nature, playing the bulk of its games on a day that we have off, makes it ideal to gamble on and easy to follow statistically. In other words, the NFL’s popularity rose organically. Tack on the brutish, violent nature of the sport and this all aligned to ensure the NFL is untouchable with all other sports falling a distant second.
It is no coincidence that the NBA decided to allow its games to get more physical. This season, we saw a dramatic change in the way games were officiated. Whereas ticky-tack fouls were once called, this post-season saw players pushing and shoving each other like it was the 80s and 90s reincarnate. For a second, I thought the league was going to change its logo to Jeff Van Gundy grasping onto Alonzo Mourning’s leg. While the league can hardly afford another Malice at the Palace (can it?), we are officially back to the good old days where contact is welcome, and ten out of ten NBA fans are okay with that arrangement.
When it comes to the NFL, fans are attracted like insects to a light lamp. The league’s business model can be summarized in one word that might as well be inscribed on its shield, where fans of all teams enter every September with a clean slate, thinking they have a chance to win when they really do not.
The NFL has sold us… parity. The NBA now looks to do the same.
Whether or not that’s a hill of beans, every fan base in America thinks their team can thrive. That’s right, Falcons and Saints fans, Jaguars and Dolphins fans, Cardinals and Raiders fans all believe that this upcoming season could be theirs, and the Kool-Aid tastes delicious.
Bills fans are a perfect example. This franchise has NEVER won a Super Bowl. Yet every September, they gather around in cold weather and leap off their tour buses onto foldable tables covered only by the comfort of parkas not thick enough to ward off injury, if not frostbite. They religiously watch Josh Allen and company bring them hope.
Until they don’t. Parity only goes so far.
It’s the same reason I go to the casino some nights after work. I know, deep down, I’m going to lose money… but there’s always the slight, lingering chance that I won’t. Silly wabbit.
So, with all this emphasis on leveling the playing field, have dynasties become a thing of the past? If a franchise runs off multiple championships in leagues specifically designed to keep things even, does that make those titles more impressive than those we’ve seen in the past? Do we end up remembering the Tampa Bay Lightning’s and Kansas City Chiefs’ losses attempting a three-peat more than we do their consecutive championships that preceded them, and in what distorted world is that a failure?
I’ve always called sports fans a fickle bunch.
We revere our sports heroes, from Montana to Jordan. We hold in the highest regard those Niners teams or Bulls teams, the Lakers with Shaq and Kobe, the Spurs with Duncan, the Pats with Brady, the Steelers with Bradshaw, the Celtics with Bird, the list goes on and on. We look at these legendary teams and call them dynasties. We inherently rank them and debate their place in history. Yet deep in their runs, we grow tired of them. How many “I hate Brady” comments have you heard over the years? Assuming you live outside of New England, I’m guessing plenty. How many times have you already heard people say they’ve grown tired of Mahomes, thirsting for something different? Or LeBron, or any athlete that you’ve seen make Finals after Finals appearance. Ironically, we want greatness, yet resent it when it happens, unless they play in our team’s uniforms.
What these leagues sell us, what the NFL has mastered and what the NBA desires to emulate, is promise, the promise that every team has a chance. But, in exchange for that promise, parity may have robbed us of the traditional sports dynasty or at least changed how we define it.
