Curry, Klay, KD, Green and Cousins is the best starting 5 in history in my opinion.

Ugh, this sucks. Can we just skip ahead to 2019-20 already?

Whats the point of trying to contend this year. Lakers will now wait until next year to sign Leonard and not have to give up their young core. Philly and Boston will just slowly build for 19/20. Houston will be the only challenger but won't come as close as this past series.

BORING SEASON COMING! Thanks ring chasers!

The NBA can't do anything because the precious players union and their egotistical selfs will never let any change fly.

My gos this league has become diabolical. Curry and Durants legacy is just about burnt to ash.

Here's hoping he fully wrecks the team's chemistry. But unfortunately for every one else it fixes GSWs only real weakness (inside play)

I never thought I'd lose interest in the NBA but I have.

#Moneyball

So, this is a serious question, what can be done when the NBA's salary cap is well over $100Million? The NBA's rules allow players to move and nothing has actually been done against the rules here, it is just Moneyball and we either accept it as it is or move on?

People can vote with their feet, but if the product is so popular and the players are bringing it week in and week out, there is an factor of enjoyment there for fans of every team.

Is it just about the rings, or is it about the season, the fun that fans can have watching their favourite players week after week and just remember this, only one team can win it all every year, so while we hate it when a monopoly is created, us as fans are still entertained are we not...?

Only one team can win, but watching the chase for the championship is about the intrigue of not knowing which of the (admittedly small) group of teams will triumph. There will always be favourites, but this is different. Barring injury problems (and I mean 2-3 to their major players) this Warriors team is unbeatable in a 7 game series. It is pointless playing the season.

Many of us said the same 2 years ago when KD arrived and we have been proven absolutely correct. This only further exacerbates the problem.

When 5 of the best 20 players in the league (including 2 of the best 3) in a 30 team league are with one team, it isn't about being favourites, it is a forgone conclusion.

I won't be watching any Warriors games this season, as there is simply no point.

This past Finals I watched games 1 and 2, which is likely 2 more than I watch next season. The only competition left in the league is the Western Conference Semi finals, and Eastern Conference Finals, to see who wins the right to be destroyed by the Warriors in the following round.

The question isn't whether Moneyball can work in the NBA, or even whether it's already working - because most with knowledge of how decisions are being made about personnel and strategy on the best teams will tell you that Moneyball-style data has been used for some time. There's only quibbling as to when the tipping point was. Here are some possibilities:

Was it in 2005 when Chris Ballard in Sports Illustrated wrote this about NBA stats guru Dean Oliver on how he gave the Sonics an advantage using advanced stats the previous year: Last spring, for example, as the Sonics prepared to face the Spurs in the second round of the playoffs, Oliver turned up evidence that while San Antonio was a dominant defensive team, particularly in the paint, it was not bulletproof. "When you go at the midrange, there was a big hole," he explains. "Compared to the rest of the league, the Spurs are 30-35 percent less vulnerable than the rest of the league from three-point land but 30 percent more vulnerable from midrange." So, partly on Oliver's advice, the Sonics pulled up for 15- to 18-foot jumper after jumper. In the end Seattle increased its midrange shooting more than any other Spurs opponent and surprised many people by taking a superior San Antonio team to six games. "If you have a good midrange game against us, you have a better chance," confirms Spurs assistant Mike Budenholzer. "And with the Sonics, since we wanted to keep them off the three-point line, that left us weaker in the midrange game."http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com...

Or was it 2006 when Jeff Ma's Protrade was being used by the Portland Trailblazers to help them select players in the draft? "Ma is also using Protrade's database to help pro teams select talent. With the number two pick in the NBA draft this summer, the Portland Trailblazers passed on Adam Morrison, hailed by many as the next Larry Bird, and snagged LaMarcus Aldridge instead. Why? "Our numbers said that Adam Morrison should have been a second-round pick," says Ma." You know what's awesome? Aldrige is a beast and Morrison isn't even in the league anymore! http://www.forbes.com/forbes/200...

Or was it in February 2007 when a Warriors executive said to San Jose Mercury News reporter Mark Emmons that "he can't imagine there's a team left in the NBA that isn't following the new breed of statistics" and highlighted Dave Berri's Wages of Wins book as an example? http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop...

Or was it March 1, 2009 when the writer of Moneyball wrote an article in The New York Times about Shane Battier as the "no stats all star"? The article not only explored Battier's unique value but spent much of its copy on Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey (MIT grad and founder of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference) who enabled Battier with the data that let him be so effective. www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html?_r=2&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all

Or maybe it was when statgeeks focused on Kevin Durant's lack of efficiency in 2010 from mid-range and he started getting to the hoop more. Or maybe it was all the guys before the 2011 season who wrote articles about Derrick Rose wasn't getting as many foul shots as he used to so they started running more iso's for him. But it's more likely that, similar to MLB, it's now in practice by a critical mass of NBA teams and whatever incremental advantage a team could have gotten in personnel and game strategy is fleeting and wouldn't last a couple seasons like Billy Beane's did.

One of more frustrating things about stats in the NBA is that team's know much, much more than the media and the fans at this point. The smartest teams all employ their own statisticians and have economists building models that are far ahead of what you or I might be able to see. When asked point blank about what the lack of Tyson Chandler's defense would do to his team's ability to defend the paint in the playoffs, Mark Cuban quipped on Bill Simmons podcast after their appearance on a panel at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference this year, "you really thought that was Chandler's defense? Respect to Chandler, but our models didn't show that at all". The point isn't whether he was right or wrong about Chandler, the point is that he knows he has data nobody else has and it's driving his personnel and game strategy decisions more than any other factor. Moneyball is in the NBA, has been for a while.

