A Lack of Level Playing Field: Why The NBA Is Rigged Against Small Market Teams

American professional basketball has been one of the most watched, adored, and
talked about sporting coalitions on the planet since 1976, the year the National Basketball
Association (NBA) merged with the American Basketball Association (ABA). That
inaugural 1976 season was the first year fans truly began to follow every move in the
NBAan up and coming, 22-team league with a growing market and an urge to make a
name for itself. Today, that very same league has grown to 30 teams, stretching from San
Antonio up to Toronto, a worldwide fan base, and, sadly, one major problem. Since
1976, only 13 of the 30 total teams in the NBA have been responsible for all 39 NBA
championships, with the Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Bulls and Boston Celtics bringing
in a combined 20 of those. The problem being posed, then, comes from the debate
around big vs. small market teams. The official definition of a big or small market NBA
team is any team who falls into the upper or lower half of the league, respectively, in total
number of TV viewers in their particular market. While this segregation seems rather
trivial in terms of ranking teams success from the surface, an in depth analysis truly
reveals the problem: big market teams, on average, are considerably more successful than
small market teams.
For example, as previously mentioned, three NBA teamsthe Lakers, Bulls and
Celticsare responsible for over half of the championships between 1976 and present
day, but what is even more surprising is that aside from these three, only four other
franchises have managed to win multiple championships during the same time period.
Furthermore, of the 13 total teams that have won a championship since 1976, only three
have come from small markets, with only one small market team winning since 1980.

Thus bringing up the major problem facing the current NBA and the question this paper
attempts to address: why are small market teams unable to find continued success in the
NBA, and what can be done to level the seemingly unleveled playing field from an
Organizational Behavior (OB) standpoint?
To begin to answer this question, it is worth taking a look at the San Antonio
Spurs, an organization that has won all 5 of their NBA titles since 1999, and the only
exception to the rule that small market teams cant be successful in the present NBA. So
what is it that the Spurs are doing, that other small market teams are failing to? I believe
this is a combination of several thingsfirst, a lack of emphasis is being placed on
organizational culture, and specifically a culture that is centered on winning, not financial
objectives. Secondly, I believe this lack of organizational culture leads to a lack of
success, which, among other things, is directly leading to low job satisfaction among
talented and or veteran players, forcing these players to sign with bigger market teams
when free agency hits, all due to their proven success. This, lastly, ends in an absence of
leadership amongst players, specifically younger players, which ultimately leads to an
inability to mentor and grow these young players in the organizationone of the integral
aspects of building an organization up to championship level.i This lack of both
leadership and mentorship is one of the root causes behind small market teams inabilities
to find success, but the good news is that this entire dilemma can be overcome, as the
Spurs have so illustriously proved over the past 15 plus seasons.
Gregg Popovich, the current Head Coach for the Spurs, and arguably one of the greatest
coaches in NBA history, has seen all of his championship success come since 1999, and
there is one major reason for that (aside from Michael Jordan retiring, of course):

Popovich has built a strong, effective organizational culture in San Antonio, that not only
focuses on winning, but focuses on winning the right way and doing so as a team.
Though this methodology appears rather simple, actually implementing a system
focused more on the team as a whole rather than the players that make it upinto the
NBA, which is known to be chalk full of high profile, high-maintenance players, is no
walk in the park. One of the major problems that coaches face when trying to establish a
teams culture are the actual players that make up the team, and their own personal views
of how the team should interact, play, and ultimately, win. The basic definition of
organizational culture has seven primary characteristics according to the textbook,
including outcome orientation, team orientation, stability and attention to detail, all of
which are relevant when assessing the culture inside an NBA team. With that being said,
a good coach is going to address and analyze each characteristic and maximize the value
every option could have on their team on a case-by-case basis, though are constantly
derailed by counter productive player values and influences.
Although I find this problem to be quite detrimental to a teams success, I do see a
solution that could work in overcoming the first aspect of the small-market curse,
beginning with an entire team reassessment, and possible overhaul, focusing directly on
the players and not upper level management, as so many organizations tend to do.
Though management plays a big role in the day-to-day workings of a team from a
business standpoint, the majority of the team culture and team chemistry that affects play
stems directly from player-coach and player-player interactions, which is quite unlike a
normal business. With that being said, the organizational culture that is created within
the team itself does act quite similar to a normal business. Implementing players whose

