Is There Enough Talent For NBA Expansion?
NBA expansion buzz is heating up. It’s looking like a near certainty that the NBA will expand to 32 teams at some point within the next few years. While we don’t yet have a clear timeline, the impetus is clearly headed in that direction.
With expansion comes questions. One of the biggest: is there enough talent to field two new franchises? The answer is a resounding yes.
Basketball talent is at an all-time high. One big reason - the international talent pool is rapidly growing. While there have always been Nowitzkis and Olajuwans, international basketball has historically lacked the framework to pump out as many NBA-quality players as it otherwise could have. However, non-U.S markets are beginning to equalize their player development deficit. As basketball continues to emerge as a truly global game, amateur and professional leagues in other countries are catching up. The levels of coaching, competition, visibility, and popularity are increasing rapidly.
Among the league’s top ten players, four hail from outside the U.S (Antetokounmpo, Jokic, Embiid, and Donic). More excellent international players than ever fill the starting lineups of playoff teams. With Nikola Jokic the runaway favorite for this year’s MVP, the last three MVP awards will have gone to players born outside the U.S.
As the talent pool increases and players continue to get better, it’s getting tougher and tougher for deserving players to land a spot in the NBA. Not only is the pool growing in size, players everywhere are getting better. Period.
Basketball lends itself to small teams. Obviously, only 5 players from the same team share the court at a given time, and most great teams don’t give substantial minutes to more than 7 or 8 players. Often, it’s opportunity and luck (not skill) that determines which players get a shot. Players who land with the right fit or are given a rare opportunity are the ones who stick in the league.
Take Portland, Oregon, native Mike James, the electric Brooklyn Nets guard who spent a total of eight years playing overseas, interrupted only by a 36-game stint with the Pelicans and Suns in the 2017-2018 season. After three more years overseas, James was signed by the Nets in April. He immediately cracked their rotation and plays nearly 20 minutes a game in a spark-plug role for the league’s most stacked team.
Or take Seattle native Allonzo Trier. A three-year standout at the University of Arizona, Trier went undrafted in 2018 before signing with the New York Knicks. Trier’s rookie season in 2018-2019 was nothing short of fantastic; he nearly put up a 50/40/90 line in 23 minutes a game off the Knicks’ bench. He is not currently on an active NBA roster.
The list goes on and on. Isaiah Thomas still doesn’t have an NBA contract. Just a couple years removed from placing near the top of the NBA’s MVP voting, it’s painfully obvious that Thomas could contribute to a playoff team in a bench role.
There is a deluge of skilled players waiting to make their mark on the NBA. Because of the limited number of roster spots, the NBA is the world’s most difficult sports league to make. Additionally, the amount of untapped potential at the end of NBA benches is off the charts. It’s cyclical; players miss their narrow opening or are put in a situation without opportunity, spend years at the end of the bench or playing overseas, and are pushed out of the league by new draft classes.
The real culprit behind a sometimes-unbalanced NBA? Asymmetrical superstar distribution, not dearth of talent. Never was this clearer than in the four years from 2015-2018, where a stacked Cleveland team met the Warriors (eventually with Durant) in four straight Finals. As the Warriors succumbed to injuries and Lebron jumped to LA, a new champion (Toronto) stepped up. This year, the league’s top two regular season teams (Utah and Phoenix) both succeeded without a bona-fide top-10 player.
There’s plenty of talent out there. The question shouldn’t be “is there enough talent,” rather, “with all this talent, why haven’t we expanded already?”