Charlotte Hornets owner and former superstar Michael Jordan says he is concerned about the lack of parity of the NBA league and the super teams hurting the league.
Kevin Durant left the Oklahoma City Thunder for the 2015 National Basketball Association (NBA) champion Golden State Warriors last summer. And the league got more super teams this season when Carmelo Anthony and Paul George landed with Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City while Chris Paul joined James Harden in the Houston Rockets, reports Xinhua news agency.
“I think it’s going to hurt the overall aspect of the league from a competitive standpoint. You’re going to have one or two teams that are going to be great, and another 28 teams that are going to be garbage. Or they’re going to have a tough time surviving in the business environment,” Jordan said on Thursday.
Jordan’s Hornets have advanced past the first round of the NBA playoffs just twice since the 2000-01 season. It’s not surprising that the NBA Hall-of-Famer is concerned about the league’s competitive balance heading into the 2017-18 season, which starts next week.
Jordan himself was the face of the NBA, and won six NBA titles in 15 seasons. His 1995-96 Chicago Bulls recorded the most (72) regular-season wins in league history and went on to win the NBA title. That record was broken by the Warriors in 2016, but they lost to the Cavaliers in the NBA finals later that summer.