IMAGINE THE STAR power on the floor in a Brooklyn Nets vs. Los Angeles Lakers NBA Finals this summer. MVP candidate and three-time scoring champion James Harden runs the pick-and-roll with two-time Finals MVP Kevin Durant before swinging the ball to Kyrie Irving, seven-time All-Star and owner of one of the most iconic shots in NBA history. Defending that action: One of the two greatest players ever (LeBron James) and a four-time All-NBA First Team standout (Anthony Davis).
More than any other major sports league, the NBA is driven by superstar talent. Those five players are not just awesome to watch. They also have an enormous influence on which teams win and lose NBA titles. Since 2012, Durant, James and LA Clippers wing Kawhi Leonard have combined to win eight of nine Finals MVP awards.
That's remarkable, but that's not all this crew has in common. Each of these guys has also played for three different teams in that same span. While they were originally drafted into small-market organizations, all three are now playing basketball in Los Angeles or New York, propelling big-city organizations into championship contenders.
The NBA's superstars are moving around more than ever, and these super-migrations are by no means random. The league's most elite talent is congregating into a tiny set of the league's most cosmopolitan markets.
On the one hand, this is a positive development -- the league's brightest stars have progressively used their power to rightfully get where and what they want. But these superclusters of talent are increasingly threatening championship viabilities in a majority of NBA markets.
Here are the startling numbers behind NBA superstars' increasing move to coastal elite status, plus what it means for the next wave of transcendent players.
IT USED TO be rare for the league's best players to switch teams. Between 1969 and 2010, only seven of the 41 Finals MVPs won the award after changing teams. Then James took his talents to South Beach and set the tone for a new era of superstar free agency. Suddenly, eight of the past 10 Finals MVPs have won the award after changing teams -- and the top talent in the best basketball league on the planet has never been so mobile.
These super-migrations are propagating a new kind of wealth gap within the NBA. Consider this: There are currently 17 active players who have been named First-Team All-NBA at least once in their careers. More than half of them are currently playing in New York or Los Angeles.
If you include Stephen Curry and San Francisco in this megamarket group, that leaves a total of seven First-Team alums spread across 25 other franchises. A big chunk of that group includes Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic -- three of the league's brightest stars who have yet to fully test the free-agency waters.
It hasn't always been this way. Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan changed teams once combined. James, Durant, Leonard and Irving have already done it at least two times each.
In 2021, nearly every top player who has had the opportunity to switch teams has done it, and many have done it repeatedly. They have more than earned that right. Players drive the value of the league, and top players drive exponential value. But it's clear there are two NBAs, split up by a simple litmus test: Are you an attractive spot for superstars or not? Are you an origin market or a destination market?
There are two separate issues here. The first -- increased superstar movement -- is a fine and even fun development in pro basketball. These big-time transactions light up social media and excite fans. Shorter and larger contracts offer more power to players, which is a good thing.
However, the second issue -- decreased talent distribution -- is another story. While mega-signings -- those free-agent acquisitions of All-NBA players -- have emerged as the most influential team-building tool in the modern game, only a portion of franchises have access to this lever.
The trend itself isn't new. Players have always had their preferred destinations and ways to try to get there, but this version of the NBA wealth gap is more pronounced than ever. With the collective bargaining agreement's mutual opt-out approaching in 2023, conversations with multiple front-office executives show a growing sense that the congregation of talent in a few corners of the NBA universe could become a heated issue. In places like Los Angeles, you can always count on building through superstar free agency or trade demands. In places like Memphis, you just can't.
While the draft and player development are the lifeblood of small-market teams, superstar acquisitions fuel the engines of the glamour class. The New York Knicks' climbing to a perfectly passable 19-19 record this season incited a rush from fans and media to orchestrate trade-machine deals for Devin Booker or Damian Lillard -- despite there being no evidence either player wants out or that the Knicks have the pieces to swing such a blockbuster. More than 80% of the league has to patiently grow its own food from seed, while the top tier can just hit the drive-through in most offseasons.
If a small-market team in Orlando or Milwaukee wants to compete, its only chance is to draft great players, wait a few years until they reach their early prime, then take advantage of a quickly shrinking window, while praying their talent doesn't split for the coasts. The Bucks scored a massive victory when Antetokounmpo bypassed free agency and agreed to a long-term supermax in December. But Milwaukee depleted its assets to make its case, and the new deal doesn't prevent a trade demand after a playoff flameout.
