This will end well....

So what the OP is saying is that its fine for the top teams to overspend on stars, provided they injure them?

Not sure that's a very practical way to run a league.

This isn't much different to other seasons really.
There is always a battle for fourth spot. Right now it's basically double point games and teams can't afford to slip up.

Upsets of this round are an anomaly which creates the illusion there is more parity.

Still Sydney, Perth then daylight.
United if they get it together could challenge the top two.

I don't think it’s top 3 then daylight

It’s more like

Sydney
Melbourne
Perth
Everyone else

Right now there seems to be 3 legit contenders. 2 and a half really, cos Perth (with their current roster) might struggle against Sydney and United once they’re healthy and settled (if that ever actually happens).

But Perth have won 4 of the last 6 titles, so let’s call it 3 legit contenders. The same 3 legit contenders there were last year. One of them signed the best player from one of the other contenders (Ware), another signed the best players from two of the lower ranked teams (Trimble, Long), the other one kept their championship team together with minor changes (Hunt, Majok in for Brandt, Jervis, Hire).

So there’s definitely the haves and the have nots, the spenders and the budget teams.

I’m not convinced this is necessarily a terrible thing for the NBL though.

[One of them signed the best player from one of the other contenders (Ware)]

That should really read, one of them signed the Best player from one of the other contenders (Ware), put together an incredibly talented team, and then at mid season signed a guy who made the Australian team ahead of Mitch Creek and Brock Motum (Cooks)

"signed a guy who made the Australian team ahead of Mitch Creek and Brock Motum (Cooks)"

Touch misleading that statement. There was far more to that selection than basketball ability

Looking at the Hawks, they have lost 4 games by 5 or less and in 3 others were within 5 pts into the 4th quarter. Sure, they had a couple of blowout losses but (hypothetically) if 2 or 3 shots dropped and a couple of the opposition's didn't, the Hawks could be on 11 wins. Hypothetically, of course.

And I'm sure that this might be the case for the other teams. So, while you might have your "legitimate contenders", the wins against the bottom teams isn't a given.

Also, someone commented that Cairns has beaten each of the top teams? The Hawks own Cairns!

[LV you really are unusual. You disagreed with my assessment, then agreed with it by using the same mindset I had about the top 3 teams then daylight haha]

I disagree with the idea of lumping all 3 into one group

To my mind Sydney has clearly been the team to beat and will only be better once Cooks settles in plus Moller and Lisch are back. United is a clear 2nd- we saw what they did to Perth, and they haven't had a full team for any length of time yet either. Their ceiling is higher than Perths, only continued injuries will keep them down.

Perth is 3rd, they comfortably won the GF and have only made a small downgrade this year.

And then there's everybody else.

"This mentality of if a couple of shots fell here or there is so odd. Sports is based on actual results, that's it. There is no what could of been moments that change what actually is."

I get that, 237. But what I was showing was how even the bottom-placed team was hypothetically close to winning games even against the top teams. As you point out, this didn't eventuate in reality meaning they are the top teams ans the Hawks aren't. But the parity isn't /that/ far distant.

And, as a supporter of that team, I need that hypothetical reassurance!

[

Yeah LV, like you just did, I pumped all 3 of the big dogs in one group, then the rest. It's not hard.]

My point is there's a clear hierarchy amongst the top 3. So I don't like calling it a group of "3" when there are clear favorite and a clear 2nd favorite (in my estimations)

There's no hierarchy amongst the rest. I find it very hard to split Adelaide Cairns SEM. And NZ could join those 3 if Hopson keeps this up.

Perth's had a full team, Melbourne and Sydney have not

So if it's been pretty even so far then that shows exactly why Perth is the 3rd fav

Sports bet has

Sydney $2.25
Melb 3.75
Perth 3.75

Should be more like

Sydney 2.00
Melb 3.50
Perth 4.25

Would be a better representation of each teams chances

Perth 12-6, Melbourne 10-7 but Melbourne have the easier fixture from here.

United has 1 game left vs Sydney, 2 vs Hawks. Perth have the opposite.

Hawks have won 4 games, and currently don't look like winning many more.
Not sure how that is parity.

If Cairsn finish 4th, sure that's great for them, but basically means the other 4 teams sucked too badly to even fight for a spot. Again, not a good example of parity.

Parity doesn't mean that every team needs to finish with the same record. Any team is capable of winning on any given night, and the Hawks have come close despite the record. There are clearly 3 tiers of team, but the gap from #1 to #9 is not huge, either.

Re-inforcing anon, parity between teams would generally be interpreted as equality, or at least almost equal, chances of any team beating any other team on a given night.

This season, top 3 teams have a win-loss record of 27-9 against the rest of the league. Clearly, the top three teams are a level above the other six, this season.

At present, there are 5 wins between 1st and 4th and 2 wins between 3rd and 4th. We're about 60% of the way through the season. At the same time last season, there were 2.5 wins between 1st and 4th and 2 wins between 3rd and 4th.

In 2017-18 there were 2 wins between 1st and 4th and 1 win between 3rd and 4th.

In 2016-17, there were 3 wins between 1st and 4th and 1 win between 3rd and 4th.

In 2015-16, there were 3 wins between 1st and 4th and 1.5 wins between 3rd and 4th.

In 2014-15, there were 3.5 wins between 1st and 4th and 3 wins between 3rd and 4th. This was back in the era of Perth and NZ dominance (they were the top 2 teams at this point in the season) when people complained about the parity issue in terms of the ongoing dominance of those two clubs.

I look at those stats and feel that there is a clear and large gap between the top three teams and the rest of the league. That may change over the rest of the season but both Sydney and Melbourne have the easiest draws to the end of the season of all teams in the league. Perth have one of the stronger draws remaining, which may restore some 'parity'. They look more vulnerable this season than I can remember them looking for a long time.

Thanks for the Latin lesson anon, but that doesn't contradict me at all because chance plays a major factor in basketball. Teams could be actually equal in all respects - attendance, advertisers revenue, salary, etc - and it still won’t mean all teams finish with equal records because guys miss, turn the ball over, etc. the best you can hope for if you aren’t being ridiculously literal is that teams face each other on equal footing each match, and I’d argue that while that’s not the case if you take the top 3 teams against nearly everyone else, it’s not as lop sided as it seems, either. I think some of the budget teams have done a much more efficient job building their rosters within the budgets that have to reach near parity. Hawks unlucky with injuries, because with Brooks and Ball all season long it would probably have been a different story for them. Cairns did incredibly well with import selection and nabbing Deng for probably a bargain price. NZ unlucky with injuries and some self inflicted wounds, otherwise would also be battling for the top 4.

"Okay, so you argument is that we could have parity and things could still go to shit, so therefore because things have gone to shit we must have parity."

Uh, no, my point was exactly what I said - you can have parity (meaning 'equality', from the latin 'par' I'm led to believe) in all aspects of the teams on and off the court, and teams won't have equal records, because that's not what anyone means when they say a league has parity. Equal doesn't mean exactly alike, because to use your own example (I guess its yours anyway, being anons and all), AUD and USD achieving parity it doesn't mean they are exactly the same currencies, "it means they are approximately equal", and THAT is my point.

Five teams fighting for the right to join Sydney, Perth and United in the finals.
I suppose you could say there is parity amongst that quintet.

Don't get too carried away with Cairns beating top teams they also have lost three to Illawarra lol.

Only 2 losses seperate third and eighth. Kings slowly coming back to the pack too. Very interesting competition this year

Err they're dead last and three games behind the rest with only ten to play.

Understood. Having no complete no hoper teams is nice.