Timberwolves-Thunder: These small-market contenders aren’t just competing for an NBA championship

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If Giannis Antetokounmpo’s tenure on the Milwaukee Bucks comes to an end this summer, it will confirm that his commitment to competing for championships is greater than his loyalty to the green and cream.

And it will be a warning to small-market contenders in Oklahoma City, Minnesota and Indiana: While their relationships with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Anthony Edwards and Tyrese Haliburton are on solid ground, those good vibes only extend as long as the Thunder, Timberwolves and Pacers can continue to contend.

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It has been 15 years since LeBron James left the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat, a “Decision” that spawned the NBA’s player-empowerment era. In the years to come, a generation of superstars, including Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving, Paul George and Jimmy Butler, fled smaller markets for bigger cities. Oklahoma City, Minnesota and Indiana were among the fan bases that felt the effects most harshly.

From rebuilds, the Thunder, Timberwolves and Pacers developed superstars and constructed contenders around them. It is not dissimilar to how the Bucks once built around Antetokounmpo, who wielded his power from within the organization, urging them to make trades each time an extension came due. First, it was Jrue Holiday. Then, it was Damian Lillard. In between, Milwaukee won a title, making it all worth it.

If you do not win, the pressure on a front office to satisfy its superstar increases severalfold. The Dallas Mavericks were so overwhelmed at the thought of building a sustainable winner around Luka Dončić — and the possibility he could bail amid the process — that they traded him before things came to a head.

Where did the Mavericks deal Dončić? The Los Angeles Lakers. Small markets are not gifted a superstar under the cover of night, for they have to wonder if he will leave them, too. For as long as we can remember, ever since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar left Milwaukee for L.A., superstars have been drawn to the NBA’s destination cities, where there is more money to be made — for both players and teams — and things to spend it on.

Dončić was an extreme, but eventually the bill comes due. Players age, contracts increase, luxury taxes skyrocket. The latest collective bargaining agreement is designed to close championship windows almost as soon as they open. We are only now beginning to see its effects on the NBA’s next generation of superstars, as rosters have deteriorated around Antetokoumpo and the Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokić.

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While once we thought they might be lifers in their small markets, we must now consider the possibility that they, too, are spawns of the empowerment era. While their franchises have kept them satisfied for a decade, longer than the Cavs ever could James, all things come to an end. NBA assets depreciate, and once there is nothing left to wield power over, eyes begin to wander, as is the case with Antetokounmpo.

At what stage in this process are Gilgeous-Alexander, Edwards and Haliburton? Let us examine.

Oklahoma City is getting expensive

Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams are due maximum contracts in the summer of 2026, when Gilgeous-Alexander will be eligible to sign a five-year, $380 million extension. The cost of those three — OKC’s Big Three — will likely cost the Thunder most of their current depth, as they also own player options of various sizes on Isaiah Hartenstein, Lu Dort, Cason Wallace and Kenrich Williams next summer.

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Should the Thunder win this year’s championship, they will have a single season to run it back before the CBA reaps what it has sowed. The Boston Celtics faced the same reality on their title defense this season. Even before Jayson Tatum suffered his devastating injury, they were due changes to an expensive roster.

Except no team is better equipped to replenish its depth around a Big Three, as OKC holds a stash of draft picks as deep as any other team in the league. There is no guarantee that those picks become championship-caliber pieces around them. Consider Jokić’s Nuggets. As they lost key contributors to free agency, only Christian Braun developed to replace them. Other picks have been, for the most part, whiffs, and that set a second-round ceiling for the Nuggets this season. It cost general manager Calvin Booth his job. And, in a way, it cost head coach Michael Malone his gig, too. The NBA cost of depreciation is steep.

There is also no guarantee that the Thunder remain healthy. Again: think of the Celtics, who watched as injuries and illness prevented them from submitting their best title defense. Series over. Season over. Era over? NBA fortunes can change in an instant, which is why it is so important to maximize the present.