^That is a paste, obviously not my work...

Don't wish to get into a debate about the whole Moneyball is or isn't what the NBA is doing, more to the point of, so what?

What, if anything can or should be done about it?

Thanks for clearing it up for yourself ^Anon, but in your attempts to be clinically correct are you not just displaying semantics, perhaps missing the point of context?

All good, I was having a jest...

There is nothing you can do about it?

Normally the Cap / Luxury Tax becomes the artificial limiter of stacking.

But the NBA cannot stop a free agent wanting to play with a team for such a cheap price.

Its just that right now the Warriors have a perceived premium to play for them and it suits those that have already been paid but no ring.

It's human nature to want to b on the winning team, from primary school teams when you wanted to play with the fastest / tallest to NBA professionals.

I don't think anything should be done!

1. The NBA season hasn't even begun, anything can happen in the coming months.

2. Dynasties come and go, it's just their turn.

3. All the hate towards the top team happens in every sport.

4. It gives reporters something to write about.

NBA loves super teams, it garners huge marketability and generates plenty of media coverage.

For those of us who don't enjoy it and want to see more competition, as a brainstorming process, how could the NBA be tweaked to avoid super teams?

It is evident money doesn't need to talk anymore, championships talk. How do we incentivise stars to stay?

Get rid of player maximums. See how much the players are willing to "leave on the table" when there is a chance they can make half the cap themselves.

The one off cap spike in 2016 combined with a max amount for KD was a perfect storm for that to happen. It isn't likely to be repeated any time soon, but that one time was enough to ruin the league as far as championship competitiveness goes

After 30+ years of really liking the NBA and getting the chance to see a few games in person, I was done with it after the last season concluded. The NBA version of our great game is just a basterdised version. Play by their own rules. Want 5 steps to get the basket and beat your man with a "dazzling" move? No worries, go right ahead! The general fan over there either doesn't care or is too stupid to realise. May as well go watch the Harlem Globetrotters. Now we have the soft generation of "oh it's too hard, I'll join other good players and flog the pants off everyone.". YAWN. Bring on the NBL and awesome international ball, punch ups and all! BAH BLOODY HUMBUG!!!

Well said Gus.

Except the NBL will remain unwatchable until the refs improve dramatically, and with the unsustainable salaries being thrown around, the league is quickly becoming split into haves and have nots, so competitiveness wont be a plus.

Okay, so you guys are starting to head towards the 'money has ruined sport' road. I don't disagree with that sentiment, but can't see any way in stopping it. Money talks and greed is the capitalist's way, the way of the west.

Sport is just another casualty...

This wasn't LeBron joining the Warriors on the veterans minimum.

Boogie is coming off a major injury in a season with limited cap space and not much demand for centres. He is a health risk, attitude risk and fit risk which is perhaps why teams weren't jumping out of the trees to sign him to big dollars over multiple years.

This is likely the last year Curry, Klay, Dray and KD will be together.

It would only take a major injury to 1 of those 4 for Houston or the Celtics to be right around the mark with them.

Players are joining these super teams to get rings. We put so much value on players by how many rings they have. What we hopefully see is the loss of value of rings and therefore the loss of desire to join these super teams. When we put more value on team play, small market heroes and the value of adversity the market will correct itself.

Until then, these players will just keep counting their rings thinking that they are the greatest players in the world. No one wants to be ring less.

Cram, they can't get rid of player maximums because that would require the players majority vote, so the 30 or so max players like Lebron have just one vote the same as minimum players. SO there is no chance the Langston Galloways and and Matthew Dellevedovas of the world will vote in a rule saying the top 30 players in the league make all the money and the rest are all on minimum deals.

Moneyball may not be correct, but I get the advanced analytics driving recruiting and tactical decisions.

The other aspect to the stacked team concept has to be ROI. What is the value of GSW compared to the salary spend? By becoming THE TEAM, GSW will increasingly attract more sponsorship and merchandise sales.

The Lakers have a great franchise for revenue as well, they now have the biggest single drawcard in LeBron James.

So GSW and LA Lakers are both out in front already in the business of basketball.

Funny how no teams called Cousins and he actually had to call GSW.

The NBA players/teams can all complain but none of them picked up the phone and made a serious offer to Cousins so really its on the other teams in the league not GSW/Cousins.

I'm guessing teams didn't want to come at him with anything other than Max (or close to it) and risk putting him and his agent offside for the future. You wouldn't think he'd take a one year deal, let alone at 5.3. If teams were aware of that they'd be lining up.

Coming out and saying nobody wanted him so he may as well go to the Warriors was just a cop out way of deflecting from the fact he's ring chasing

@cram do you think if other teams outside of the playoff picture offered the MLE he'd take it.

If thats all the money he can get might as well go to the best run organisation particularly when rehabbing an injury.

Even at the MLE teams didn't call with any real concrete offers so saying you'll offend him with anything less than the max is the real cop out, it means other teams didn't do the correct research and understand the lack of a real market for him, particularly once Mav's signed Jordan

Lakers would have been certain to throw their remaining cap space at him for a year. Would have been a great situation for all involved.

Plenty of other teams would have had the larger non tax payer mid level as well.

I don't buy that there were no options for him. Again, if it was clear that he was available for a one year deal, plenty of teams would have gotten involved.