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Lakers’ Successful Off-Season Proves Large Markets Still Dominate

By | August 18, 2012|

Let’s face it, everyone in LeBron James’ shoes would have made the same decision that he made in 2010. Although not many would have opted for the hour long special, almost 100 percent of you reading this would have taken your talents to South Beach also. Yes Cleveland was his home, but who would want to spend an entire career in a cold city surrounded by nothing but farms?

Miami offered LeBron no income tax, beautiful weather all season long and an opportunity to play with a title contending team. Miami is a major market city and a place that would offer him a plethora of marketing chances. The switch from small market to large market by LeBron James was just another example of the NBA’s inevitable transition to a league of super-teams.

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However, James wasn’t the first player to make such a move. Shaquille O’Neal made the switch from the Orlando Magic to the Los Angeles Lakers back in 1996, and it is safe to say that it was a successful choice.

After the ‘Decision’ players like Carmelo Anthony and Deron Williams also broke away from their small markets. Anthony left the snowy city of Denver after a stressful “Melo Drama” and found himself in the USA’s biggest market, New York City. Williams was traded from the Utah Jazz to the New Jersey Nets, a team now in Brooklyn ready to make their point guard the face of the franchise hoping to make a splash in New York City’s borough.

As you can see, superstars want to move to cities that can manage their egos. Let’s face it, the media, the fans and the atmosphere in cities like New York and Los Angeles are in completely different worlds than those of Denver or Salt Lake City. With the salaries of these players, why wouldn’t they want to live in the country’s marquee areas?

Have a metropolitan area as a selling point for players or free-agents is a great asset for franchises to use. That’s why teams like the Lakers, Clippers, Nets, Knicks, Bulls and Heat, to name a few, are very fortunate to be situated in these cities. The Knicks can entice players by showing them Fifth Avenue, Time’s Square and Manhattan’s Financial District, whereas the front office for the Indiana Pacers lure in free agents by what, showing them the nearby farms and the friendly livestock?

Not many people would pick spending time with cows and cattle over sight-seeing in beautiful New York City or attend movie premieres in Los Angeles.

And thus a super-team forms. A group of players from medium to small market teams get tired of the lack of talent on their team and finally jump the bandwagon so many NBA stars have joined. Leave their previous franchise and go join up with other skillful players in hopes of having fun both on and off the court.

Next Page: The Lakers are the newest super-team

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About the author

Ramneet Singh

Ramneet is a senior writer for Lakers Nation and has been contributing his thoughts on the Lakers and the NBA since 2010. Follow Ramneet on Twitter @RamneetSingh24.

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  • http://twitter.com/moss310 Christopher John

    The small market/large market line of thinking is antiquated and used by those who want to use an artificial talking point without having to actually think.

    The Knicks and Nets have been largely afterthoughts for most of the past 15+ years. Chicago was once bad enough to land D-Rose as a #1 pick in recent years. Philly is a large market, how have they done recently? Atlanta is a top ten market, why have they been mostly irrelevant throughout their history? What was said for Atlanta can also be said for Washington DC. How much time passed between glory years in Boston?  Golden State and Sacramento play in Top 20 markets and they’d be California’s biggest NBA laughingstocks if the Clippers weren’t consistently terrible.There is only one team that has remained mostly competitive in the past 30 years on a year to year basis and that’s the Lakers. Their market matters less than the franchise itself.It’s all about winning cultures. It’s the reason why the Spurs have been in contention for the past 15 years or so. It’s why OKC has locked up their top two players to extensions the past couple of years. The difference between the Lakers and Clippers isn’t their market but the mindset of the franchise.

    A winning culture is why, despite similar market size and geographical proximity, people are clamoring to play in Miami and wanting to run away from Orlando.  That being said, you completely contradict yourself when you compare LeBron and Miami to Shaq and Los Angeles.  Orlando is closer in market size and geography to Miami than Los Angeles.  To implicate one being better than the other market-wise is a fallacy.  If you compare the cultures of the Lakers and the Heat to the cultures of the Magic and the Cavaliers, then you’re on to something meaningful.Speaking of Miami, you brought up LeBron and the two paragraphs surrounding his departure from Cleveland to Miami showed how little is actually comprehended about small market and big market, as well as the history of the NBA.  I’m beginning to realize that people throw the comparisons around without realizing what markets actually mean.  

    Had you kept your point to a strictly weather/location point, it’d be valid.  Adding in the rest of it when it pertains to LeBron severely hurts your own point in the eyes of anyone who chooses to look at it critically.Markets refer to television markets and the theoretical number of eyeballs that have the potential to watch television at any given time.  In that respect, Miami is 16th in the country while Cleveland is 17th.  Translation: there isn’t a large difference in market.  If one is a big market team, the other is a big market team.  If one is a small market team, the other is a small market team. If 100,000 people evacuate Miami and end up in Cleveland for whatever reason, their market places shift.

    Also, LeBron was already the most marketed player in the league when he was playing in Cleveland.  What new marketing opportunities has he landed while in Miami?  If marketing opportunities were his priority, he’d be sporting a #6 jersey for the Knicks, Nets, or Bulls.  Miami was his best shot to win a ring and he gets to play with his pal, Dwayne Wade.  Looking at all the extras about Miami versus Cleveland misses the point.

    And the superteams comment?  Name me an NBA team that has won an NBA Title in the past 30 years that hasn’t had at least two Hall of Fame or borderline Hall of Fame guys on there aside from the 1994 Rockets or 2004 Pistons?  The 1980′s was something of a Golden Age for the NBA and it was spearheaded by the Lakers and Celtics, two franchises that boasted multiple Hall of Famers in their lineups.  Superteams are nothing new and GMs will find ways around the CBA rules when they fully take effect in a few years (something else that you neglected to mention: the full effect of the CBA isn’t being felt now, hence the big moves).

    I really wish writers and talking heads would stop falling back on this lazy mindset. It’s an easy story to write that gets a reaction because it gets a reaction out of small market fans who wrongfully believe their market isn’t why they aren’t competitive rather than pointing the finger at their front office.

  • Alberto Garcia

    Christopher John said it all.