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In the 2000's, the Boston Celtics. imo
Over the past three years, we have seen a building trend of teams gravitating toward the "SuperTeam" model: three or more All-Star caliber players, surrounded by cheap veterans and role-players. Most people point to the Miami Heat as the catalyst for this. When Lebron decided to take his talents to South Beach to join Wade and recruited Chris Bosh to come with him, this seemed to set off a chain reaction for other teams and superstars. I can't remember a time in recent history where the three most coveted free agents on the market all decided to land in one destination and try to team up against the rest of the league, so it's easy to lay the blame for the SuperTeams on the SuperFriends.
Since that time, we have seen Melo demand trades to team up with Amare and (at the time) Billups in New York, Chris Paul whine his way out of New Orleans to join Blake Griffin on the Clippers, and the latest in this series, Howard blow up a franchise in Orlando so that he could wind up in Los Angeles with Bryant, Gasol, and Nash (but not before Deron Williams and the Nets tried to form a SuperTeam of their own with Dwight).
Are the Heat really to blame for this new trend, though?
Few people seem to note that well before the Heatles, Boston put together its own SuperTeam with Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen joining Paul Pierce which, with the development of Rondo, promptly earned them a le and another Finals bid two years later.
The Lakers tried it themselves with Payton and Malone joining Shaq and Kobe in 2004, which earned them their own trip to the Finals before losing to a more-balanced, defensive Detroit Pistons squad.
Dallas has been trying to throw together SuperTeams seemingly forever, and ironically thet never reached the Promised Land until they went with a more traditional, defense-oriented team-concept instead of just buying whatever big names they could off of the free-agent market.
Even the Spurs had their greatest success with a semblance of a SuperTeam, albeit one they built through the draft instead of the market. Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili were one of the first "Big 3s" of the new millennium and, coupled with defensive-pest Bruce Bowen, set the tone for what many franchises now seem to think is the model for success (three stars and some defensive help). Spurs fans also weren't complaining when the amnestied Michael Finley came calling, although they quickly started complaining once he became washed up.
Ditto for Oklahoma, who just made it to the Finals with their own drafted trio of Durant, Westbrook, and Harden being backed by Sefolosha, Perkins, and Ibaka.
Going back even further, teams like the Showtime Lakers (Magic/Scott/Abdul-Jabbar) and Bird Celtics (Bird/McHale/Parish/Ainge) certainly weren't hurting for talent when they were dominating the 80s. Like the Spurs and Thunder, though, these teams never seem to come under fire, presumably because they built their teams through more traditional methods instead of a bunch of malcontent stars deciding to rally together for a ring.
Is this really something that is new to the league, or is it something that has been around forever and was simply masked by the star power of Jordan in the 90s? Is it good for the NBA in terms of revenue and relevancy, or bad that these hyper-compe ive players would rather take the easy way out instead of carrying their own respective teams to the top? Are the Heat really to blame for this SuperTeam Era, or are they just following an example that was already well established?
TL;DR: Miami: pioneers or copycats?
In the 2000's, the Boston Celtics. imo
Gasol trade
Celtics did it before Heat, Lakers tried it before that. Superteams are starting to be the cookie cutter method of getting chips now, it seems. OKC wanted to maintain their young core to form a superteam, Lakers wanted to get CP3 and Dwight Howard, Nets were trying to get Dwight+Deron+JJ and Mavs wanted the triple D dynasty. Miami just set the trend for something that already existed.
Worst SuperTeam ever.
Gasol trade was in response to the Celtics, tbh.
SuperTeams aren't a new concept in the NBA. The 1976-77 Sixers team that lost to Portland in the Finals could have been considered a "SuperTeam" w/Dr. J and George McGinnis.
i dont think mitch gives a what the celtics are doing, hes always looking for a way to improve the team. everything else is irrelevant tbh.
I think the Lakers getting Malone and Payton is when things started to get out of hand.
Where the is this coming from? What big free agent names have they signed in the past 15 years? Who have they been just trying to "buy" off the free-agent market?
rofl if Devean George and Austin Croshere are your idea of superstars, then yeah Dallas has bought superstar free agents. tbh OJ Mayo is the biggest name free agent Mark Cuban has ever gotten.
