Competitive Balance in Pro Sports Leagues:
How does the NBA look?

After the review of NBA Team Playoff Records for the last decade, it seemed worthwhile to take a quick check at how the NBA numbers compare to other major pro sports over the last ten completed seasons [2014-2023]

Obviously "competitive balance" can be defined in many ways -- E.g. you could say it was:

- how many different teams won a title
- how many different teams reached a certain advanced stage of the playoffs/postseason
- how many teams have been bad/not made the playoffs for a long period of time
- how much correlation there is between a team's record one year and the next
- how often teams finish with winning (or .500+) records
- how closely grouped teams are around the .500 mark in a season

Let's be clear, there is no one right answer. My sense is that for most people "balance" comes down to how varied is the group of teams competing for a title over a period of time. Even how to gauge this is still open to intepretation, but a reasonable guide might be to look at final 8 (or perhaps final 4) finishes for a span of years.

TABLE: Last 10 completed seasons

So at a glance, the leagues look fairly similar in many areas, including:

- how many teams have won championships
- how many teams have made the top 8 at least once in a decade
- the number of teams suffering "droughts" of not making the final eight in the last four years

• the NBA has the fewest players in action, where having a superstar gives you a bigger resultant edge than in other sports (NBA just 5 starters often with 8-man rotations in the playoffs, NFL has 24 starters if we include the K/P, Hockey utilizes multiple lines and bigger rosters, Soccer has 11 players, MLB 8/9 batters and then your starting pitchers/bullpen)
• the NBA plays best of seven series where luck becomes less of a factor in a game with a high number of scores/possessions, with no one score counting for a huge percentage of the total score (unlike soccer where 1-0 scores are common, or baseball where four runs can be scored on one pitch)

Even so, the NBA still managed to have over half its teams make the final four at least once during the last decade. To answer those who say "final four" is a better measure than "final eight" let's take a closer look at that:

Now I'm kind of picking on Premier League soccer here; and since it's regular season only you don't have "playoff upsets". Still, only eight teams in the top four in ten years? Manchester City has been top four ten years straight, while Liverpool and Chelsea both made it 7 out of 10 years. Um, and some people say Pro Soccer has the best competitive balance??? Let's see though: no salary cap (and vastly different total team salaries and revenues as a result) plus no playoffs and long regular season = very bad competitive balance. They could do a top eight single elimination tournament at the end of the season if they wanted some extra oomph, but they already have the FA Cup, League Cup, Euro Cup stuff for more "playoff-y" soccer formats.

Also, while some people are clamoring about how bad the NBA competitive balance is, the league has had very comparable numbers as far as different teams in the final four to the other big three sports over the past four seasons!! And likewise in terms of dominant superteams over an era, the NBA seems relatively similar again.

In truth, competitive balance (by a definition of variety of contenders) is pretty easy to predict I believe: - NHL = hard cap, lots of players, fairly random outcomes to a single game = GREAT competitive balance - NFL = hard cap, tons of players, 16game season, single game elimination = GREAT competitive balance - MLB = no salary cap, lots of players, fairly random single game outcome = GOOD balance - NBA = soft salary cap, few players, predictable best of seven series = MODERATE to LOW balance - EPL = no salary cap, no draft (relegation instead!), quite a few players, no playoffs = BAD balance

Which sports really have had dominant teams over the past ten seasons?

# of times in Top4	Sport	Team
6	Basketball	Golden State
6	Hockey	Tampa Bay
6	Baseball	Houston
6	Baseball	LA Dodgers
6	Football	New England
5	Football	Kansas City
5	Basketball	Boston
4	Basketball	Cleveland
4	Football	San Francisco
4	Football	Green Bay
4	Hockey	Las Vegas*

So each major sport had a team that was in the final four six times in the last ten seasons (Baseball had two). And again, no outrageous differences in dominant teams as the NFL had four semi-dominant teams, the NBA three, and MLB/NHL two each.

Brilliant coaching and front office management still can have a huge impact on the respective fortunes of individual teams! The "reverse of brilliant management" can be shown by the "Futility" numbers (length of time till a team was last in the final eight in a season):

- NBA: Minnesota (20 yrs), Charlotte (20), Sacramento (20), Detroit (16), Orlando (14)
- NHL: Buffalo (17 yrs), Phoenix (11), Detroit (10)
- NFL: Detroit (32 yrs), Miami (23), Raiders (21), Washington (18), NY Jets (13), Chicago (13)
- MLB: Cincinnati (11 yrs)

So the MLB shines in this category with only one sadsack franchise at present on a double digit streak of missing the top eight. The NFL has the most with six teams, but the two longest suffering are both leading their division with hopes to end the run (in Detroit's case 32 years strong eek).

The NBA has five teams in the "futility" class, but three of them have got off to strong starts so it won't be a suprise if a couple can get off the list for next year.

"Futility" Ledger

Last Top8	Sport	Team
32 yrs	Football	Detroit
23 yrs	Football	Miami
21 yrs	Football	LV Raiders
20 yrs	Basketball	Minnesota
20 yrs	Basketball	Charlotte
20 yrs	Basketball	Sacramento
18 yrs	Football	Washington
17 yrs	Hockey	Buffalo
16 yrs	Basketball	Detroit
14 yrs	Basketball	Orlando
13 yrs	Football	NY Jets
13 yrs	Football	Chicago
11 yrs	Baseball	Cincinnati
11 yrs	Hockey	Phoenix
10 yrs	Hockey	Detroit

This table is an interesting look, giving a quick read that the NFL then the NBA have been the leagues with the longest running Futility Shows...

For hoops fans, what remains to be seen is whether the "new cba" with punitive penalties for repeatedly being over the salary threshold will lead to a shift in the diversity of teams in the final eight...stay tuned!