values do not align with that of the team usually end in team disputes and lack of
chemistry, but, on the other hand, players who either have aligning views or are more
open to conforming usually end up on high chemistry-high success teams. Likewise,
though most NBA teams have a series of coaches and trainers that make up the true
coaching core, the majority of the values that core encompasses usually stem from the
Head Coach, acting essentially as the general manager, and end up having a great affect
on the team as a whole. So when carrying out an entire team overhaul, it is absolutely
vital to begin with the people that have the biggest impact on culture, which are usually
the head coach and the teams most influential players.
With that in mind when attempting to reinvent a teams culture, the first thing that
Executives must assess is the Coachs effectiveness in unifying the team, and whether or
not any subcultures have arisen. One of the first major signs of a team lacking in
chemistry is the existence of counter productive sub-cliques, which ultimately bring on
their own subcultures. This is troubling for a team because the subcultures that arise tend
to end up conflicting with the core values the Coach is attempting to emphasize. That is
why I would first recommend a team to assess Head Coach and ensure his intended core
values follow a team-centered approach. After a suitable Head Coach is selected,
another major influence on the teams culture is the teams most talented, experienced,
and often times, opinionated players. Usually, the combination of these traits stem from a
teams best player, with Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers being a prime example,
but it is worth mentioning that one of his former teammates, Metta World Peace a.k.a
Ron Artest a.k.a The Pandas Friendii, has proved to be just as big an impact on team
culture and chemistry, though, not nearly as talented or successful a player. The point

here is that whether the culture stems from the best player or the most outlandish, each
team is going to be deeply affected by the most influential player/s on the court, and
whether the values that player has aligns with that of the teams core values or not, is
truly going to dictate the level of success the team has. When stability is among the most
important aspects of the culture you are attempting to shape, cracks or holes in the teams
core values are sure to be detrimental, which is why it is essential for the Head Coach to
ensure the teams most influential players agree with and support the outlined values he is
posing. If this cannot be done, the only remaining option is to begin searching for
possible trade scenarios involving players who do meet these criteria, but either way, they
must be met.
After addressing the problem of organizational culture, in order for the teams influential
players to find job satisfaction, the organization must find some post-season success. For
players in this position, who are usually high profile, well-known assets to the NBA,
winning championships seem to stand alone as the only aspirations. With that, if the core
values within the teams culture have proven to align between these highly influential
players and the Head Coach, I would recommend organizations focus directly on the job
satisfaction of these players and ensure that they are doing everything that they can to
help these players attain their goals. As it is worth mentioning, these highly influential
players are not easy to find, but by making knowledgeable draft decisions and seizing
potential beneficial trade scenarios, every single member of the NBA has been able to
roster at least one or two of these players every half decade, on average.
While many might attribute this inability to hold on to high profile players for the
long term, to their organizations financial incapacities, research has proven just the

opposite, as the 1983 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) effectively leveled the
financial playing field in the NBA by heavily fining Salary Cap violations, which
somewhat evenly distributed [the NBAs best players] throughout the league, (Levine,
1992). That 1983 CBA was analyzed, modified and eventually morphed in to the current
CBA that is in place today, though the overall intention has remained the same: to give
less fiscally privileged teams the same chance to compete as everyone else. As most
professionals would agree, nothing in the Finance world is going to be absolutely perfect,
thus, it is fair to say the continued agreements between the NBA and the NBA Players
Association (NBAPA) satisfy the minimum requirements for optimized financial equality.
The failure met by the less successful, and as statistics have proven, small market
teams, comes then as a result of othernon monetarydecisions, which in my opinion,
can be attributed to a failure to recognize OB affinities. In most situations, small market
teams have not only seen a lack of success, but also an inability to keep high profile
players satisfied, with examples ranging from Tracy McGrady in Toronto, in the late
1990s, to LeBron Jamess first stint in Cleveland during the mid 2000s. This inability,
in my opinion, stems from small market organizations lack of emphasis on ensuring job
satisfaction among the players in leadership or mentorship roles. Although players like
LeBron and Kobe come along every so often in which they are both the most talented and
best leaders on the team, in reality, most teams leaders emerge from the veterans inside
the locker roomthose with the most experience, and thus the most to teach. Where the
problem arises, then, comes from the organizations under valuing of players of this
nature, as they often times do not have nearly as much impact on the court as they do off,
giving them the appearance of depreciating assets.

