What is a Super Team?
With the news of James Harden’s move to the Brooklyn Nets this week, there are mixed emotions swirling around NBA fan bases. Regardless of where Harden went, with suitors such as Boston, Philly and Brooklyn always at the forefront, Harden made it clear that he wanted to go to a win now situation. Harden expressed his displeasure with this situation in Houston explicitly in a press conference following a loss, and less than 24 hours later, he was on his way to Brooklyn. The concept of a star player leaving their situation to ring chase is no longer a unique circumstance. The star players in the league recognize their agency and when they don’t see their side being a contender they are often quick to force a move elsewhere to increase their shot of winning. As a result owners are nervous of losing such a player to free agency and usually aim towards a rebuild with the haul received typically being a ton of draft picks.
When it was announced that Harden would be joining the Nets it shook the NBA world. Just two seasons ago the Nets were able to make the playoffs under Kenny Atkinson with a team lead by Spencer Dinwiddie, Caris Levert, Jarrett Allen, and Demare Caroll. Now just a year and a half later they moved to second best title favorites after acquiring their third Hall of Famer. While we have yet to see KD and Kyrie on the court very often due to injury, COVID, and Kyrie’s complicated mind, Nets fans were looking forward to having the tandem back together this week. Now they add Harden to the fray creating the single most lethal scoring trio in NBA history. With these 3 egos involved, some have questions whether this situation might be toxic or whether these 3 will be able to share the ball. All this trepidation is misguided. The fact of the matter is when you have the opportunity to add a HOF player in his prime to your roster with an opportunity for a championship it’s almost certainly worth it.
When the dust settled and Harden was officially off to Brooklyn, with Nets fans extolling him and Rockets fans lambasting him just the same, it was time for the wider NBA following to pitch in. I immediately noticed a theme. The idea of the Super Team. Here are a few tweets that stuck out to me:
People are sick of the super team, flat out. Teams are no longer able to find ways to get better by adding a shooter, a strong perimeter center, or a high energy big man to come off the bench. Now teams are targeting disgruntled super stars, unwilling to play out their contracts and determined to win a ring.
For a long time many claimed that the Celtics were the first Super Team. The designation of the super team tho is a complicated one. As the tweet above highlights, many teams were “super” in that they were loaded with acquired talent long before the Celtics and the dawn of the 21st Century. While there seems to be a basketball purist vision of building a team through the draft and assembling pieces around your homegrown guys, this may be more of an anomaly than we are led to believe. When Lebron teamed up with Wade and Bosh the slander was endless, and when Durant joined the Warriors the criticism might have been even more ferocious. However, when you hang up your shoes and the pundits assess your career, the discussions often go no further than “how many rings did he win?”. Such is in plain site when the intricacies of Jordan and Lebron’s careers are simplified down to a 6 vs 4 rings debate. With such pervasive narratives staining the legacies of the ringless such as Charles Barkely and Chris Paul, there is a general fear of having to retire a super star who never got a ring. So can we blame these guys?
So while the motivations behind the super star movement seem to be relatively clear (The Rings), the consistency at which we define a super team is more ambiguous than ever. For example, were the Warriors a super team when they shattered records with a core 3 of Curry, Thompson and Draymond, all of whom they drafted? Did they become a super team only after they landed MVP Kevin Durant? This begs the question of whether the super team is inherently based on outsourced talent. When Paul Pierce welcomed in Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, or when Wade ushered in Lebron and Bosh might they have epitomized super teams because two players joined one? If we take that same approach here, we could see how Kyrie and KD moving to Brooklyn in the same FA wouldn’t qualify, but the addition of Harden to ranks moves them into super team status.
There are some fans that have pointed out that we are obsessing too much over the traditional nature of big threes, that have been carved out by historically successful teams such as the Jordan Bulls, Celtics and Heat. Instead though, might we be wrong to overlook how super the accumulation of talent between two pieces can really be. Last years’ Champion Lakers have no one even close to the level of AD and Lebron, yet if they win again this year might be super…
The fact of the matter is that we can all be sure to hear a lot about super teams going forward, the Nets will be exciting to watch and it won’t be long before the next super team pops up targeting the stars who play for noncontenders (Towns, Beal).
