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Los Angeles Lakers (17x NBA Champions)

I think the NBA is beyond the super team era. If you want a super team you have to build it through the draft. You leverage your future too much by trading for or signing established stars. Teams like the Nets and Lakers have traded away or swapped high draft picks for beyond their current windows so they are 10 years away from being competitive after the current window closes. The NFL has the most fair salary cap structure in sports, but the NBA at least makes it difficult and expensive for teams that are over the cap. They at least reward teams that build the right way by giving the home team an advantage in resigning current players. It doesn't matter that the Lakers are one of the richest teams when they have no capital to trade for better players. AD and Lebron aren't enough in the current NBA.
 
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I think the NBA is beyond the super team era. If you want a super team you have to build it through the draft. You leverage your future too much by trading for or signing established stars. Teams like the Nets and Lakers have traded away or swapped high draft picks for beyond their current windows so they are 10 years away from being competitive after the current window closes. The NFL has the most fair salary cap structure in sports, but the NBA at least makes it difficult and expensive for teams that are over the cap. They at least reward teams that build the right way by giving the home team an advantage in resigning current players. It doesn't matter that the Lakers are one of the richest teams when they have no capital to trade for better players. AD and Lebron aren't enough in the current NBA.
Mostly true in my opinion. If you can do it and put together the young superstars you can still add through the draft and dominate which I think the Warriors have been good at. The older guys command too many draft prospects to get so it's brutal. I think this Cavs team is on the verge because Allen and Garland have exploded and Mobley is ROY. Now they can add a legitimate superstar and this is a Super Team at that point. You could buy guys like Donovan Mitchell, Ben Simmons and a major big like Embid or Rudy Gobert and rule for the next 10 years by adding through the draft or FA for role players. You are right though the Lebron, Steph, Durant teams are probably done but who knows which team will try it with this new generation of players.
 
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Mostly true in my opinion. If you can do it and put together the young superstars you can still add through the draft and dominate which I think the Warriors have been good at. The older guys command too many draft prospects to get so it's brutal. I think this Cavs team is on the verge because Allen and Garland have exploded and Mobley is ROY. Now they can add a legitimate superstar and this is a Super Team at that point. You could buy guys like Donovan Mitchell, Ben Simmons and a major big like Embid or Rudy Gobert and rule for the next 10 years by adding through the draft or FA for role players. You are right though the Lebron, Steph, Durant teams are probably done but who knows which team will try it with this new generation fo players.

One scenario I forgot is when you're on the way up with some extra cap space you can get a quality player from a team that just needs to dump salary i.e. the Cavs getting Allen for a second hand first rounder last year. The Cavs have fully taken advantage of that Harden deal now that they scooped up LeVert as well.
 
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I think the NBA is beyond the super team era. If you want a super team you have to build it through the draft. You leverage your future too much by trading for or signing established stars. Teams like the Nets and Lakers have traded away or swapped high draft picks for beyond their current windows so they are 10 years away from being competitive after the current window closes. The NFL has the most fair salary cap structure in sports, but the NBA at least makes it difficult and expensive for teams that are over the cap. They at least reward teams that build the right way by giving the home team an advantage in resigning current players. It doesn't matter that the Lakers are one of the richest teams when they have no capital to trade for better players. AD and Lebron aren't enough in the current NBA.
Certainly the LeBron method of team building is a future franchise-killer due to salary cap problems. Trading away cheaper and future assets to get higher profile players is not sustainable at all. You absolutely must have younger, cheaper talent and get 4-5 hits through the draft altogether to really be able to have a sustainable winner. You're right, it's going to take several years for the Lakers franchise to recover from where they are at now.
 
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Also along these lines, LeBron built the Miami super team in his prime, and Golden State was in KD and Steph’s primes as well. Now you look at a team like the Nets or Lakers and it’s a bunch of kooky arrogant older guys trying to glom titles while they play with their friends. As much as I hate the Super Team concept, I don’t know that it’s totally dead, but it will be difficult to hit lightning in a bottle with a team able to open the cap space at just the right time to get 3 elite layers in their primes again.
 
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Also along these lines, LeBron built the Miami super team in his prime, and Golden State was in KD and Steph’s primes as well. Now you look at a team like the Nets or Lakers and it’s a bunch of kooky arrogant older guys trying to glom titles while they play with their friends. As much as I hate the Super Team concept, I don’t know that it’s totally dead, but it will be difficult to hit lightning in a bottle with a team able to open the cap space at just the right time to get 3 elite layers in their primes again.

KD to GS was a fluke of the salary cap going up by the amount of a max deal for KD in 1 season due to new tv contracts. GS just happened to be in a place where they were right at the cap and were able to sign KD before they extended their 3 stars and blew the cap out of the water. Having that much cap space was mostly because they had an amazing run in the draft and were able to extend Curry the first time before he turned into a max player.
 
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LeBron’s got his friends out to LA to enjoy retirement while stealing the Lakers money. I’m for all of that.

He’s gonna ride it out until he gets the points record and plays with his son. Will be fun to watch but he does not care at all this year lol.
 
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