Mavs have traded for guys in the past, but again nobody even remotely considered a superstar or part of a "Big" anything. Stackhuse, Jamison, LaFrentz, or Antoine Walker? Really?
Exactly what I was thinking. Oh wait, don't forget Erick Dampier, Desagana Diop, Eddie Jones and Doug Christie.
You can say that the Heat did not actually start the trend. But, their 3-star combo joined each other in a different manner than the Celtics. Ray Allen and KG joined Boston at around ~32 years of age (neither player had a "Decision" on ESPN, either). On the other hand, Lebron and Bosh joined the Heat at the age of 25. That's 7 more years of prime basketball. This led to an absolute force to be reckoned with and one that can has a good chance of potentially winning at least 5 championships.
Is it good for the NBA? Profit-wise, yes. The NBA is a superstar-driven league. Casual fans identify with players, not teams. Seeing big names join each other in compe ion against the rest of the league is polarizing for NBA fans. Fans have a stong opinion on the Heat. They either hate the Heat and want them to fail or are riding the bandwagon all the way to the championship. Either way, people are watching.
However, compe ively it is not good for the NBA. The superteam led to the blandness of the Eastern Conference and even a larger dicrepancy between the big markets and small markets of the NBA. You may buy into the media hype that the new-look Nets are something to watch, the Celtics are still a force to be reckoned with, and the Knicks might surprise everybody. This all may be true to varying degrees (except the Nets, they are horrible), but we all know who is representing half the league barring injury. And as a fan, I don't like that. I enjoy not knowing which teams our going to rise out of nowhere. I prefer seeing teams like the '06-07 Warriors, '03-04 Grizzlies, and '08-09 Bulls surprise everybody. Granted, none of these teams won the championship. But they were fun to watch and did not need 3 superstars to do it. It just seems like that this is becoming increasingly likely to do thanks to how the Heat has led to other teams creating their own superteams. One of the main reasons why the NFL is a much more popular sport than the NBA, imo.
The person responsible for superteams is David Stern, who could give two craps about any team outside the big markets.
Just look at how the Lakers have been able to continually reload during Bryant's career. Payton, Malone, Pau, Nash, Dwight. It's embarrassing how much Stern mocks "fairness in the marketplace."
Back in 2004 after the Lakers lost to Detroit, Bryant has Shaquille run out of town. Two years later, Bryant cries about not having any help, and threatens to demand a trade. Instead of a trade to Chicago, who had a billion assets, an in-his-prime Pau Gasol is sent to LA, thereby making the Laker instantly relevant, and insuring that Bryant stays in town.
Has any small market team EVER had a trade as lopsided as the Kwame Brown for Pau Gasol deal?
Stern is shameless.
lakers also lost marc gasol IIRC which pretty much justifies that deal imho. it escalated the lakers to the champion level at that time but memphis won the long run
Just what did Memphis win exactly? Lakers won championships as a result of the trade, something I'm not sure the other Gasol would guarantee.
Memphis won nothing, they made an awful trade, and that's that. The fact they got lucky that Marc turned out to be a decent player means nothing. And yeah, i agree with TW-- the current Heat team ( and the rest of the league trying desperately to imitate) is a direct response to the Gasol trade, if that trade doesn't happen, i think its likely that there would be no Lebron, Bosh, Wade trio. Much unlike how Gasol trade happens whether Boston trades in 2008 happen or don't.
Magic Johnson
" ill skip this year's Draft if the Bulls select me, because I want to play with the Lakers, Kareem and Wilkes so I can win a lot of easy les "
'sup Lefty, jinxing lakeshow today?Magic Johnson
" ill skip this year's Draft if the Bulls select me, because I want to play with the Lakers, Kareem and Wilkes so I can win a lot of easy les "
People might have been confused since guys like Damp were paid like Superstars.
The Celtics, because they won a ring the first year they were together. If the Celtics don't ring, no one follows. It's a copycat league.
knicks after ewing, paying overrated scrubs max money...super scrubs
2007 Finals
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