New powers under the new rules! The value of Pacers and Thunder!

Although a few days later than the Thunder, the Pacers were not absent in the end and successfully passed the Kanto Finals, and once again staged a 2000 drama. They first defeated the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, and then faced the regular season win rate of more than 80% in the finals, and were even more optimistic about the leader in the Western Conference. The winners and losses of the finals are not the case. As far as the Pacers are concerned, they at least proved that they did not make it to the Eastern Conference Finals by relying on their opponent's injuries and good luck last year, but a champion team that can truly rely on the team to advance. Regardless of the final result, considering their reconstruction progress in recent years, it is enough to be amazed that the Pacers can stand on the finals stage.

After winning the Eastern Conference championship, Pacers center Miles Turner talked in an interview:

"The league now has a new trend, just like the new power we and the Thunder have done. This is the league's new championship blueprint. The influence of that kind of super team is no longer as strong as before. Young teams play together, and now it is a new era."

This is true. The final matchup between the Pacers and the Thunder is indeed full of new ideas, but has Turner's so-called new power really heralds a new era? There seems to be a lot of room for discussion behind this issue.

Refer to Turner's words "The influence of a super team is not as good as before", which is indeed the case from a certain perspective. Since James + Wade + Bosh was the Heat Big Three in 2010, the concept of super teams has gradually spread; James later returned to the Cavaliers to join forces with the young master Irving, and at the same time, Love once again formed the Big Three in the Cavaliers.

On the western side, Durant's complete airborne Warriors formed the Universe Warriors, and then James left the Cavaliers to fight the Lakers, and the team operation brought Davis, and at the same time, Leonard also found Paul George to form the Clippers duo, and then the Nets formed Haduou's offensive three arrows.

and so on, the trend of top stars joining forces to form a group has become a trend for a while, while other top stars who are not willing to cooperate with the team for a long time, as long as they are slightly dissatisfied with their parent team, rumors about their team change will immediately begin to appear in the outside world.

The trend of top stars gathering together is the context of the "super team" mentioned by Turner, but from the results, the effect of this kind of group selection is not good. The Heat's Big Three won two championships, and then the three Big Three of James won another championship in the reversal in 2016. It was the world of cosmic courage in 2017-18, and the James and Mei combination won the championship in 2020.

Strictly speaking, it was not until 2023 that the Nuggets ended the trend of star grouping, but this was mainly because Jokic, whom the Nuggets chose in the second round, grew up to be a superstar, but other main players of the team did not reach the level of All-Star or above, otherwise they would still be the infrastructure of three maximum-paid players (Jokic, Murray, Porter Jr.) + a high-paid deputy (Aaron Gordon). This also led to the Nuggets losing key rotation for two consecutive years due to salary structure pressure after winning the championship.

Although the 2022 champion Warriors are no longer cosmic courage, they are essentially the four core players Curry, Wiggins, Clay, and Green, as well as Jordan Poole, who was in the dividends of rookie contracts at the time; to last year's champion Celtics, their lineup is mainly composed of two top-salary stars, Tatum + Brown. Although Holiday and Poor are not top stars, they are also high-quality puzzles close to All-Stars.

From the above examples, the influence of the so-called super team is related to All-stars such as James, Durant, Curry, Irving, George, Leonard, Harden, etc. Therefore, even if the Nuggets in 2023 and the Celtics in 2024 have similar core structures, we have not included them in the discussion.

was just the championship last season and the Celtics had a great situation this season, but was eventually defeated by the Knicks in the second round. With Tatum seriously injured, the Celtics' hope of defending the title was extinguished, and even affected the next season, resulting in the original competitive timeline that had to be changed in advance. Otherwise, according to their original ideas, they can basically continue their top-level competitiveness in the three seasons last year, this year to next year.

Of course, considering that the two major Celtics stars were self-selected and similar to the three main players of the Nuggets, the previous year's champion, they should not be regarded as super team-wide.

But from another perspective, it is better to say that the influence of super teams has declined rather than the decline of super stars such as Jendokuha. Judging from this season, Durant can no longer make it to the playoffs alone under the deformed Suns formation; James is also unable to withstand the Timberwolves' encirclement, and Curry feels pressure on the rough Rockets, and eventually withdraws early due to injury; Harden stops in the first round due to weakness and Leonard, and Irving is seriously injured in the regular season, causing Davis to be eliminated in the playoffs early, and George even shatters his hopes for the playoffs early.

