2013 NBA Playoffs Proving Small-Market Teams Can Succeed in Today's NBA

The NBA Playoffs have a message: Bigger isn't always better.

Following the most recent collective bargaining agreement, small markets were considered to be, well, screwed. Parity continued to be preached, but some of the yielded results didn't coincide with that supposed goal.

This season saw plenty of small-market teams make sacrifices in order to avoid a financial crisis. 

The Oklahoma City Thunder shipped out James Harden and the Memphis Grizzlies sent Rudy Gay packing. Punitive luxury taxes had these organizations worried, scared enough to trade an All-Star caliber player like James Harden away.

Meanwhile, big-market franchises like the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks continued to spend, spend, spend. 

Tinseltown threw future draft picks into the wind and acquired Steve Nash just before paying him $27-plus million over the next three years. Dwight Howard soon followed, and the Lakers still having every intention of handing him a nine-figure deal, spread over the next five seasons, this summer. Their payroll exceeded $100 million this season.

Then you had a team like New York, undeterred by the exorbitant contracts it was already paying (Amar'e Stoudemire) while shamelessly investing time and money in players old enough to have fathered some of their teammates. 

And the NBA wanted to talk about balance? When the Grizzlies and Thunder had to trade away a part of their foundation for essential spare parts? When the Indiana Pacers' biggest offseason moves were comprised of re-signing their own players (George Hill, Roy Hibbert) and picking up a few odds and ends on the cheap (D.J. Augustin, Gerald Green)?

Some nerve the league had with this CBA. The 2012-13 campaign wasn't going to be good for these small-market factions. And it wasn't—it was great.

Fast forward to the NBA playoffs and the more diminutive locales have found success.

Each of the final four teams hailed from mid- to lower-tier markets. While Herculean-sized demographics like New York, Los Angeles and Boston (Celtics) watched from home, the San Antonio Spurs, Miami Heat, Pacers and Grizzlies played on.

Not only that, but a handful of these smaller assemblies advanced at the expense of their big brothers. San Antonio ripped through Los Angeles, Memphis did the same and Indiana exposed New York. Miami took down the Chicago Bulls as well, though we can't ignore the absence of Derrick Rose. 

These outfits found success, and it came neither cheap nor easy for most of them.

Memphis finished the regular season with $63.1 million in payroll and were forced to navigate a large portion of the year with one less "star," yet still came within in four victories of a Finals berth.

The Spurs closed the year out with $69.8 million on the books and found themselves in the NBA Finals with a roster that was considered too old to contend.

Then there's Indiana and its $66.1 million roster. Down last year's leading scorer (Danny Granger), the Pacers are pushing the Heat to the brink in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Speaking of Miami, the Heat don't call one of the biggest markets home. Miami's market ranks 16th in the league, yet it still doled out $83.8 million in payroll. 

Any team in its right mind would pay LeBron James whatever the hell they could, and much of the Heat's success has been predicated on seasoned vets (and even their stars) taking pay cuts. But Miami has spent all this money knowing its approaching a dilemma in 2014.

And this isn't about the Heat as much as it is the Grizzlies, Pacers and Spurs. Three bottom-five markets made it two the conference finals, and if the Pacers unseat the Heat, we'll be looking at an NBA Finals headlined by two of the smallest domains in the league.

Whether we want to see San Antonio square off against Indiana doesn't matter. For the Pacers and Spurs, it would be a success. Hell, for the Spurs, it already is.

Have the more pint-sized regions been put at a disadvantage? Of course they have. No CBA is going to change that. Access to additional funds is always more convenient.

Does unlimited resources necessarily make for a better team? Not at all. Ask the Knicks. Or the Lakers. Or the Celtics. Deep pockets and big cities can't always be parlayed into triumph.

With the exception of the Heat, each of the NBA's final four teams had payrolls that dwelled beneath the luxury-tax threshold. And all three of them finished outside the top 10 in salary commitments. And two of those (Memphis, Indiana), were actually in the bottom 10.

Ascendancy can be had at all costs, but those expenditures aren't strictly financial or geographical.

Sometimes it comes down to the acumen of the operation, not the brawn of a blank check. In today's NBA, it's more about how you play, not where you play.

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*Data used to determined market sizes was taken straight from NBA.com and Nielsen’s January 2013 market-size rankings unless otherwise attributed. All salary information was obtained from hoopshype.com.