Worst compe ive balance in major sports?

[mavsfan1000]

Don't forget to add to that the refs make the champions even tougher to handle.

[SomeCallMeTim]

There is parity in the league. It is not as if the Lakers blitzed to a le this year. The 3-peat from 00-02 has no bearing on today.

Since its a superstar driven league the top players will generally find themselves not only winning a le but multiple les (Duncan, Kobe, Shaq)... you could say the league lacked compe ive balance in the 90's too, considering it was a Bulls bukkake fest.

But there is still parity in the league. Orlando/Cleveland/Boston/LA were in the same tier this year. LA just came out on top by a hair.

Ghazi gets it.

[SomeCallMeTim]

Tim, I know the comparative money diff is small, but small market teams do win out at times in the MLB, as does happen in the NBA. However, even in baseball you haven't had one team dominate since the late 90s Yankees.

Is this sort of imbalance desirable? I'd argue that it isn't. Look a who's been in the semifinals the past half decade. It's almost always the same 3 or 4 teams. For the west, lakers/mavs/spurs/suns, for the east, Boston/magic/cavs/pistons.

Is it that the front offices are so much better? Or do guaranteed contracts out a crappy franchise in a hole for much longer than they should be?

Looking at how many teams have been in the conference finals seems like a good way to judge how many contenders there have been recently. I'd call five seasons "recently" and that list would be:

Boston
Cleveland
Dallas
Denver
Detroit
Los Angeles
Miami
Orlando
Phoenix
San Antonio
Utah

That's 11 teams filling 20 slots. I'd call that pretty decent parity, especially because the NBA is a talent- and superstar-driven league. Not a relatively random sport like baseball where inferior teams win the WS regularly.

I'm in favor of guaranteed contracts because I think the NFL system is unfair to players in a high-risk sport.