Quote:
Originally Posted by AssEaterChief
(Post 12880306)
Competitive balance has NEVER existed in modern professional basketball.
You have been able to accurately predict the teams who will be in the finals for decades...
I remember Gatorade had a cap contest in the mid 90's (predicting the finals matchup and how many games it would take to win) and everyone including me at time wanted a Bulls in 6 over Sonics or Bulls in 7 over Sonics cap...guess what happened?
The Lakers and Celtics dominated the 80's, and the 60's etc.
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The NBA has never had a ton of parity. The talent level in the league now is better than it has ever been, but in some ways it doesn't feel like it... because something about right now just feels different. It should be more competitive than this. I'd say the 80's Lakers are the closest to what we're seeing now. They did pretty much dominate across the board. Their only competition was the Rockets, who at least took them out a couple times.
But most of these other modern teams at least had some legitimate challenges. The Knicks were a legit challenge for the Bulls early in their run. The Pacers had a legitimate shot at beating in the Bulls in 98 during their final run. Go watch that series, it took everything the Bulls had to knock them out. Those were championship level opponents.
The 80's Celtics had some all-out wars with the Sixers and Pistons. The early 00 Lakers were legitimately challenged by the Blazers and Kings. Somebody has to step up or LeBron is going to go to about 10 straight Finals.
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