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Teams with superstars generally win in the NBA, but you might not realize just how few exceptions there are to that rule. Prior to this year, 31 of the past 33 NBA champions had a current or former MVP on the roster.
Since the MVP award was first given out, 65 of the 67 NBA Finals featured a player who had won it. The two outliers: 1977, which had ABA MVP Julius Erving, and 1990, which had the previous year’s Finals MVP Joe Dumars.
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By that criterion, the 2024 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks will be the first in league history without a “proven” superstar. Jayson Tatum has only finished as high as fourth in MVP voting, while Luka Doncic received the third-most votes this season.
If we include off-court indicators of stardom into the analysis, then this year’s title series isn’t unique, but it’s still far from the norm. The highest-paid player in the Finals is Doncic, whose $52 million in earnings this season from both salary and endorsements lands him at No. 14 on the list. The 2023 NBA Finals also didn’t feature anyone in the top 10, since Nikola Jokic’s sponsorship deals don’t quite stack up to what you’d expect from a three-time MVP. But you have to go all the way back to 2005 to find another Finals with no representation among the league’s 10 highest-paid players.
Using Instagram followers as a proxy for fame, this series does have a household name in Kyrie Irving, one of only four NBA players with at least 20 million followers on the platform, as well as Doncic, who ranks 15th. But the Celtics’ personalities have yet to catch on with the masses, as Tatum (No. 19), Jaylen Brown (No. 30) and Kristaps Porziņģis (No. 45) trail guys like LeBron James and Stephen Curry by an order of magnitude.
For better or for worse, this is not exactly a star-studded NBA Finals, and that’s been in keeping with the playoffs in general. James lost in the first round, Kevin Durant was swept, Curry missed the postseason entirely, Kawhi Leonard suited up for two games, and Giannis Antetokounmpo was sidelined with an injury.
TV ratings indicate that fans miss…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/2024-nba-finals-first-without-095500195.html
Author : Sportico
Publish date : 2024-06-06 09:55:00
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