In this situation, it is important to assess the true value of each player taking on a
leadership role in the organization before making any efforts to change personnel, but the
sad truth is that most teams do just the opposite, and make cuts as quickly as possible
once play begins to halter. While it is true that many of these cuts are made to cease
negative reactions in the locker roomsuch as decreased job performance, workplace
deviance, and ultimately, unwanted turnovermost managers are choosing to sacrifice
leadership for potential talent in the future, a true gamble in the executive world of the
NBA. This is why I would recommend focusing on the job satisfaction of the most
influential players on the team, and allow the proven leaders and mentors to thrive in an
off the court role, if necessary. Young, talented players are truly a dime a dozen in the
NBA these days, yet too many Coaches are overlooking the incomparable value of being
a team leader when making decisions based on age or productivity when assessing their
veterans. While it is not being asserted that neither players age nor productivity has any
affect on team success, as both play important roles, it is being asserted that endorsing the
idea of cutting players based on only these traits, and not assessing leadership qualities, is
one of the fundamental errors being made by small market teams. When the competition
big market teamshave the upper hand when it comes to luring players with proven
talent or leadership, in order to find any success in the NBA, these small market teams
must place great emphasis on the satisfaction of their already established leaders, or these
leaders are surely subject to fall right on to the free agent market, as they have over the
past 30 plus years.
Finally, after the culture has been corrected, and the leaders have been properly
identified, the final step I would recommend small market organizations take is applying

this culture and these leaders wisdom to the younger, usually recently drafted, players
and continuously emphasizing the importance in both. As the Philadelphia 76ers have so
dreadfully proven this season, a lack of mentorship can truly be detrimental to a teams
ability to win with a young core full of 19, 20, and 21 year old men. While the team is
clearly not lacking in talent, with multiple lottery picks, plenty of size and even a solid
point guard, the 76ers started the season 1-19among the worst starts in NBA history
and have had plenty of off the court drama as well including last years number 3 overall
pick, 19-year-old Jahlil Okafor, getting caught fighting on camera by TMZ outside of a
nightclub following a game in Boston. This led to an investigation by local police, plenty
of negative media coverage and a two game suspension handed out by management.
The problem here is not that Okafor is a bad kid, as any of his previous or current
coaches, teammates, or mentors can attest to, but rather, as former 76er, and current TV
analyst, Chris Webber put it: a lack of leadership inside the Philadelphia locker room is
truly to blame for this mistake.iii Though Philadelphia isnt considered a small market
team, the point remains the same as this is a very common problem amongst small market
organizations: without proper leadership and mentorship in a locker room, no matter how
level headed or talented a young player is, he is bound to make mistakes in his first few
years in the NBA, whether it be on or off the court. On the other hand, though, the
presence of veteran players in leadership rolls will almost certainly minimize these
distractions, and help young players, like Jahlil Okafor, to learn, make better decisions
and grow into future leaders of the NBA. The point being posed here is that having
veteran players in leadership or mentorship roles is absolutely crucial to any small market
team attempting to harvest and grow young talent. But, without a proper organizational

culture that emphasizes winning as a team, franchises are not going to find even remedial
success, which will only lead to decreased job satisfaction among influential players,
ending in unwanted turnover of these players, and ultimately an absence of potential
mentors. This absence, as proven by this years 76er team, can, not only transmit into on
the court problems, but off the court problems as well, both of which have great impact
on team chemistry. Though it is not unheard of for young players to burst into the NBA
and immediately take on, and thrive in, leadership roles, the majority of cases follow just
the opposite, which is why I would recommend teams accentuate players leadership roles
inside the locker room. This will not only minimize distractions, like the one being faced
in Philadelphia, but it will also maximize an organizations potential as there will be less
time spent on rookie mistakes off the court, and more time spent perfecting strategy on
the court.
In summary, this paper has outlined the major problem facing small market teams
in the NBA. To begin, a lack of well-defined, strong, and sensible organizational culture
is killing organizations abilities to succeed, before ever reaching the court. For this, I
have recommended implementing a team-oriented, winning-emphasized organizational
culture to overhaul and eliminate any subcultures or opposing team members. From
there, this absence of organizational culture is leading to a deficiency of influential and
mentor-ready players, which I have recommended countering with increased focus on job
satisfaction of said players. By eliminating conflicting organizational culture, this
tendency for highly influential players to jump ship in the off season can be minimized,
allowing the Head Coach to concentrate on the true needs of these players on the court,
while maximizing potential job contentment. This will ultimately address the problem of

the non-existence of mentors and leaders on young, small market teams, by solidifying
the roles of these players. As this essay has proven, the presence of leadership is
absolutely imperative to a teams potential to succeed, and has an exponentially
decreasing effect when absent. All in all, it is the secession of implementing a strong
organizational culture, followed by emphasizing the importance of job satisfaction
amongst high influence players, that will lead to continued presence of mentors in
organizations, thus maximizing the potential success of small market NBA teams. As the
Association has quickly grown into a monetary-fueled sports behemoth over the past four
decades, those organizations that are not as economically blessed must do any and all
they can to overcome the small market curse.

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