Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash. This sounds like a team you would put together in NBA 2K12 with the salary cap restrictions off. However, in this case the front office pulled the right cards and of course the Los Angeles Lakers are the ones claiming the prize.
The Lakers lost out on Chris Paul, who also moved from a small market, but ended up keeping Pau Gasol and adding Steve Nash and Dwight Howard.
In the Fantastic Four, the Lakers only drafted one player and rest of them were trades that were executed with precision. No where in the NBA can a team with so much talented be assembled in a city like Charlotte or Milwaukee. The Oklahoma City Thunder have a nice group of players, but they were all drafted. Don’t be surprised to see either Serge Ibaka or James Harden end up somewhere else where a higher salary can be earned.
Even though everyone loves the Thunder players for staying put in Oklahoma City, it shouldn’t be shocking to have some of the stars head off to cities more desirable.
Dwight Howard wanted to get out of Orlando as fast as possible and Steve Nash had the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers on his list of possibly destinations. These players know what the NBA will turn into and as they see their friends make their way to large cities, they want to do the same.
The NBA wants to have a nice balance of talent, but eventually the talent will eventually find its way to major cities. Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Miami and Chicago will the hubs of the NBA and there is nothing the league can do about it.
So David Stern, what do you think of that lockout? Was it worth losing all those days of NBA basketball in an effort to help save the small market teams? At the end of the day, we all know the NBA has turned into a league where the rich just keep getting richer.