If the impending NBA Finals matchup of the league’s 23rd and 27th-ranked media markets is supposed to spell doom for the league, it is a doom the NBA’s owners intentionally brought on themselves.
While two glitz-free Midwestern cities in the Finals might not have the celebrity pull the NBA has largely enjoyed through its historically successful franchises, it was an inevitable outcome once the league designed a collective bargaining agreement that dismantled its traditional cycle of superteams and dynasties.
Welcome to the new NBA, where championship windows are smaller, the life cycle of a roster is shorter and the number of teams that can win a title in any given year is beyond anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes.
But rather than post memes of Adam Silver shedding tears over the Larry O’Brien Trophy because we are likely getting Indianapolis and Oklahoma City playing for it, consider adjusting your expectations going forward. Because this is the league of relative parity the NBA wanted, and it’s the league they shall have for the foreseeable future.
We are only in Year 2 of the current CBA, which extends through the 2029-30 season. And it’s working precisely as the majority of league owners intended, flattening the field and making it remarkably difficult to keep a championship contender intact for very long.
Exhibit A? The Boston Celtics, with a roster that has a projected $197 million committed next season to just five players. In order to avoid the so-called second apron, Boston will have to shed at least $20 million in salary or else face a variety of penalties that aren’t merely financial but would limit their ability to make certain kinds of moves.
And that’s exactly how the NBA wants it: The more successful your team is, the more expensive its roster becomes, the more difficult the rules make it to continue the same course.
That day is coming for Indiana as its key players cycle through their current contracts, and it’s certainly coming for Oklahoma City as players like Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren come off their rookie deals, and several other veterans hit free agency in the summer of 2026.
If anything, it starts to look more like an NFL model, where the teams that tend to do well have a roster oriented toward a few stars making big money and a lot of players contributing early in their careers and performing at a higher level than their contracts would suggest. But when they hit free agency and seek a significantly bigger contract, the decisions become more difficult, and the organization is tested in its ability to fill holes through the draft.
Does that seem fair? No, but it wasn’t designed to be fair. It was designed to redistribute talent through the league at a greater rate than we had seen previously, and it appears to be working.
It is perhaps no coincidence that as the NBA will crown its seventh different champion in the last seven years, teams that were as far down as the play-in ranks this year are measuring whether a mega-trade for someone like Giannis Antetokounmpo or Kevin Durant could immediately lift them into the Finals conversation. At least on paper, the league seems that wide open, and it will no longer seem like an anomaly when two of the smaller, less-glamorous markets end up as the last teams standing.
If you were an owner outside the handful of heavyweight markets that have traditionally attracted the best free agents, wouldn’t you want the same thing? Though we are just a couple of years into this CBA, there’s already proof of concept: If you manage your assets correctly and build elite depth through the draft, you don’t need to recreate the 2010-14 Miami Heat to contend for a title.
There are certainly drawbacks to this approach. If you’re a good team that made a great draft pick in the teens or 20s and developed them into a quality role player, there’s an argument that you should be able to both keep and reward that player for the long haul without having to fundamentally alter your team. In the old CBA, there were a few more nooks and crannies that allowed teams to work around the edges.
Also, consider what’s about to happen in Cleveland, where Evan Mobley winning defensive player of the year expanded the contract extension he already signed last summer by roughly $7 million next year and by $45 million over the life of the deal. That margin will directly impact how much Cleveland will be able to improve its team this summer, as the Cavaliers are projected to be in the second apron – and may even cost them a player.
The real kicker to it is that Victor Wembanyama was running away with the award at the All-Star break but was shut down in February due to a blood clot and finished short of the 65-game minimum requirement for most NBA awards, making Mobley next in line. In other words, the chain reaction of an injury in San Antonio ends up limiting what a championship contender this year can do with its roster – even though nothing really changed from a basketball-value standpoint.
That may not be the ideal way to run a league, but such absurdities are precisely what NBA owners signed up for with this CBA. What used to be a fairly simple way to build a dynasty – acquire a generational player in the draft, then attract other stars through trades or free agency – is now a much more complex dance with different paths to a title.
Indiana and Oklahoma City have nailed it – for now. But greatness in this NBA isn’t meant to be forever. So if this likely Finals matchup isn’t your jam, there’s a simple solution.
Just wait ‘til next year.