Should Small Market NBA Teams Just Quit?
If you are a basketball fan in Minnesota, Sacramento, Toronto or Cleveland, I’d hate to say it, but after the recent transactions in the NBA, your chances at winning an NBA championship have gotten worse. I’ll stop short of saying you should give up, but that’s pretty much where this is heading.
You see, not only is your market small, but now the mere notion of keeping a star is unrealistic. As this NBA season has shown us, players are trying to maximize their earning potential and likelihood to win at the same time. Being in Denver, Memphis and Utah doesn’t grant a player the opportunity to cash as big of a check than if they were in, say, New York, Miami or Los Angeles. In my opinion, it sucks. It sucks because you are only here to build stars, not keep them. Need proof?
How about Kevin Garnett and Stephon Marbury in Minnesota? You guys had an awesome one-two punch that could have been great. But first Marbury bolted and nobody wanted to come and play with KG in the snow. So he had to do what was best for him and head for Boston.
Or how about Vince Carter in Toronto? He gave you ”Air Canada” and then needed some new “inspiration” to win. Chris Bosh got “LeBroned” and you see how that went.
We won’t even talk about LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony.
So now, here you guys are in your small markets building these stars that are destined to run off as soon as they are allowed to. Do you really expect Kevin Love to stay in Minnesota if he keeps posting these ridiculous double doubles? As soon as the gates to New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami or otherwise open up, he’ll be chunking up the dueces.
It’s sad, but unless the NBA finds a way to keep players in the city that drafted them for longer, it’s going to be the superteams feasting on teams that could barely beat a NBDL team. If you guys draft a rookie that has some promise, don’t expect him to stay long. Just anticipate him coming back when his career is at its lowest point.
So what do you do? Do you quit? I’m not really sure. But what is definite is that there’s truthfully no way you guys can win against teams like New York, Miami, the Lakers and the like. Never, ever, ever. Not unless one of these players on a small-market team realizes he can break ground by staying and making that city. LeBron could have done it, but he wanted a championship and felt he couldn’t do it in Cleveland. Yeah…whatever. The sun of Miami had to be pretty attractive to him as well. Maybe Kevin Durant will stay in Oklahoma City. That is, unless someone tells him there is more money to be made in a Nets uniform.
Do you really expect to see Chris Paul in a Hornets uniform for the rest of his career? We didn’t think so.
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All you have to do is look toward South Texas to find a “small market” team that has figured out how to compete with the larger market, super-wealthy franchises. San Antonio has 4 rings to show for it, and their top players have decided to stay, time and time again (Robinson, Duncan, Parker, Ginobili), and will ultimately have their jerseys retired with the team that drafted them (Robinson’s jersey is already hanging). I will admit, San Antonio is a bit of an anomaly, and they are technically a mid-market team, but still, the prove that success is attainable if things are done correctly.
Also, being in a large market doesn’t always mean success. The Knicks have been terrible for a long time now, and they’ve only won two titles…in the early 70′s…pre-NBA/ABA merger. Other “Big Market” teams that have had little success: the Nets; the Wizards/Bullets; the Clippers; the Mavericks; the Warriors; the Suns; the Hawks, the 76ers. The Supersonics had so little success in a large-market Seattle that they moved to nearly no-market Oklahoma City!
My point is, being in a big market doesn’t mean anything, just like being in a small market doesn’t mean anything, in regard to success on the court. In regard to success financially…maybe. If you make good decisions, draft a Kevin Love, Kevin Durrant, Blake Griffin, etc., and then continue to surround that key player with great role players, you can find success. Cleveland failed at this due to Danny Ferry making some poor moves and a coach that couldn’t handle playoff pressure. Denver just couldn’t find the right people to deal with a “me” player like Melo. Orlando is making all the wrong moves to keep Howard, just like they couldn’t keep Shaq. It’s not the fact that these are small market, it’s the fact that the people handling the business side are making poor decisions.
Toronto is the fourth largest market in North America, genius.
Toronto is a freaking huge market, it’s just in Canada, genius..
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