According to this trend, the NBA has indeed entered a new era, an era where superstars who rely solely on the previous era can no longer influence the victory or defeat with their own strength. The average age of the Thunder team is 24 years old, making it the youngest team in the league, while the Pacers are 25 years old. The two young teams rank 25th and 22nd in the league respectively.

It is obvious that the two teams with low total salary and shallow game experience are the more obvious trend than the "decline of super teams' influence". In short, it is not that the team is super or not, but that the team is reasonable or not.

It is still too early to say that this match between the Pacers and the Thunder is to end the era of the super team. The main reason is that the influence of several veteran stars who have formed super teams has declined, and their team formation model has also lost key competitiveness due to other trading mistakes..

In contrast, the Pacers and Thunder teams have relatively simple structures. After reconstruction in the past few years, they have accumulated a large amount of future assets. Now they are just their lottery talent being realized in advance. Currently, there are Alexander who has a maximum salary, Caruso, the key to renewing the contract successfully, Harten, who strengthens the free market with a high salary, and Jewish and Chett, two of the team's three core cores, are still executing rookie contracts. Many high-quality combat powers helped the Thunder to be promoted from last season to a strong team in the upper half of the Western Conference.

The reason why Turner said they do not belong to the super team is mainly because the Pacers also have Matherine who executes rookie contracts, and Toping and Nasmith who bought on dips have also successfully renewed their contracts at relatively cheap prices. They also belong to the two maximum salary structures of Halliburton and Siakam. However, they do not have the third high-paying supporting role yet, which also makes the team's salary structure seem much more reasonable at the moment.

Indeed, after the influence of several top stars has declined, other teams have begun to get a chance to break out. This season, the Cavaliers played the dominant position in the Eastern Conference in the regular season, but their formation was vacant on the core wing. Among the two major ball holders in the backcourt, Garland was unable to prove that he could output stably in the playoffs, which eventually made them a stepping stone for the Pacers to move to the finals.

On the other hand, the Thunder's reconstruction path can be regarded as a reconstruction specimen for the small team in recent years, accumulating enough future assets, developing top talents through reasonable draft picks, seizing the dividends of rookie contracts, and seizing this chaotic period to be the first to break through successfully.

It will not be until the 2026-27 season that Chet and Jewe will start their new contract, and they may not face contract problems with Dolter, Wiggins, Isaiah Joe and others, but because the team has a lot of draft picks, there is a lot of room for flexibility in subsequent salary processing.

Simply put, the Thunder's operation proves the value of draft picks under the operation difficulty of the new version of the labor-management agreement. Holding pick chips with them has operational flexibility and salary dividends. The sooner young players can realize their talents, the sooner the team can maintain a strong situation. Although the Pacers do not have any salary pressure this season, Turner is going to become a free agent this year, and Nembhard's salary will also soar from 2 million to 18.1 million in the new contract next season, and the 2026-27 season will be the node for renewal of Matherine. Just renewing Turner, compared with the price of the Thunder signing Hartten, it is very likely that the amount starts at 25 million and the upper limit is around 30 million. By then, the Pacers will directly exceed the luxury tax threshold.

Of course, since Toppin, McConnell, Nesmith and others have successfully renewed their contracts, the Pacers will not lose their combat power, which is also something worthy of recognition in their trading in the past few years. But unless they can continue their playoff results, even if the Pacers can maintain their lineup combat power, whether they can play the advantage of the entire season like those super strong teams in the past is worth thinking about.

We affirm the Thunder's excellent reconstruction, and the Pacers' choice to buy on dips, or the Rockets and Nuggets' self-supported team building model, which may indeed have the opportunity to challenge the past super team model in the current salary rules. But strictly speaking, this can only show that in an era when veteran stars are gradually declining and young stars are gradually taking over, teams that have made reasonable trading in the past have the opportunity to win in this chaotic situation with more resources.

For the Pacers and the Thunder, these two successful cases have at least proved one thing that after establishing the team direction, learn to trade reasonably under the current rules and retain reasonable assets, and not be too conservative or too radical. Even small teams can start to get some opportunities in such a chaotic situation.