When the Boston Celtics were eliminated by the New York Knicks on Friday, 2025 became the sixth straight NBA postseason in which the defending champ has failed to advance past the second round. It was the latest bullet point in the current study that is NBA parity, raising questions about how it’s happening and whether it’s good for a league that has traditionally been ruled by more dynastic institutions.
Now we have another bullet point: With the Denver Nuggets‘ Game 7 elimination at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday, the NBA will officially crown seven different champions over a seven-year span for the first time in the history of the league, which dates back to 1946.
This is different than just no back-to-back champs since the Warriors in 2018. This means that no team that has won a title in the last six years has managed to win a second one since. That list includes the Raptors (2019), Lakers (2020), Bucks (2021), Warriors (2022), Nuggets (2023) and Celtics (2024).
There are myriad reasons for this, each of which could feed a multi-layered conversation, but the bottom line is the margins between all NBA teams, and certainly the ones at the top of the food chain, have become so small that almost anything — matchups, rest, coaching or certainly injuries — can swing a series.
That’s what parity is — no team standing head and shoulders above anyone else, and a whole heap of teams ready to challenge for a title under the right circumstances. Being lucky enough for all of these circumstances to break your way even once, given the depth of competition every team is facing these days, is already asking a lot. To have it break your way twice, at least over the last seven years, has become impossible.
The new CBA, specifically the first- and second-apron salary designations, are likely only going to further this trend. It has, for most owners’ taste, become too punitive — from both a financial and roster-construction standpoint — to keep a top-end team together for long.
The Celtics were likely headed for a breakup this summer even before Jayson Tatum ruptured his Achilles. The Nuggets lost to Oklahoma City in part because they lack depth, because it’s too expensive to sign multiple quality bench players when your starters are making so much money. Superteams that can just keep rolling over the league are not a reality anymore.
Is this a good thing? That’s a matter of taste. I will say, personally, that I enjoy not having having to watch movies to which I already have a pretty good idea of the ending. Suspense sells. Not everyone agrees on this, and yes, I do get the draw of having one or two monsters at the end of the video game that everyone is trying to knock off.
But I just think this is better, for the same reason that I think March Madness is such a popular product. Anyone with a hat in the ring can win, whether you’re talking about a game, a series, or a championship. And in the end, whether you like it or not, we are going to continue to see this in trend in the NBA.
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