Despite NBA’s Efforts, Era of the Superteam Has Made Finals a Yearly Rerun

OAKLAND, Calif. — The greatest basketball player on Earth and the greatest shooter of all time are dueling again in the NBA Finals, and what’s not to like?

LeBron James is still an athletic marvel, an incomprehensible fusion of strength, dexterity and IQ. Stephen Curry is a jump-shooting wizard, a fountain of pure basketball joy.

They are surrounded by stars—Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love joining James, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green flanking Curry.

Their teams, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors, turn scoreboards into fireworks shows with an endless flurry of three-pointers.

And the stakes are vivid, with James trying to end Cleveland’s long misery and Curry trying to certify the Warriors’ historic 73-win season.

The ratings for Game 1 on Thursday were through the roof—the highest-ever for a Finals opener on ABC, per Nielsen (h/t ESPN MediaZone)—breaking the record set last June, when these same two teams played.

Rivalries are great. Rematches are compelling. Superstars are fun to watch.

Again, what’s not to like?

That depends on how you feel about the vague notion of parity.

This Warriors-Cavs rematch follows two straight Finals featuring the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs—meaning just four teams have occupied the last four NBA Finals. And since James played in all four, you could say only three teams had a shot at the title: the Spurs, Warriors and Team LeBron.

It’s a striking event. Until this stretch, the NBA hadn’t seen a Finals rematch since 1997-98, when Chicago and the Utah Jazz played in consecutive Junes.

Are we witnessing an anomaly? A microtrend? Or the new norm?

More to the point: Is it a problem? That may be in the eye of the beholder.

Dynasties are fascinating, and rivalries are riveting. But NBA leaders have trumpeted parity as a virtue—and cited “competitive balance” as a chief rationale for the 149-day lockout in 2011.

Yet five years later, the championship will either go to the team with the highest payroll (Cleveland) or the third-highest (Golden State).

Three of the four conference finalists this year will pay the luxury tax (Toronto being the exception).

Six teams won 50-plus games this season, including the top five teams in payroll. The other, again, is Toronto.

When the NBA shut down in 2011, officials bemoaned the gap between the league’s highest and lowest spenders—the defending champion Dallas Mavericks spent twice as much as the lowly Sacramento Kings—and set an explicit goal of narrowing that gap.

Yet here we are.

“It’s a very simple problem to diagnose,” said one team executive. “Max salaries lead to superteams, lead to repeat Finals, lead to non-parity. We have the least parity of any sport.”

Putting aside whether parity is inherently good or bad for business, the NBA does have a …

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