Latest news with #parity
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Dwyane Wade breaks down why the new salary cap rules are great for the NBA: "It forces teams to develop and make smarter financial decisions"
Dwyane Wade breaks down why the new salary cap rules are great for the NBA: "It forces teams to develop and make smarter financial decisions" originally appeared on Basketball Network. The incredible depth of the Oklahoma City Thunder roster, otherwise the second-youngest team in the league, was on full display in this year's playoffs, in what many are calling the strongest Western Conference in recent seasons. Their playoff rotation included nine players averaging over 10 minutes per game, with seven of them playing over 20. When you have nine guys who can hold their own for 10 minutes on the court in an NBA playoff game, there's not much more to say. On the other hand, to everyone's surprise, the Indiana Pacers were one win away from capturing their first-ever Larry O'Brien trophy. Their playoff rotation included 10 players, eight of whom were logging more than 15 minutes per game, with seven over the 20-minute mark. All of this brings us to the conclusion that the NBA is slowly but surely entering a new era. The era of superteams and superstar alliances is coming to an end. The new salary cap rules are forcing teams to think differently. Teams are being built from the ground up because, under the new regulations, it's practically impossible to keep two max-contract players on the same roster long-term. That has created parity we've never seen before — the league crowned its seventh different champion in the past seven seasons, something that's never happened before. Dwyane Wade addressed this trend on the "The Why" podcast. "It aimed at superteams or owners willing to spend endlessly," he said. "It forces teams to develop and make smarter financial decisions. It makes it much harder to stack talent via free agency. So it's the Big 3 – we don't want this no more. If you go into the second apron, you can't use your mid-level exception to sign key players. These are the penalties. Then you can't package certain stars and trade for a star," he concluded. The NBA is changing big time Having ten players in a playoff rotation means one thing: you'll always have so-called "trade chips," which suggests the team won't fall apart quickly, like what's happening with the Denver Nuggets. Now, it's hard to say that the Nuggets have collapsed, considering they lost twice in a seven-game series after their championship season, and to outstanding teams. However, aside from Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. received big contracts just before the new CBA rules were introduced. It's hard to blame Denver's front office — they couldn't have predicted how much the second apron would reshape roster building, but they had no room to put quality pieces around their main stars. The Pacers, for example, have the luxury of Aaron Nesmith hitting five threes in the final five minutes of a playoff game and turning the impossible around against the New York Knicks. Eight total threes in the game. Not Tyrese Haliburton, not Pascal Siakam — Nesmith. That's team depth. The biggest takeaway from the success of the Thunder and the Pacers is that the NBA is changing big time and in a very specific direction: deeper rotations, less dependence on superstars and more balanced, well-constructed teams. Mark Cuban also broke down how the new CBA rules will impact the league. "When you get past the second apron, it's even tougher and so before you could always figure out, you know, find a team together by making trades, taking back money, whatever it may be — that's going to be nearly impossible going forward," he NBA is increasingly favoring roster depth and load distribution In the 2005–06 season, 17 players averaged more than 40 minutes on the court, with starters usually playing between 40 and 44 minutes per game. Five years later, in the 2010–11 playoffs, that number dropped to ten, and the typical starter range moved to 39–41 minutes. Today, in the 2024–25 season, only nine players are averaging more than 40 minutes in the playoffs; the average time for starters remains around 37–40 minutes and it's no longer standard for top players to routinely cross that threshold. All of this confirms that the modern NBA is increasingly favoring roster depth and load distribution, as best demonstrated by the 2025 Finals teams. So, expect teams in the coming seasons to be built in the image of the Pacers and Thunder. The new era has officially story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 18, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Top 4 NBA Teams With The Bleakest Future Right Now
Top 4 NBA Teams With The Bleakest Future Right Now originally appeared on Fadeaway World. Regarding parity and competitiveness, the NBA is in a great place right now. More so than in prior years, the league is rich with talent, and teams across both conferences are expected to be at least somewhat competitive. Of course, for those on the other end of the spectrum, the situation is especially dire. Advertisement Due to a rise in player empowerment and the NBA's new CBA rules, which place massive restrictions on teams who go over the cap, it's getting harder for some GMs to keep up with the rising level of competition. In the case of the worst-off teams, however, many of their problems go beyond competing for the championship next season. For some of those at the bottom of the hierarchy, the struggles often include a lack of tradable assets, a lost sense of direction, and/or a present culture of losing in the locker room. While there are several teams in rough spots right