NBA sees homegrown success and superteam failure

Dallas Mavericks, Golden State Warriors, Miami Heat and Boston Celtics are the live teams in the fight for the NBA title. None of them adopted the so-called “superteam” model, the joining of at least three stars, which seemed, a few years ago, the only possible format on the way to the North American basketball league trophy.

Those who decided to take this route failed in the 2021/22 season – the cases of the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets, who had wide favoritism in their respective conferences in bookmakers at the beginning of the championship. Success was found by franchises that bet on organically formed groups, with gradual growth and occasional reinforcements.

That’s how Miami and Boston arrived at the Eastern Conference decision. The Heat cultivated talents they sought out at university, such as Bam Adebayo, now 24, and Tyler Herro, 22, who was named sixth man in the competition. When the opportunity arose, he took Jimmy Butler, 32, who had failed with other shirts, and found his home.

In the case of the Celtics, the big name grew in the team itself. Jayson Tatum, 24, started his NBA career in green and white, as did Jaylen Brown, 25, and Marcus Smart, 28. It took some time and more than one coach, but the team fell into place and established itself as one of the best in the industry. turns on.

In the first round of the playoffs, the opponent was Brooklyn, with a very different strategy in the construction of the squad. Home-grown talents such as Caris LeVert, now 27, were released or traded so that coach Steve Nash would have James Harden, now 32, Kevin Durant, 33, and Kyrie Irving, 30, at his disposal.

In this movement, what is usually called in the United States of “depth”, the number of reliable parts available, has decreased. The margin of error also decreased, since the eventual absence of one of the big names makes the mechanics of the team much more complicated, depending on them.

Over the course of the season, the Nets went from favorites to underdogs to easily eliminated. Irving, refusing to be vaccinated against Covid-19, could not play at home matches because of New York’s sanitary measures. Harden, at the end of his contract, made it clear that he would leave at the end of the tournament and was replaced by the injured Ben Simmons, 25.

Game 4 of the series against Boston, which ended the dispute in a quiet 4-0, was illustrative. Only one of nine players who set foot on the court for Brooklyn had been chosen by the franchise in the “draft,” the NBA’s rookie recruiting system. The Celtics, who also used nine athletes, had seven “drafted” by them.

In the counter conference, the failure of the “superteam” was even more resounding. The Los Angeles Lakers gave up players who had been important to their 2020 title, such as Alex Caruso, 28, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, 29, and Kyle Kuzma, 26. All so that Russell Westbrook, 33, could join LeBron. James, 37, and Anthony Davis, 29.

LeBron and, even more, Davis, had injuries in a row. Westbrook didn’t get along with coach Frank Vogel, now fired. And the favorites ended their campaign with 33 wins and 49 losses. In 11th place in the West, they didn’t even get a place in the “play-in”, a tournament that brings together from 7th to 10th and is worth the last two spots in the “playoffs”.

The Golden State Warriors and Dallas Mavericks are in the conference finals. The Warriors were once a “super team”, with Stephen Curry, now 34, Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson, 32. But they had to rally after Durant’s departure and Thompson’s serious injuries. They cultivated young people who “drafted”, like Jordan Poole, 22, and made occasional acquisitions, like Andrew Wiggins, 27.

His opponent has Luka Doncic, 23, as the main name and other athletes who have only worn one shirt in the NBA, such as Dorian Finney-Smith, 29. Even the teams eliminated in the conference semifinals, Phoenix Suns, Memphis Grizzlies, Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers, are far from the “supertime” model, although the latter has tried to pair James Harden with Joel Embiid, 28.

Last year’s champion, Giannis Antetokounmpo, 27, celebrated reaching the dreamed Larry O’Brien trophy without joining other stars. “It’s easy to go somewhere and win a championship with someone else. It’s easy. I could go to a super team and just do my part. This is the hard way, and we did it that way,” he said.

It’s not as easy for “super teams” as it was in the time of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy in the Lakers in the 1980s. Or as it was with the Miami Heat of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, now in the past decade, in which the Warriors of Curry, Thompson and Durant also did well.

This now seems to be the hard way. At least it was this season of failure for the starred Nets and Lakers. And the success of the Heat, Celtics, Warriors and Mavericks, built brick by brick.