How Lebron Joining the Miami Heat created a whole new dynamic of super teams In the league
Lebron James has been a well-known player and a generational talent his entire career however, his journey to stardom hasn’t only been filled with success. He faced many challenges throughout his career especially in his early days in Cleveland. Coming off of an MVP season in 2009 Lebron was faced with being a free agent over the summer. His decision to leave his hometown team and join up with superstar players Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh altered the NBA in many ways. With Lebron James joining the Miami heat we started seeing an influx of other Allstars/superstars wanting out of their organization to create a superteam of their own. With Lebron James leaving his hometown team in 2010 he single-handedly paved a new era in the NBA. The new wave of super teams in the NBA has created an uproar amongst the fans. Nowadays the same batch of teams keeps on winning and winning while the less fortunate are stuck at the bottom of the table hoping for luck in the draft. Now, How did super teams become such a problem in the NBA? Is it because of Lebron? Or is it because of the change in the NBA and the media’s new perception of basketball?
In 1998 a game-changing rule was implemented to stop the insane amounts of money that players would ask for in the salary cap exception.
In this infographic, we can see how the salary cap exception is being exploited for the benefits of the players in the league. There isn’t a firm salary cap in the league and this is what the NBA officials tried changing/fixing in the 1998 season with their lockout rule. The NBA tried to balance the teams while maintaining the costs of the players to a relatively low amount, however, this rule just caused an exponential increase in super teams. With this rule, single players were only allowed to have around 25–30% of the salary cap, with this rule NBA teams wouldn’t have to spend insane amounts of money just to keep their star players while still breaking their current “salary cap.” With the current NBA rule, all teams are only allowed to offer a player a hard cap of money. This means that if every team in the league offers 1 player the same amount of money then the player will go to the team that is already the best. We saw this type of scenario with the 2 biggest players of this decade, Lebron James in 2010 and Kevin Durant in 2016. As a whole, this rule greatly increased the number of superteams that were created in the 2000s however none of them created the everlasting impact such as Lebrons in 2010.
Another reason why Lebron leaving Cleveland had such a big effect on the league is that, after Lebron left Cleveland players in the league would start teaming up with other all-star caliber players without any loyalty to their original teams. In this screenshot of Kevin Durants tweet back in 2010, we can see that he’s scolding the new meta of super teams.
This tweet is often referred to as ironic by NBA analysts and fans, partially because his decision to join the Golden State Warriors in 2016 and team up with three other superstars was equally as significant for the league’s development as LeBron’s decision in 2010. When looking at other NBA executives and manager’s opinions on Lebron’s decision, you can see that they also believe that his decision opened the gates to many young players to become ring chasers. “Once LeBron made that decision, it took a lot of the brunt,” says Billy King, the former general manager of the Nets and 76ers. “You sort of almost expect guys now to maybe leave and do what’s best for them.”(BR) We can see how even NBA executives believe that Lebron is the leader in the change of the new meta. Once someone as influential as Lebron himself is, it completely changes the flow of the league. However, it does make sense for players to do what is best for them but we rarely would ever see this before Lebron left. This just shows how big of an effect his decision was on the league especially since many young players looked up to him. As a whole, Lebron leaving Cleveland greatly impacted the new generation of players who looked up to him since they will be trying to create and form super teams with other stars with no loyalty to their fans or organization.
The final reason how Lebron leaving the Cavaliers in 2010 created a new dynamic in the league is that when looking at the teams/rosters now compared to 20 or 30 years ago you can see a drastic change in the number of super teams that were formed. Before Lebron’s decision, it was a very rare occurrence for other star players in their prime to team up with one another. When looking at other people’s opinions on the new change in the league we can see that NBA legend Julius Erving also agrees with the media.
As a Hall of Famer and NBA great, we can see that he also agrees with the general narrative that Lebron is the leader in the new change in the league. Lebron is a player who has proved himself to be a top 5 player of all time who has established his legacy and proven why he is one of the best of all time. However, when other former halls of Famers believe that he isn’t even in the top 10 all-time then there must be something Lebron did wrong outside of his game. When looking at another person’s perspective such as an NBA agent we can see that they also agree on the idea that leaving your team provides no benefits. “It’s hard to leave,” Lon Babby, the longtime agent to Tim Duncan, Ray Allen, and other stars, said at the time. Superagent Arn Tellem went a step further, asserting that the free agency essentially didn’t exist for superstars. The financial incentives to stay were simply too great. (BR) We can see that another agent also agrees with the idea that leaving your team once you have already spent multiple years in that organization just doesn’t make sense. Many NBA legends are known for staying on 1 team for long periods being trademarked as the head of the franchise such as Michael Jordan, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, etc… However, when looking at Lebron it’s somewhat difficult to decide, he is a franchise player however he has spent most of his time spread out through multiple teams which makes it hard to decide what team he is the star of.
Lebron leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers impacted the league in more ways than one. He shifted the media’s perception of him being the “hometown hero” to Cleveland as he led the Cavaliers to the NBA finals in his 4th season in the league. He was also the leader in the change of the NBA’s shift of super teams in the league. Being a major NBA basketball fan for many years seeing the dynamic change in the league in even a couple of years is insane. The overall impact that Lebron has had on the league in the past couple of years is something that no other player could have accomplished by themselves. Lebron joining the Miami Heat in 2010 will forever be remembered as the era once super teams started to explode and Lebron will always be known as the leader in that change.