now, these are the four that stand out as the worst off, given their current trajectory as a franchise. Let's break it down: Phoenix Suns Suns owner Mat Ishbia has done everything in his power to make his team a powerhouse in the West, but he's failed every step of the way so far. Starting with the Kevin Durant trade, he gutted the team's draft capital to acquire him in 2023. While his individual performance was fine, he didn't make enough of an impact on the court to offset what the Suns lost in depth (Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, four first-round picks, two second-round picks, and four first-round pick swaps). Advertisement The deal for Bradley Beal only made things worse. He's owed $110 million over the next two years with a no-trade clause that keeps him on the roster for as long as he desires. Alone, he and Booker will not be enough to make the Suns a contender next season. What that means is that the franchise will be committed to an enormous payroll for a team with minimal assets and no hope of competing for a title. Chicago Bulls The Bulls have been in NBA purgatory for years now, dating back to Jimmy Butler's departure in 2017. They had a brief moment of prosperity before a string of injuries (including to their former point guard Lonzo Ball) derailed their progress. Now, they don't have Ball, Zach LaVine, or DeMar DeRozan to help keep them competitive. What the Bulls do have (Josh Giddey, Coby White, Nikola Vucevic, and Patrick Williams) isn't nearly enough to make them a threat in the Eastern Conference. To date, the Bulls don't have a true superstar, and they don't have an identity to help establish a unique culture. The franchise is very much stuck between a soft rebuild and front-office denial, with seemingly no clear-cut plan or vision for the future. Washington Wizards The Washington Wizards finally hit the reset button by trading Bradley Beal. The only problem is, they have practically nothing to show for it. For their franchise player, the Wizards only received Chris Paul, Landry Shamet, and the draft rights to Bilal Coulibaly, as well as future second-round picks and pick swaps. They also parted ways with Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma, two instant scorers who kept them in games. Advertisement Today, the Wizards are a completely hopeless team, just waiting for one of their young prospects to have a breakout season. As it stands, they are completely irrelevant in the East, and with a poor draft history, few have confidence that they can build something meaningful from scratch. For a franchise with such a limited history of success, the cycle is likely to continue as they search for their next big star. New Orleans Pelicans On the surface, the Pelicans may have a decent-looking rotation, but this is a team on a downward spiral. Fresh off the trades involving Brandon Ingram and CJ McCollum, the Pels still have to rediscover their identity in an already crowded Western Conference. To make matters worse, their biggest star (Zion Williamson) is dealing with constant weight and conditioning issues. For a team that was considered on the rise just a few years ago, reality has set in fast for the Pelicans, and if Zion continues to go on like this, they may be forced to start over and wipe the slate clean. After years of underachieving seasons, faith is dimming in the Pelicans' future, and if they don't act fast, it could set back their recovery tenfold. Advertisement While no NBA team is ever truly stuck forever, these four franchises face a steeper climb than most. Whether it's poor roster construction, front office mismanagement, or a lack of player development, their futures are anything but bright right now. Turning things around will require more than a lucky draft pick or splashy trade; it'll take a complete shift in identity, vision, and execution. Until then, they remain the NBA's most uncertain and most unstable projects. Related: Potential Phoenix Suns Starting Lineup: Cooked Or Not? This story was originally reported by Fadeaway World on Jul 10, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Bucks HC Doc Rivers makes big declaration about NBA parity
The post Bucks HC Doc Rivers makes big declaration about NBA parity appeared first on ClutchPoints. Having parity in the NBA can be rare at times. Despite this, Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers is supportive o the fact that it currently exits. Advertisement There hasn't been a repeat champion since the Golden State Warriors in 2017 and 2018. Nor has there been a dynasty as dominant as the Warriors themselves from 2015 to 2019 and 2022. Every team after them has been new or claimed the title after going through a drought. Rivers gave his thoughts on the past champions not being repeats during a Summer League interview via SiriusXM on Saturday. He believes the current parity in the league is the best it has been since the early 2000s. 'I don't think the NBA has been more open to anybody winning a title in 20 years,' Rivers said. What lies ahead for Doc Rivers, Bucks Benny Sieu-Imagn Images It's a big claim for Doc Rivers to make about parity in the NBA. To his points, the last six years have been historic for the league. Advertisement After the Warriors' repeat, the Toronto Raptors, Los Angeles Lakers, Milwaukee Bucks, Warriors, Denver Nuggets, Boston Celtics, and Oklahoma City Thunder have taken their places on the throne. This marked the first time in NBA history that there wasn't a repeat champion in that timeframe. Teams continue to look for ways to enter the mix as championship contenders. And while some came up short, there are those who struck lightning and have maximized the talent they have at their disposal. It's gotten much harder for teams to pull off a three-peat, or a repeat no less. Some may say that having different champions decrease the quality of past rivalries, it does increase the level of intrigue of who can be next to sit on the throne. For Rivers, he sees it as a great thing that can benefit the league for years to come. Related: Cole Anthony to sign with Bucks after contract buyout with Grizzlies Advertisement Related: Myles Turner gets real on 2025 return to Indiana with Bucks
