NBA Might Lose Competitiveness
Due to the big-name-transfers NBA clubs already produce, the competition might lose balance, according to many sports experts who consider best players’ moves to one team might provide both too good teams and very weak ones, things which are able to transform NBA into a less attractive competition as the basketball fans would watch only few teams playing as the other ones might lie down the standings most of the time. Some specialists regard Heat’s example, the club completing three big transfers only this summer, including James LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. New York University sports management professor Robert Boland declared these days what the danger might be in such situations: “You have to be careful about furthering the gap between the haves and have-nots.”
“One of the big concerns is players don’t want profit maximisers, they want market maximisers. It’s a concern for the union and to teams, because it means certain teams will not get free agents,” while referring to the New Orleans guard, Boland also added: “Probably one thing the league would want to do is pass rules that players shouldn’t be colluding with one another or talking about leaving their team too early like Chris Paul is talking about now.” Concerning Chris Paul and Denver’s Carmelo Anthony, another two big names in the NBA, the both have declared for their teams they’d like to join the New York Knicks. This made professor Bill Sutton, who works at the University of Central Florida DeVos Sports Business and the one who was NBA’s marketing executive, claim that: “If Chris Paul is plotting to be in New York with Amare (Stoudemire, recently signed by the Knicks) and Carmelo in a year that’s what we’re afraid of.”
Rick Horrow from Harvard Law School refered in the same time to the difficulty players are kept at their teams: “It’s hard to know how leagues could address this legally. Lawyers, executives, anybody in any walk in life talks to fellow employees about how they can approve their lot in life. It’s hard to imagine a league could ever prohibit players from talking to each other and maximise whatever leverage they have,” while Craig Eshrick from George Mason University said about Heat’s dream team that they might provide few advantages for the NBA, but only for short-time, as for long-time effects, well, this might occur some real problems regarding NBA’s competitiveness: “If they end up winning seven, eight NBA championships, you could face an issue that they’re so dominating that fans could lose interest. But that’s down the road. Short term, it’s a good thing for the league. It will be interesting to see them play next year. Miami is going to be motivation for every team that comes to town.”
Finally, it was also Michael Jordan who critisised James leaving from Cleveland: “There’s no way…I would’ve ever called up Larry (Bird), called up Magic and said, ‘Let’s get together and play on one team,” as image consultant Mike Paul added times have changed and people must understand and accept the way sports and especially NBA are moving: “There’s too much crying over changes that always happen in sports. LeBron is in a different generation than Michael. It’s time to pass the baton.”