When the size of the star doesn't match the size of the market, the clock always ticks faster.
DURANT'S NETS ARE just the latest and potentially most extreme example of this effect. Their Big 3 exemplifies a few of the biggest trends in this space, a confluence of two coordinated free-agency signings and one high-profile trade demand.
Brooklyn GM Sean Marks deserves a ton of credit for laying the groundwork. He did a wonderful job assembling this group from the ground up and putting the franchise in the position to build a juggernaut, but he did so with the kinds of tools most of the league just doesn't have. Could he have pulled this off in Charlotte or Minneapolis?
The last time a major free agent migrated to a small market, it was James in 2015. That was a highly unusual circumstance due to hometown connections, and it was also temporary. Four years later, he was off to Los Angeles. One year after that, the Lakers' extracted Davis from New Orleans, while their rivals across the hall landed a pair of incredible players -- both drafted by small-market teams -- in Leonard and Paul George.
The Nets, Lakers and Clippers haven't only imported colossal amounts of talent over the past few years, they've extracted that talent at the expense of smaller markets. Now they are all legit contenders. Meanwhile, the exporting teams -- the Rockets, Pelicans and Thunder -- find themselves in the throes of mediocrity with no easy way out, once again waiting for their chance to slow-cook a competitor using the giant piles of draft assets they received in exchange for their franchise players.
It's that exact exchange -- stonks for superstars -- that is beginning to typify a second kind of transaction at the heart of this new two-NBA era. Draft picks have never been more meaningful in origin markets and never never meant less in the destination markets. As a result, the precious few teams that can reliably retain top talent are emptying their cupboards to extract unhappy superstars in mega-trades.
Today's best players want to win, play together and do so in the league's most fashionable markets. How can you blame them? What could be better than playing pro basketball with your friends and living in an amazing city?
The constant ring-counting discourse doesn't help. Players are derided and their careers are maligned unless they win it all at least once. My ESPN colleague Jalen Rose -- who spent his prime on very good teams in Indianapolis -- has argued persuasively that ring envy is a big part of the superteam movement.
"I'm sick of this era of people only trying to dumb down the accomplishments into ring counting," Rose said last week. "Are we going to look up in a couple of years and people are going to say, 'Well, Ja [Morant] should leave Memphis.' Or 'Luka should leave Dallas.' Or 'Zion [Williamson] should leave New Orleans'?"
Parity has never been inherent to the NBA product, nor has it been a realistic goal. A perfectly fair distribution of superstars is not only impossible, there's also no proof that would be best for business. But if a small-market team nails the draft, invests in player development, makes shrewd cap maneuvers and builds a contender, it should have a better chance to fend off a mega-market without needing to be near the hometown of LeBron James.
However, title aspirations are beginning to feel like fantasies for a growing number of fan bases. The danger is clear: If a vast majority of teams and their fans begin to feel like second-class members of the association, the whole system crumbles.
What can be done? That's a good question. Zach Lowe explored a few options in the summer of 2018, and there are no easy answers. But in a league where superstar talent determines titles, the league's current combination of a soft cap and artificially constrained maximum salaries leaves the vast majority of franchises on a painfully short clock with a thinning pool of game-changers.
Paying the best players more money seems like a viable option. It would enable superstars' earnings to more closely correspond to their value, and it would make it more difficult for teams to accumulate bunches of them on one cap sheet. What if the Lakers could only afford LeBron James or Anthony Davis? If Durant were eligible to earn 50% of the cap, the Nets would have a harder time hoarding top talent at every position.
Player empowerment is important, but current cap rules disempower the league's brightest stars from earning their fair value. One result is teaming up.
Small markets are important, too -- as is the competitive viability of franchises that, on average, handle their business well. Doncic, Antetokounmpo and Jokic should do whatever they want on their next deals. The same goes for Ja Morant, Zion Williamson and LaMelo Ball when they get to these turning points in their careers.
But keep those six players on your radar. Recent history doesn't just ensure that some of them are gonna split town. It also suggests we know where they are headed.