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
MLB Draft Lottery, explained: Why the White Sox are picking 10th after setting loss record
Despite the sport's payroll discrepancies, parity is an important part of Major League Baseball. There hasn't been a repeat champion since the turn of the millennium. That's a feature, not a bug. Luxury tax penalties attempt to keep spending in check, teams have six years to build around young stars, and organizations are rewarded for losing expensive free agents. This extends to the MLB Draft, where the worst teams in the league are equipped with the picks and bonus pools to acquire top prospects. Advertisement However, beginning in 2023, the Collective Bargaining Agreement implemented the MLB Draft Lottery, adding uncertainty to the event and encouraging teams to compete. During the 2025 MLB Draft, which begins on Sunday, no team will suffer more from the Lottery than the Chicago White Sox. How does the MLB Draft Lottery work? The Lottery determines who will make the first six picks in the first round. All 18 non-playoff teams are initially eligible, with the three worst teams in the league, by record, sharing the same 16.5% chance at the No. 1 pick. This looks to discourage tanking by ensuring teams aren't guaranteed the class's top prospect by having the fewest wins. Next, teams that would have picked from fourth to 18th before the Lottery each have a decreasing chance at picking first. Advertisement Three other rules shape the Lottery. Teams paying into the league's revenue-sharing program cannot have lottery picks in back-to-back seasons Teams receiving revenue sharing cannot receive a top-six pick in three consecutive seasons Teams that fall into either category cannot pick higher than No. 10 That's where the White Sox, fresh off setting the modern-era loss record (41-121), come in. Because Chicago pays into revenue sharing and had a Lottery pick in 2024, taking pitcher Hagen Smith at No. 5, it was ineligible to receive one in 2025. MORE: Mariners' Bryan Woo nearly no-hit Yankees by relying on one pitch Instead, the White Sox will make the 10th selection on Sunday. That comes with the 14th-biggest draft pool, per Baseball America. Each slot carries a pre-determined value, and the sum of them creates a team's pool. Teams with more money to spend can lure higher-caliber prospects down the board with promises of a lucrative bonus, so losing out on the first pick has real ramifications. Advertisement The Athletics suffered a similar penalty after having two top-six selections in 2023 and 2024 while receiving revenue-sharing payments. They will pick 11th on Sunday. Since those two teams were ruled ineligible, the aforementioned odds were adjusted, giving each of the remaining 16 teams a slightly better chance at ecstasy. Chicago will have its rightful first pick in the other 19 rounds. Instead of the White Sox, the Washington Nationals (and interim general manager Mike DeBartolo) will have the No. 1 pick, followed by the Los Angeles Angels, Seattle Mariners, Colorado Rockies, St. Louis Cardinals, and Pittsburgh Pirates. Advertisement Fans can watch the first three rounds of the 2025 MLB Draft on ESPN and MLB Network at 6 p.m. ET. MORE MLB NEWS
New York Times
08-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Wide-open Eastern Conference is the ultimate reflection of NBA's parity era
As the NBA enters a new year in which injuries will take multiple All-Stars out of the picture for most, if not the whole season, the efficacy of the parity era will be tested more than ever before. For the first time since the immediate aftermath of Michael Jordan's initial retirement more than a quarter century ago, there's a lack of clarity about the true contenders in an entire conference. Advertisement The East has faced grim days before. There have been so many years when the morass of the conference could barely compete with teams in similar positions out west. But there was always a clear hierarchy at the top, a team or two that could check some of the boxes for legitimate contention. In past rough periods for the conference, at least LeBron James was lurking in there, ready for the inevitable NBA Finals run. There was always this understanding that even if teams like the Joe Johnson Hawks or Dwight Howard Magic were the top seed, they still had to get through LeBron. Today, there's no team founded on a top-five player in his prime that will for certain be in the mix, depending on one's feelings about Giannis Antetokounmpo's retooled Bucks. Unless the Pistons have another massive leap in store, there isn't a team rising through the ranks that inspires unmitigated confidence in their postseason chops. Each team that can make a convincing argument about why they should be the favorite has a significant caveat to their championship credentials. Next season's Eastern Conference will be ground zero of the NBA's parity gambit, molded into the shape of competition the league set in motion over the past half-decade. A big part of that vacuum has been created at the top. Achilles tears and the CBA have left the Indiana Pacers and Boston Celtics as shells of themselves, missing their stars for the next season and carrying on with a compromised supporting