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This past off season, Kevin Durant made headlines when he took the “if you can’t beat them join them” approach in leaving the Oklahoma

LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony. (Getty Images)

LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony. (Getty Images)

City Thunder and signing for less money to join already a powerhouse, the Golden State Warriors.

Lebron James famously decided to “take [my] talents to South Beach” to create the first “Big 3” situation in Miami, and then changed the face of the NBA by “coming home” to Cleveland 2 seasons ago.

The result has been an NBA championship that is basically contested between the Cavaliers and the Warriors with perhaps the Spurs and Celtics the other teams within hailing distance.

The rest of the league, competes for the lottery.

Teams like the Knicks are shutting stars like Carmelo Anthony down; reducing minutes, while other teams like the Lakers and Suns put out lineups that might be in a dogfight with some of the teams competing in the NCAA tournament as they seek to add ping pong balls to the NBA draft lottery.

The league has been championship or bust since the days of Michael Jordan chasing Magic, Larry, and Bill Russell, and Kobe chasing Michael and now Lebron chasing Michael and Kobe.

The rest problem came to light most vividly when the Cavaliers decided to rest all three of their stars Kyrie Irving, Lebron James, and Kevin Love.

However, the problem isn’t the Cavaliers, and resting their players it is much deeper – it is the super teams and the lack of willingness/inability for the rest of the league to compete with those teams.

So as the season dwindles down, there are no races, no seeding issues, no problems for the top teams so they can choose to sit whomever they want whenever they want.

As the sports talk shows, and the newspapers and the twittersphere discussed how to stop teams from resting their players, and suggestions ranged from fines, to forced injury lists, the real issue is stopping the players forming super teams with no competition.

 

 

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