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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > Parity in Sports, a Discussion
 
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C. Everett Koop
Aug 18, 2008
 First, nuke all cities.

Second, there's never been full parity in sports, or at least the four major US sports. More importantly, there's no real desire for full parity. Leagues benefit from having their best players playing in their most important and most visible games.

I think one of the major changes is that it's always been easy to sell the good teams, but we're starting to see that you can sell being a really bad team, i.e. trust the process. It's obviously good to be a championship team, but it's also good to be a godawful team because it accelerates a rebuild. The middle is death and that's where hope dies, where you're not good enough to truly content for a title but not bad enough to acquire a cheap gamechanger unless you get really lucky.

* # ¿ Jul 14, 2017 17:40
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# ¿ May 12, 2024 16:22
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C. Everett Koop
Aug 18, 2008

Kibner posted:

The GSW situation was a once in a lifetime thing that required so drat much to happen in a specific way at specific times to make it possible. Any thing short of removing the idea of max contracts won't fix it. And even that may not fix it.

Under old CBA:
Curry had taken significantly less money due to worries about his ankles and then became MVP shortly thereafter. Draymond was a second round pick that turned into one of the greatest defenders in the league in additional to a great playmkaing and ok shooting big and also took less money than he could have on his next contract due to much of his accolades for that happening after that second contract. Klay Thompson became a top 3 3pt shooter and great perimeter defender and also took less money than he could have on his second contract.

Under new CBA:
Giant cap spike the likes of which the league hasn't seen before. A top 3 player is an unrestricted free agent (though his original team can offer more money/years than anyone else). Since all of GSW's key players are on contracts that were under their real value under the old CBA and salary cap, they now have a ridiculous amount of cap space. Just enough to fit in Durant.

If Curry wasn't injury prone before signing his second contract, if Draymond was a first round draft pick and had broken out in a big way before his second contract (2nd rounders get two years, 1st rounders get four, iirc), if Durant hadn't become an UFA the season of the giant cap leap, if any of these contracts had been done in a different year, etc., it wouldn't have happened.

And it's not like the title was given to GSW after Durant signed, even if it felt like it, because they sacrificed any depth for that top-end talent. When Durant got hurt in February and was out for just about the rest of the regular season, there were fears that he was done for the year which would have radically changed up the direction of the playoffs. Sure the Warriors probably steamroll their way to the WCF (and maybe steamroll to the Finals if they're willing to undercut Kawaii again) but the Cavs aren't a complete pushover.

* # ¿ Jul 24, 2017 18:19
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > Parity in Sports, a Discussion