NBA Will Feature New Champion For Sixth-Straight Year

With the Minnesota Timberwolves shocking the Denver Nuggets and the entire world in Game 7 and advancing to the Conference Finals, the NBA’s Final Four is set. The Indiana Pacers, Boston Celtics, Dallas Mavericks, and Timberwolves are the four teams still left vying for an NBA Championship, meaning there will be a unique champion for the sixth consecutive year.

After Kevin Durant’s dynastic Golden State Warriors repeated in 2017-18, the league transitioned into the era of parity and competitive balance with five straight different teams taking home the Larry O’Brien trophy. The 2019 Toronto Raptors, 2020 Los Angeles Lakers, 2021 Milwaukee Bucks, 2022 Warriors, and 2023 Nuggets all won a ring in this span.

Not only that, but there won’t be a back-to-back conference champion for the sixth straight year in both conferences. There is no longer a single dominant team, rather four to eight squads in any given year that have legitimate title hopes battling it out in enthralling fashion. This year’s Western Conference was a perfect example of that.

NBA fans have always hoped for a league where they didn’t know the NBA Finals matchup before the season started. Now they have it.

Sixth Straight Year With a Unique NBA Champion

Speaks to the incredible parity in the league, a change from the past

The NBA has almost always been a league that is controlled by a few teams or players at any given time in its history. Bill Russell’s Celtics dominated the 60s, Magic Johnson’s Lakers and Larry Bird’s Celtics ran the 80s, Michael Jordan’s Bulls had two three-peats in the 90s, Kobe Bryant’s Lakers and Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs controlled the 2000s, and LeBron James was the story of the 2010s.

The lone exception to this rule came in the 1970s, when there wasn’t a single dominant team of the decade. Only the New York Knicks and Celtics won multiple titles during the 70s, allowing eight different franchises to bring home a trophy. The only other time in NBA history that there were six unique champions came from 1975-1980, when the Warriors, Celtics, Portland Trail Blazers, Washington Bullets, Seattle SuperSonics, and Lakers won rings.

Fans that complained about the lack of parity during the Warriors’ run ignored the fact that it is extremely rare for the NBA to have several teams that can actually win the title in a given year. However, there are now plenty of teams that feel they are legitimate contenders every season, and rightfully so.

Sixth Straight Year Without Back-To-Back Conference Winners

Defending champs have struggled mightily in recent seasons

Not only will there be a sixth straight campaign with a different NBA Champion, but another season where a new team will represent both conferences. The only team left that has appeared in an NBA Finals since 2018 is the Celtics, who lost in six games to Golden State in 2022.

Furthermore, the defending champions have failed to reach the conference finals every year since Durant’s Warriors lost in the NBA Finals in 2019. The league is simply too stacked with talent currently to endure a long championship run and survive multiple playoff rounds the following season.

To make the incredible competitive balance even crazier, the only two teams that have appeared in back-to-back conference finals are the Miami Heat and Celtics, who played each other in the 2022 and 2023 East Finals. With injuries playing a huge factor, the talent gap shrinking around the league, and anti-tanking rules, it is just too difficult to sustain success for any long period of time.

NBA Is Too Stacked With Talent for One Team To Dominate

Departure from the big three era has given more franchises hope

As recently as 2017-18, it seemed that there were only two teams with legitimate shots at contention for an NBA Title, the Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers. With Kyrie Irving’s exit from those Cavs, you could argue that there was only one possible champion that season with how stacked Golden State was.

This has also been the case for a majority of NBA history, with only a few true contenders per season. This increase in total talent across the league combined with a change in team building philosophies from big threes to a more total roster-based formula has completely shifted the competitive balance.

Nowadays, there are usually at least two teams in each conference with legitimate hopes of playing for an NBA Championship, and usually more. In 2023-24, ten to twelve teams truly thought they could win their conference, and most of them had real reason to believe it.

*This list doesn’t include the Los Angeles Clippers, Orlando Magic, New Orleans Pelicans, Cavaliers, or Heat, who are all one move away from contention.

There have been many seasons in the past where even the Conference Finals are an uncompetitive affair. In 2017, both Cleveland and Golden State lost one game or fewer on their entire path through the conference on the way to the final, with the Warriors going a perfect 12-0.

Meanwhile, in 2024, both Western Conference second-round matchups felt like championship-level series where any of the four teams could not only win the conference, but also the title. Although Celtics/Pacers appear to be a mismatch, Mavericks/Timberwolves is an evenly-matched series, and there have already been plenty of tightly-contested series.

The era of a few teams dominating conferences for long periods of time is over, and the NBA is better for it.

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