There's been a sense in the NBA for many years that championships go something like this: First, you get a superstar – in a draft, in a trade, or as a free agent. Second, you get a complementary superstar (sometimes the first superstar makes the move). Finally, bringing in the players who are considered "supporting staff", whom there is a feeling that there is not too much trouble to gather.
Getting a superstar or complementary star is considered by the public to be the main move. The preoccupation with player decisions — Irving, Durant, Westbrook, Harden and many others — completely dominates the discourse. We've seen two teams, Phoenix and Dallas, sacrifice years of work and give up a core of players who have reached the finals and regional finals the past two years for the superstar who will seemingly be the missing piece.
Compared to players who haven't delivered results for years and are in the spotlight, coaches who deliver results are undervalued. Two championship-winning coaches in the last five years, Nick Nurse and Mike Budenholzer, were fired at the end of the season. So did Monty Williams, who led Phoenix to the finals. By contrast, the two coaches who will coach the finals have been 15 (Erik Spoelstra) and 8 (Mike Malone) in their respective roles. Malone without a championship, Spoelstra nine years without a championship.
Malone, Photo: USA TODAY Sports
Why is this happening? Maybe because sometimes it works, especially for LeBron. Perhaps because the league has been taken over by a management cult that wraps its role in a scientific and statistical cloak. If coaches are too important, they will be less important. Of course, in the final we will get historical superstars, as in almost every final. Jimmy Butler, the 30th pick of the 2011 draft whose three previous teams waived him, against Nikola Jokic, the 41st pick of the 2014 draft who even Barcelona gave up on signing him.
And before we get swept up in descriptions of "against all odds" - let's look at some of the stars of the championship-winning team over the past decade: These champions were led by Kawhi Leonard who was selected 15th, Giannis Antetokounmpo who was also selected 15th and Steph Curry, who won many championships and was selected only with the seventh pick.
Spoelstra, photo: AFP
Butler's friends
We're on the eve of the most intriguing draft pick in years. If you're following the French basketball playoffs, Victor Wembanyama is playing brilliant basketball and expectations surrounding his upcoming selection are rightfully skyrocketing. But the public's endless preoccupation with the top picks of the draft has little to do with who the two teams will still play in June. Stock experts are familiar with the phenomenon: excessive preoccupation with the potential of companies and too little concern with practical performance.
And in the final, other players will also play. Butler was asked a rather trivial question about his teammates at the end of the press conference after the Game 7 win in Boston — and gave an answer that is pretty much a summary of the state of the league, summer 2023: "I don't call them a helpful staff, I call them teammates." 55.9 points per game, yes — fifty-five point nine — the Miami Heat received in the Western Conference Finals from undrafted players. More than half of its points.
Butler with friends, photo: USA TODAY Sports
Miami's genius versus other teams' lack of success? Also. But the truth comes back to working with management and coaches. Miami didn't "find" these players — it developed them. When you change coaches like in a moving movie, player development is not in the toolset of clubs.
Of course, instant teams sometimes win, too. That's why, of course, clubs continue to believe that. But that almost always happens only on one condition: that LeBron James is on the team. Even this year he came close to doing so. There was something exciting about LeBron's gladiatorial effort in his twilight. But basketball-wise, it's good that a team built since 2015 has pretty easily beaten a team built in March 2023.
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And this is the first importance of the 2023 final. The superteams, the last-minute deals, the star-studded deals to reunite, join or abandon teams in the middle of the season are all in the trash can of social media. Coaches and stars who have worked for many years to achieve and these games will be there.
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