Lakers, Bulls, Pistons, Spurs, Rockets. The Celtics one the chip in 86’ and the Heat won in 05’.
This is crazy when you think about how 6 different teams have won the title the last 6 years.
Reality is that the league is much tougher and more competitive than it was back then. There were like 23 teams in the whole league at the start of Magic’s NBA career, and no foreign superstars really until the 00s.
I have MJ as my GOAT and am old enough to have seen him play live with the Bulls in-person. At the same time, I can admit that the level of competition has gotten much higher.
It’s an argument in favor of the current generation of LeBron and Curry being underrated all-time. They got 4 rings in an absolutely cutthroat era of the league. It’s only getting tougher and tougher.
Hakeem was a foreign star. At least until he got an American citizenship.
KD says hi
Other than the 70s and the last 5 years calling the NBA a “competitive sports league” has always been a stretch
In reality the NBA has always only had 2-4 teams (at most) at a time that were actually trying (and I mean really trying not just token putting on a good face trying) and the rest were either run by ownership groups that didn’t have the revenue streams to be genuinely competitive or owners who just straight up didn’t give a shit and were farming the team for money