Cleveland and Golden State - Too Good for Their Own Good?

So the NBA playoffs have kind of sucked this year.

Sure there have been some isolated examples of great basketball, but not only has the sense of a Cavs-Warriors inevitability tarnished the overall suspense of this spectacle, many of the individual series have been washes that were hardly ever in doubt.

Cleveland and Golden State's collision course has been about as smooth as possible. The Dubs haven't lost a game yet, while the Cavs hadn't either until Sunday night's outlying Celts comeback. Even that lone loss appears like a glitch, since Boston was without their best player, and down 16 at the half to a team that had spent the past six games beating them and Toronto more savagely than Michael's stepdad in The Wire.

Even the opportunities for intrigue have been sabotaged. As I write this, the Warriors are completing a sweep of the Spurs, one engineered largely in part by a probably-intentional attempt on Kawhi Leonard's weak ankle while the Spurs were up 23 in Game 1. The Bulls seemed to have an 8-1 upset en route vs Boston, then lost #PlayoffRondo along with the next four games. James Harden legitimately appeared to have dropped acid before the most important game of his best season. The only upset we've seen was entirely probable after Blake Griffin (obviously) went down vs the Jazz.

The playoffs have never been so uninvolving. I've voluntarily missed several conference finals games, which says something considering I take in mid-January Bucks-Bobcats games and spend more time with the TNT crew than I do with my family on Christmas. I'm sure a decent portion of the population feels the same - certainly a fair number of dedicated viewers I know - and have tuned out. This can't be a great look for the league, especially in the first year of the new TV deal that lined their checkbooks so excessively last summer.

Much has been made of this predestined dominance being harmful long-term; that competitive parity is damaged and indicative of a trend in the wrong direction. Despite the short-term monotony, I'm not feeling as gloomy about the outlook NBA fans should have, for a number of reasons:

The Finals Haven't Even Happened Yet
First, most of this can be forgiven if the Cavs and Warriors deliver a Finals anywhere even near as epic as 2016's down-to-the-last-second clash. Years from now, maybe we'll look back on the historical significance of this heated matchup trilogy. And if the Cavs somehow pull off a victory, as sacrilegious as it sounds, we're going to have to start realistically talking about LeBron James being the GOAT (sorry, not the only one saying it). We could still witness both history and amazing basketball.

The Warriors Are an Evolutionary Fluke
OK, so the Golden State Warriors are kind of ridiculous. Sure they play an aesthetically pleasant, statistic-obliterating form of basketball, but they seem almost unfairly stacked with talent. Because they are. Consider the catalysts that had to align for this team to materialize:

First, they signed Steph Curry to a long-term deal back when he was a fringe star with glass ankles. Not only has his health since improved considerably, but he's evolved into a two-time MVP. He was the NBA's 73rd-highest paid player this year. John Henson, DeMarre Carroll and Brandon Knight cost their teams more money. Think about that for a few minutes.

Then they had a second-round pick turn into an All-NBA player basically overnight, making Draymond Green one of history's biggest draft steals. Not exactly par for the course.

And obviously this past summer, league payrolls skyrocketed due to a cash influx from a new TV deal. Since the previous deal was struck, basketball's popularity has grown more globally than likely any sport in history over such a short span, creating a spike in revenue - and thus salaries - that had literally never been seen in pro sports. That wild outlier gave the Warriors enough cap space to sign Kevin Fucking Durant, comparatively giving up pennies.

An NBA team would be ridiculously lucky to have any one of those things happen to them; all three is basically a Powerball win.

The Cavs Kind of Are Too
There are a few factors at play here as well. One is obviously that the Cavs employ, in his prime, a guy who by most calculations is one of the two best basketball players ever.

The second are the measures a team is willing/able to make to maximize said player's prime. The Cavs can justify heavy luxury tax when LeBron can guarantee them an annual Finals appearance, while getting commitment from both high-value assets like Kevin Love, and discounted veterans seeking a ring.  LeBron is not only an otherworldly talent, but one who's perpetually lifted the play of those around him; his allure as a teammate is arguably unmatched since Bill Russell.

Also, mere weeks before LeReturn, the Cavs pulled one of the biggest Draft Lottery heists in history, not only binking a #1 pick they had a 1.7% chance at, but then flipping it for Kevin Love. How many times in NBA history has a team - already with an All-Star - added the league's best player plus a third All-Star in one month for absolutely nothing?

What Lies Beneath
It's not like the rest of the NBA is completely lost. While playoff stalwarts like the Clippers and Grizzlies are at an awkward crossroads, plenty of franchises have bright visions for the future after this historic rivalry plays out.

The recently-eliminated Wizards have a young star-studded backcourt and the NBA's best center openly talking about joining them. The Raptors have assets & youth to re-tool while staying competitive, something the Celtics are already doing patiently. The Bucks have a great young core and a future MVP. The Jazz will be an emerging threat if they keep Gordon Hayward. The Spurs will be OK because, well, they're the Spurs. Even a franchise like the Sixers could be excited if Joel Embiid wasn't such a massive injury risk, and Bryan Colangelo wasn't running their team.

There's plenty of competition and parity waiting in the wings, some intentionally delaying their rise to outlast the peaks of the seemingly-unbeatable Warriors and Cavs. When their icy grip on supremacy inevitably melts, the water underneath is far from settled.

Superteams Are Nothing New
And while two teams dominating the league this thoroughly is something we've yet to see, the concept of teams being this stacked with talent dates all the way back to the Lakers of the late 60s when Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor and Jerry West - three of the consensus 15 best players ever - shared a locker room. Since that time (and really before it too), most championship teams have been similarly loaded with Hall-of-Famers in or close to their primes:

-'70 & '73 Knicks: Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere
-'70s Celtics: John Havlicek, Dave Cowens, Jo Jo White
- 80's Celtics: Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson
- Showtime Lakers: Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy
- Bad Boys Pistons: Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Dennis Rodman
- 90s Bulls: Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman
- Popovich Spurs: Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili/Kawhi Leonard/David Robinson
- Ubuntu Celtics: Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen
- Banana Boat Heat: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh
- 2015 Warriors: Steph Curry, Draymond Green, (likely) Klay Thompson
- 2016 Cavs: LeBron James, (likely) Kyrie Irving & Kevin Love

Counting whoever wins in 2017, these teams will have combined for 30 of the 50 NBA titles since the Celtics reeled off eight straight. An additional nine ('06 Heat, '00-'02 Lakers, '91-'93 Bulls, '83 Sixers and '71 Bucks) saw two Top-50 all-time players join forces at or near the height of their powers. Simply put, basketball is a star-driven sport, and the vast majority of title winners have had to top-load their rosters accordingly. That the Warriors and Cavs have had to up the ante under highly anomalous circumstances shouldn't be cause for long-term concern.

LeBron won't be this good forever, nor will the Warriors - or any franchise - be able to pay for such a team much longer. The lack of suspense plaguing this year's playoffs hurts now no doubt, but should hardly be seen as a threat to the NBA's burgeoning global dominance.

Yes, in a two-month vacuum, Golden State and Cleveland have likely had a detrimental effect on the NBA's overall appeal. But with eyes on the big picture - once variance rights parity from this schism askew - this stretch of painfully predictable basketball will seem like a harmless blemish.