Are Super Teams Good Or Bad For Sports?

ITG-SG / September 2016

Teams such as the 1992 “Dream Team,” the dominant Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s, the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, the 2003-04 Los Angeles Lakers, the 2008 Boston Celtics, the 2010-14 Miami Heat, and now the 2016-17 Golden State Warriors have all been labeled “Super Teams.”

On a smaller scale, super teams have been fostered quietly in the AAU basketball ranks and most recently with high-level football players transferring to Grayson High School to play for championships. Strong opinions have been bandied about on both sides regarding the fairness of so many talented players joining forces.

The 1992 Dream Team is the template by which these teams are formed. 1992 was significant because the Barcelona Games was the first time active NBA players represented the United States. Take a Hall of Fame coach in Chuck Daly, give him Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, John Stockton, Karl Malone, and Patrick Ewing, among others, and you have a team built for absolute dominance. The 1992 Dream Team went 8-0, winning by an average of 44 points per game.

Pundits believe the super teams are hurtful to the game. Detractors argue the competitive balance is affected by having loaded teams take aim at lesser teams. The fair rebuttal should be one simple question: Are players being obtained legally?

The teams mentioned at the opening of this piece were largely brought together through free agency and trades. Troy Aikman, Deion Sanders, Michael Irvin, and Emmett Smith are all considered greats at their respective positions and won three Super Bowl titles with the Cowboys in the 1990s.

Scottie Pippen was originally drafted by the Seattle Supersonics with the fifth overall pick in 1987. Pippen never donned the green and gold of the Emerald City. Instead, he was traded to the Chicago Bulls where he and Michael Jordan led a carefully constructed cast of role players to six NBA championships.

The culture of vilifying super teams came to consciousness in 2010 when LeBron James decided to take his talents to South Beach and join Dwyane Wade’s Miami Heat. All-Star forward Chris Bosh followed suit, forming the “Big Three.” LeBron infamously told the Miami crowd they would win “not one, not two, not three, not four…” NBA titles.

The new-look Heat started 9-8, prompting many to wonder if the super team was a failure. Following their loss to the underdog Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 NBA Finals, the Heat were written off. The big picture saw the Heat making it to four consecutive NBA Finals and winning two NBA titles. Survey says, the super team was a success.

This past NBA season saw the Golden State Warriors nearly cap off their historic 73-win regular season with an NBA title. Stephen Curry turned the hoops world on its ear with a back-to-back run as Most Valuable Player. The Warriors shattered records left and right before falling to the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

Feeling as if something were missing, the almost-perfect team went out and added former league MVP and scoring champion Kevin Durant in free agency. Durant had spent his entire nine-year career with the Oklahoma City Thunder (formerly the Seattle Supersonics). A recent computer simulation revealed that adding Durant essentially broke the system; the Warriors were projected to win 83 games next season (the NBA has an 82-game regular season).

As sports fans, super teams can either fire us up for next season or anger us into lobbying for change. Teams compiling talent has never been illegal. NBA teams routinely had multiple stars and future Hall of Fame players throughout the 1970s and 1980s. They simply drafted and signed good players. Of course with fewer teams and less money thrown about, players were not jumping from team to team. With more money generating athletics, teams have shrewdly adapted to the changing financial climate. Look no further than the bottomless pockets of the New York Yankees in Major League Baseball. In a sport without a salary cap, the Yankees essentially told the world, “We have the money to spend, so we will spend it however we see fit to make our team better.” How could anyone fault them for that if they are not breaking any rules to get better?

Refocusing, the case of top-level recruits transferring to Grayson is certainly not illegal, but there may be cases where rules are being bent. The GHSA requires that players move with a guardian into a new residence in the school district and relinquish former residency. From the outside looking in, there are perhaps ways to fleece the system and facilitate the transfers (listing addresses in other areas, naming “guardians” in surrounding areas, etc.). It is hard to penalize these athletes for wanting to team up, unless rules are being broken to make it happen.

AAU basketball has also come under fire in recent years. The AAU system allows amateurs to play on stacked teams, sometimes on multiple teams in various tournaments during the year. Current Warriors head coach and former member of the 1995-96 Bulls Steve Kerr pointed out flaws he noticed in AAU basketball.

“Some programs will fly in top players from out of state for a weekend to join their team,” Kerr said. “Certain players play for one team in the morning and another in the afternoon.” No high school, college, or professional team would be able to get away with anything close to what Kerr has witnessed.

The 1992 Dream Team’s success as the greatest basketball team ever assembled has helped shape this growing culture in sports. On the societal level, basketball, football, baseball, soccer, and other sports all begin with friends in the street, at the park, on an empty patch of grass. These sports are all ways for people to unify, befriend each other, and enjoy themselves. As children, we are encouraged to go out and play. Our parents and guardians often encourage us to make friends. Every sport and game we play has rules. If playing with other good players is done within the rules, then quite frankly, let the best team win.