NBA Season 16-17: General Thread

[EricaLubarsky]

Originally Posted by MavzMan

And now, teams in the middle of the pack like OKC pretty much have no hope. This is the new NBA mentality as far as free agency goes:

Peter Vecsey: Bottom Line: Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Damien Lillard & Paul George have 3 ways 2 win NBA title; join forces w LeBron, Curry or Leonard.

NBA should change it's name to TTPLFAC ... Two Teams Playing For A Championship. Hopefully this changes by the time the Mavs develop players and become relevant again.

It's not just the 3-8 seed that are having trouble

It also means a lot more teams have decided to retool and rebuild so there are more teams than ever are holding back. More teams than ever are tanking or shooting for the lottery and the draft just isn't enough to keep the league competitive. This year the talent level of the draft is supposedly good, but still only 5-10 stars in the bunch and 20+ teams needing to improve. Most years you're lucky to get 2-5 stars out of the draft. In a league with 3 winners and 27 losers, that spells doom for overall TV ratings.

Silver has an interesting dilemma now. For fans of the big three, everything is alright, but fans of the other 27 teams aren't happy either and the overall level of competitiveness in the regular season is in jeopardy.