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Should the Thunder fail to win this year’s title, what better way to seize the moment than a pursuit of Antetokounmpo? All of those assets also make them better positioned than anyone for one big swing this summer. That assumes Antetokounmpo, who has fixed his eyes on bigger markets before, would want to re-sign in Oklahoma City, where he and Gilgeous-Alexander could form a dynamic duo or discover misfit chemistry. But Antetokounmpo’s arrival would not change the calculus of what is to come for the Thunder. It would only increase the pressure to win next year, ahead of rising costs and a diminished supporting cast.

Is this as good as it gets in Minnesota?

The Timberwolves recognized early what they had in Anthony Edwards and acted accordingly, trading the rights to six first-round draft picks for Rudy Gobert in July 2022. It led to last year’s Western Conference finals appearance, but financial costs came quick for them, too, so they swapped Karl-Anthony Towns for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo — a risky move that led them back to the Western Conference finals.

This recent spat of success — the franchise’s first taste of it since the early 2000s — is both a blessing and a curse. It has given rise to Edwards, one of the league’s most exciting young superstars. It has also given him a whiff of what it is like to contend, and he will expect as much, if not more, moving forward.

The Wolves owe $105 million next season to Edwards, Gobert and Jaden McDaniels, and that is before Randle and Naz Reid make decisions on whether to pick up a pair of player options worth a combined $45 million. Contracts for DiVincenzo, Mike Conley and Rob Dillingham push them beyond the salary cap and into the luxury tax. It will cost them Nickeil Alexander-Walker this summer, if not Reid or Randle.

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They will be a little bit worse, and costs will rise. The roster will only continue to erode as years tick from Edwards’ contract. Barring some bold moves, this might be as good as it gets. Nobody wants to admit it.

It is hard not to be doom and gloom about these things, even as the Wolves enjoy the greatest run of success in franchise history. They trail this year’s conference finals to the Thunder, 2-0, and it feels worse. Suddenly the four years remaining on Edwards’ contract do not seem so long. Or seem longer to him.

Indiana has decisions ahead

Like the Wolves, the Pacers made a big-swing trade just as Haliburton’s rookie contract was coming to a close, dealing for Pascal Siakam in January 2024. Together they are working on max contracts that will eat 55-60% of Indiana’s salary cap for the next three seasons. This was nobody’s idea of a contender — until now, as Haliburton’s heroics have given the Pacers home-court advantage in the conference finals.

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We thought the Pacers were one move away from more serious contention, and they still might be. BetMGM does not give them a great shot. Win this year’s title, though, and who is anyone to tell them what the ceiling is for a team led by a young, ascendent superstar? They have already defied the odds.

Either way, they will they find themselves in the middle of a math equation. Myles Turner is a free agent at season’s end. His $20 million salary was a bargain this past year, and he will expect a raise. The Pacers can afford it, since Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith and Obi Toppin are on affordable contracts for the foreseeable future. But then Indiana is locking itself into a team we think has already found its ceiling.

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The Pacers could package some of those contracts and what is left of their draft capital for a missing piece, much like Milwaukee’s decision to trade for Holiday. That opened a window that was, in the end, only as wide as the season in which the Bucks won. Age, injuries and finances have gotten in Milwaukee’s way ever since. They had one final hand to play, and it was the wrong one, as Lillard was not the answer.

This is how hard it is to win a championship, how hard it is to keep a superstar satisfied in a small market. One misstep, and a window closes. And there are several steps left to take for each team that falls short. No team could possibly be better positioned to sustain success than the Thunder, and even they will feel the financial crunch in one season’s time. Decisions for the Pacers and Timberwolves come even sooner.

If Gilgeous-Alexander, Edwards or Haliburton eventually move on from Oklahoma City, Minnesota and Indiana, the NBA will have nobody but itself to blame, for this is what the league’s new CBA has wrought.

This news was originally published on this post .

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