cast. The latter was already poised to threaten the Celtics' reign even before Jayson Tatum's Achilles injury in the Celtics' second-round loss to the Knicks. Tatum's injury accelerated the inevitable, as the Celtics offloaded Kristaps Porziņģis and Jrue Holiday in an attempt to drop out of the dreaded second apron. The Pacers, last season's surprise East champions, must now take a gap year because of Tyrese Haliburton's torn Achilles, their situation exacerbated by the departure of center Myles Turner to their rival, the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks themselves are in a similar conundrum, having waived Damian Lillard after he suffered the same injury as Haliburton in the same postseason. Advertisement While injuries and the recent implementation of the second apron have received the most attention, there have been several structural changes to the league that have changed the path of least resistance for roster building. The Pacers developed a distinct identity and steadily molded their roster to fit it. Their trade for Pascal Siakam at the trade deadline two seasons ago was opportunistic and fit within their established foundation. They did not sacrifice their entire process to get a superstar like so many conference champions had. Indiana's run to Game 7 of the NBA Finals last season proved that teams just needed to improve enough to be in the mix, rather than going all out to be the top dog. Attrition is taking down teams at random in the postseason. Remaining healthy and holding onto your identity has been the key to NBA Finals runs in recent memory. The NBA shifted out of its Big 3 era through the implementation of the Play-In Tournament, flatter draft lottery odds and, of course, the first and second aprons. These reforms helped bridge the gaps between the tiers of the league and made acquiring multiple max-contract players more challenging. The 76ers and Suns are the only teams left in the NBA that deployed a synthetic Big 3-centric roster strategy, with Philadelphia top-loading its cap sheet when it signed All-Star Paul George before trying to cobble together scraps of depth around him, Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. Their implosion last season, like the Suns', fortified that this roster-building approach is dying out. The new reality is that teams are trying to steadily nurture a broader core of valued rotation players, even as the East seems wide open. The top of the East is full of teams that have drafted well over the years and brought in a missing piece to potentially put them over the top, with the Knicks being the lone exception. Orlando's trade for Desmond Bane and Atlanta's deals for Kristaps Porziņģis and Nickeil Alexander-Walker show how wide-open the East is. These are not the kinds of blockbusters that used to reshape a conference, but those aren't as necessary or feasible as they were half a decade ago. So now we are left with a top tier in the East consisting of Cleveland, New York, Orlando and Atlanta. They all project to be on similar tiers for various reasons, but they are the favorites for home-court advantage as things stand. Examining each of the top contenders' resumes will reveal holes. Cleveland had a tremendous start to the regular season with a revamped system but tapered off as the regular season went on and then hit the Pacers wall hard in the second round, with Darius Garland struggling to play through turf toe. The Knicks can challenge them, but are they that classic team that is ready to clear that last hurdle, or does their coaching change and uneven 2024-25 regular season signal that last season was the furthest they could reach? Advertisement Then, you have Orlando and Atlanta, two franchises who made crucial trades to solve their biggest weaknesses. In particular, the Bane trade, much like the Knicks' Mikal Bridges deal a year ago and the Siakam deal before that, exemplifies how East teams are now willing to pay significant assets for complementary pieces that will accentuate an established core. The state of the East will help us understand how the NBA balances equity in competition with compelling a greater audience. The Finals had relatively low ratings for the most part, but then Game 7 was the highest-rated Finals game since Game 5 between the Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors in 2019. Parity ideally brings more Game 7s and builds interest in the game through more consistent competition. The upside to seven different champions in seven consecutive seasons has been a unique journey every year. The drawback is that there are no dynasties creating familiarity for casual fans at the moment. Maybe the Thunder or Victor Wembanyama will fill that void, but the league is missing that long-term story driven by names that are instantly recognizable outside of households with jerseys in the closet. The East, meanwhile, hasn't been this up for grabs since the turn of the century, when Michael Jordan's initial retirement opened the floodgates. The Knicks made the 1999 Finals without Patrick Ewing before aging out. The Nets traded for Jason Kidd and immediately shot to the top of the conference. As the decade went on, teams like the mid-2000s Pistons, the Shaquille O'Neal-Dwyane Wade Heat, and the Big 3 Celtics rose and fell before James and Steph Curry took over the 2010s. As the NBA waits to see if Wembanyama can fulfill his limitless potential, there is no singular presence controlling the league right now. But the balance of power has dramatically shifted west, and teams like the Hawks and Magic have shown they aren't afraid to seize the moment. We had no idea who was going to win the East 25 years ago. We have no idea now. Just as the league intended.
