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It's actually a sad day for sports to a certain extent and will be even sadder if Miami does win it all because it proves contraction is closer. There might as well only be 16 teams in the Association all loaded with all stars that way true parity can exist. Boston was the first, now Miami and maybe if Chris Paul goes to NY the Knicks will be in the same boat

Major League Baseball is technically a thirty team organization comprised of ???professional??? players, but lets be honest, it's really only ten teams worth mentioning with the other twenty being farm teams making professional salaries.

That's what the NBA is working towards. And it appears it's actually what the NBA wants. Ten very good teams, and twenty miserable teams. Parity at it's best.

Why does everyone love the NFL so much? Because any given year a surprise team can jump into the playoffs with a legitimate chance to play for the Super Bowl. Baseball let go of that idea years ago or else they would've implemented some kind of salary cap. For years the NBA was a place where at least there was one good player on every team which provided fans a reason to fork out money for a ticket. But the NBA has never placated to the Cinderella idea.

Think about the 80's and the three teams that dominated; Lakers, Celtics, Pistons. The 90's were Bulls, Rockets, Spurs, Lakers and from 2000 on it's been Spurs, Lakers, Pistons, Heat and Celtics. Since 1980 with the exception of the 1983 Philadelphia 76ers, Houston Rockets' repeats in 94/95 and Miami Heat in 2006 there have been five teams to win the World Championship. Five teams have basically dominated the Association in the previous thirty years, that's a joke.

Getting back to the original idea, hasn't the NBA always been a place where superstar teams just win more than the others? And shouldn't the NBA have eliminated teams from certain markets years ago? It was time to stop pretending that pink elephant was never in the room a long time ago but now that elephant is hungry and it can't be ignored. Baseball is in the same boat, but Bud Selig is either too stubborn or drunk to care. Not that David Stern is the next Einstein, but he sees the trends. He's allowed the trends to keep moving. It's just common sense to let go of the Timberwolves, Bucks, Nets, Raptors, Pacers, Bobcats, Wizards, Kings, Warriors and Grizzlies. We all know that even if these teams slide into the playoffs there is no snowballs chance in Hell they could win throughout a 7 game series against a #1 or #2 seed. So why keep them around?

It's like the huskey kid trying to play dodgeball, it's just not going to work. Continue dreaming and keep wasting everyone else's time because there's not one advantage in even letting the kid on the floor. And the same goes for those miserable teams. The profits are down because attendance is down because who do the fans care to watch play? Like they really want to pay $400 for 2 upper level tickets to see Darko Milicic. Kevin Love is a nice player but people in Minnesota don't want nice. 14-46 isn't nice, it's dreadful. And there is no light at the end of the tunnel for the markets like the Minnesota's and Sacramento's. They can't just wake up tomorrow and bring in Kobe, Durant and Howard. Los Angeles can! New York, Miami and Chicago can! With one phone call and a nauseating amount of ESPN speculation the bigger markets can and will get whoever they want.

This is what the NBA is. This is what the NBA has always been. And pretty soon there will be less teams. For all we know, the Association might just be twenty very good teams leaving only four teams out of the playoffs each year. Now that would be parity.

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