The 2025 NBA Finals, currently tied at a game apiece between the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder, represents the dawn of a new era in the NBA. At least for now, the days when superteams and household names dominate the postseason appears finished.
This year’s finalists are homegrown teams that run eight or nine players deep, rather than featuring one overwhelming star. They play fast and loose. Indiana, especially, is a sum of parts greater than just one person.
It is a departure from the norm for the NBA.
For nearly a century, the NBA captured fans’ imagination by presenting collisions between unstoppable forces and immovable objects.
The unstoppable force is sometimes an otherworldly athletic freak like Wilt Chamberlain, who butted his head against an immovable wall that was Bill Russell’s Celtics in the 1960s. LeBron James faced a similar fate in the 2010s, facing the Golden State Warriors in the Finals four years in a row.
Most often, however, it is an all-time great player like Magic Johnson flanked by an assortment of Hall of Fame players going up against a player like Larry Bird, flanked by the same.
Michael Jordan was both the unstoppable force and the immovable object combined during the 1990s, staving off an entire generation of would-be GOATs.
Variety was nowhere to be found when it was championship time for the NBA. You knew that, ultimately, those teams or players would eventually meet. The Celtics, Lakers, Bulls and LeBron combined to represent the NBA in 57 of 78 championship series’.
Sponsors and television networks knew they could count on the collisions too and began to bank on it. Gatorade, Nike, Budweiser, Coke, McDonald’s, State Farm, tech companies, car companies all wanted a piece of the action. The billion dollar industry the NBA has become today was born.
Revenue and television ratings skyrocketed between 1984 and 1998 as Magic, Bird and Jordan dominated. Household names like Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and young LeBron James held serve at the start of this century.
The NBA was driven by star power, big market teams, and repeat Finals matchups.
As former league commissioner David Stern would say, it was fan-tastic.
Until it wasn’t.
The Decision and The Defection
Stern’s league died on a fateful day in July 2010 when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh danced around on stage like a bunch of wounded ducks promising not one, not two, not seven championships.
When the dry ice and pyrotechnics cleared, many fans (and NBA execs) were left with a bad taste in their mouths. LeBron’s “Decision” was the most unpopular thing that ever happened in the NBA and set in motion an era in which big market teams conspired to stockpile talent and smaller market teams – where few players wanted to play – were left behind.
The poor taste in people’s mouths turned downright sour in 2016 when the league’s second-best player, Kevin Durant, defected and joined a record-setting Golden State Warriors team.
The Warriors had just gone 73-9 and had the two time reigning MVP, Stephen Curry, at the peak of his powers. Durant joining the Warriors created perhaps the most intimidating dynasty in the modern history of sports.
The end of parity
LeBron James nodded subtly as he looked up at the scoreboard. Ironically, he had 23 points on the dot, mirroring his iconic jersey number. Game 4 of the 2018 NBA Finals was winding down. James and his Cleveland Cavaliers had been swept by the Golden State Warriors.
As he gazed at the scoreboard wearing an “I did all I could” look on his face, James was being acknowledged by the Cleveland faithful for having led them to the championship round for a fourth consecutive year. It was widely believed this could be James’ last game in a Cleveland uniform.
Counting his years in Miami, James had competed in 8 straight NBA Finals.
The Warriors, however, were indestructible. Parity was officially dead. No team, not even ones from antiquity, had ever appeared so unbeatable.
Death by analytics brings us to today
Something had to be done and something was: Overwhelming emphasis on the 3-point shot and an insatiable appetite for analytics, overcoaching and matchup-hunting.
By the time the 2020s rolled around, injuries had decimated the Golden State Warriors, making them the last of the juggernauts older fans grew up loving.
Today parity, rather than stas, reigns supreme. Teams shooting 40, even 50 3-point shots a night have rendered the brute force of an athlete like Michael Jordan or Wilt Chamberlain almost irrelevant.
The NBA introduced tax aprons, stiffened salary cap restrictions and other mechanisms to prevent teams from building monoliths like Russell’s Celtics, who featured more than 8 hall of famers.
The moves have not been without pushback from fans. The NBA gritted its teeth as television ratings dipped and fans complained that each NBA game was the same, simply a parade of 3-pointers featuring stars who barely suited up on a nightly basis.
Stern loved the big markets, big players and big bucks.
The 2025 Finals is current commissioner Adam Silver’s baby. It features two excellent teams from small markets, lacks widely known star players, and is the first Finals under the league’s new 11-year television deal.
Ironically, both of the finalists were built by trading the same superstar player, Paul George.
In 2017, the Pacers traded George to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Domantas Sabonis and Victor Oladipo.The Pacers later traded Sabonis to the Sacramento Kings for Tyrese Haliburton.
In 2019, Paul George demanded a trade from Oklahoma City in an attempt to build what could have been a superteam in Los Angeles with Kawhi Leonard.
The Thunder obliged, dealing George to the Clippers for a package that included current league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and draft picks, one of which the team used to select its second-best player, Jalen Williams.
The Clippers’ superteam never coalesced while the Thunder became the league’s best team, and the Pacers one of the NBA’s top up-and-coming units.
The 2025 Finals feels like a referendum on which league commissioner’s vision works the best. It is a cold war clash between old head fans who miss Magic vs Bird and new fans who want threes launched for 48 minutes.
This year, we will find out if parity is a good thing for the NBA or if a return to the predictability of the superteam is best for business.
