Why the Miami Heat Winning It All Would Be Bad for the NBA

The NBA is an ever-adapting league. It has gone through an innumerable amount of changes in its history. Changes to the rules, style of play and so on. But throughout all of those changes one thing has remained constant: There has always been a constant division of talent and the disparity of talent between most teams has been kept under control. The NBA is structured this way and it is so for a few reasons.

First, it makes the league more entertaining. Unless you are a fan of one team, no one wants to watch a blow-out, and if there is a large enough disparity in talent from the one team to the next, then a blow-out is inevitable. The NBA has been able to keep the disparity of talent between the best and the worst team close enough so that a blow-out is not inevitable and it is possible for upsets to occur. Isn't it fun watching the Grizzlies run in these playoffs? That is a product of this theory.

Next, it maximizes profit. Think about it this way, if there are a few elite teams and every other team has no chance of beating these teams or having any type of success, then inevitably, the majority of NBA teams will lose support because not many people like to root for a losing team. And if that is the majority of the teams, then a lot of fans will be lost. And fans go to games, fans buy jerseys, fans watch the games on TV and fans subscribe to NBA packages. If there are less fans from most teams, then the NBA would lose a lot of money.

Finally, it is best for the players, coaches and owners. No player wants to play for a bad team with no upside, no coach wants to coach a bad team with no upside and no owner wants to own a bad team with no upside. There has nearly always been an upside because of the control of talent in the NBA. If this balance were upset, then we would have a revolving door of players, coaches and owners on poor teams. Also, there could be location changes of franchises, and maybe even crumbling franchises.

Call it democracy, not necessarily socialism, because all teams are not equal. But equal opportunities are still given to each. And it works.

But as I said before, the NBA is an ever-adapting league, and if the Heat win it all, the most drastic change could occur. Not a rule change or a style of play change, but the entire politics of the NBA could be changed.

No longer will it be a democracy, but it could become feudalism.

The Heat would have set the blueprint by LeBron, Wade and Bosh coming together in free agency to from a super team. 

And it would seem like a good idea if they win it all. Or an action that must be repeated in order to dethrone them.

What would that leave us with? Superstars flying all over the place, flocking to certain teams together while the bottom feeding teams are left in the dust. Maybe Deron Williams will join Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire in New York to form a super team there. Maybe Dwight Howard and Chris Paul will join forces in Orlando to form another super team. Who knows? What I do know is that although this sounds like fun, it would be revolutionary and to the detriment of the NBA.

I mentioned all of the advantages to keeping the balance of talent in the league earlier. If the balance of power is lost, then all of those advantages are gone. That means a struggling NBA economy, less regular entertainment from the NBA and potential crumbling franchises. Still sound like fun?

Needless to say, all of this happening would not be good for the NBA. And if the Heat do win it all, then it could set off this chain of events. And July 8th, 2010 could turn out to be a very significant date. As of now, it is the date that LeBron James made his infamous decision to take his talents to South Beach and join fellow All-Stars Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. But in a few years, we could look back on it as the beginning of the end of the NBA as we know it.

The Heat will advance to the Eastern Conference Finals to face the Bulls. And after how easily they handled the Celtics, many believe that they could advance past the Bulls and win it all. And although it is easy to get caught up in the hype of this team and the first championship for LeBron, the fact of the matter is that if they win it all, the NBA as we know it will never be the same.