Any child dreams of a world where all of their favorite heroes assemble. In pop culture you have the Justice League and The Avengers, and in sports you have the big three. In layman's terms; it's the grouping of three All Stars together on one team, with the mindset of winning a championship. The concept of having really good players around each other has actually been around for a while. Magic Johnson (Kareem Abdul Jabar and James Worthy) and Larry Bird (Kevin McHale, Robert Parish) both had one, and even Michael Jordan (Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman) had one. The Spurs have had one for years with Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginóbili. Yet it's only been fairly recent where players, rather than general managers, have started to manipulate the roster movements by forcing themselves out of losing situations.
The first modern day “Big Three” were the 2007 Boston Celtics, where they combined Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett with an already productive Paul Pierce (and a young budding point guard named Rajon Rondo). The three combined players took the Celtics from winning a total of 24 games in 2006 to wining 66 games in 2007, and eventually the NBA finals the very same year. The accomplishment was unprecedented, never before had a team changed that drastically. Teams began trying to copy the formula, but more importantly, player's tried as well. As I've written before (see: The baby faced champion) and NBA title is what most players dream of their entire career. The allure of being on a super team is tempting to many. Evidence of that became apparent after “The Decision” when LeBron bolted from the Cavs to the Heat to join Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. The Heat made a remarkable four straight finals, winning two of them, in what can only be described as dominance. Carmelo Anthony then tried it with the New York Knicks, literally forcing his way out of Denver to join with Amar'e Stoudemire and eventually Tyson Chandler, to a lesser degree of success. Dwight Howard forced his way out of Orlando to join with Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol in L.A to disastrous results. However, most recently has been LeBron returning to Cleveland, and Kevin Love forcing his way out of Minnesota to join him, with an already talented Kyrie Irving. There are a few obvious flaws with the concept. First off is the money. Believe it or not every player in the NBA is not playing for free, and the better they are, the more they want to get paid. The players that make up a Big Three are All Stars, demanding high salaries, thus depriving the team of any cap room for other players to compliment them. Second is ego. Again, when dealing with stars they are used to playing a certain style, and more importantly, used to carrying most of the burden of scoring themselves. When joining with a few of these kinds of players you never quite know what you're going to get. It can work beautifully such as with the Heat, or it can be a train wreck like with the Lakers.
Lastly is the sad example of what we saw this post season with the Cavaliers, which is the venomous injury bug. If an injury bug bites your team its bad news, yet usually you can have another player ready to step up to take his roll, or be able to at least make a trade or signing to supplement the loss. Yet when you have a Big Three; if one goes down, let alone two, your entering a nightmare. You have no money, no players to replace that kind of talent, and a whole different kind of cohesion with this team. After Love went down, we all knew the Cavs would be in a tough spot, and when they lost Irving it was only a matter of time till it they lost. Iman Shumpert and J.R Smith are not second options, they are roll players. As is Matthew Dellavedova and Timofay Mozgov. They can play well with a team, yet don't think that they can salvage a season.
In the end be it trading an arm and a leg for an all star, or paying for one in free agency, you compromise your future. It's a risk that sometimes seems too good to pass up. Sometimes that's actually the case, LeBron can attest to that, other times it never really comes to fruition which LeBron can no attest to as well. Either way, buyer beware, the age of the super team is coming to a close. Whats next? Well we'll find out on October 27th, when the whole season starts over again.
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