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The Opening Tip

• A seventh team in seven years is going to win the NBA Finals 

• Last time the Thunder were here … 

• Mat Ishbia has chronic New Owner Syndrome

Tonight’s playoff game

1. It’s an equal opportunity league now

Adam Silver’s dream of parity in 11 words: The Thunder and Pacers are playing in the NBA Finals tonight. 

Or, anyone can win the Finals in Adam Silver’s NBA. Even the teams with the 12th and 26th highest payrolls. 

A clear reaction to Cavs-Warriors pts. 1, 2, 3 and 4 -- the last two featuring Kevin Durant -- the league has gone to work since 2018 on breaking up superteams via incentives for homegrown superstars to stay home and a new collective bargaining agreement, implemented last offseason, which kneecaps great teams trying to hoard depth. 

(The ‘second apron’ -- basically a payroll threshold which acts as a hard cap once you hit it -- has broken up the Nuggets’ 2023 team and will break up the Celtics’ 2024 team. Soon, it will force the Thunder to move on from tertiary but important players like Lu Dort and Alex Caruso.)

The result: Whoever wins this Finals will be the seventh different champion in seven years. That’s never happened before. 

That list includes: The Raptors (first-time champs), the Bucks (first in 50 years) and the Nuggets (first-time champs). The Pacers have never won in the NBA and the Thunder have won only once, as the Sonics in 1979. 

The league’s shift from super teams and dynasties has been great for small markets, and not-so-great for TV ratings discourse. 

[READ: Don't worry about NBA Finals TV ratings. Appreciate Pacers-Thunder for what it is.]

2. Daily GIF: Last time OKC was in the Finals …

June 12, 2012: Kevin Durant drops 36 and the Thunder beat the Heat in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Tonight could be OKC’s first Finals win since.

[WATCH: 2012 NBA Finals Game 1 highlights]

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3. Trivia

4. This guy is not a good NBA owner

Within a day of becoming owner of the Phoenix Suns, Mat Ishbia traded everything, even the stuff that was bolted down, for Kevin Durant. 

The Suns have won one playoff series since. They’ve been swept in another. They didn’t make the playoffs this year and they just hired their third coach in three years. 

The initial overpay for KD began an ongoing sunken cost fallacy, which included all those coach firings and this awful trade for Bradley Beal. 

TLDR: Ishbia, a billionaire by inheritance, has been a bad NBA owner who can’t leave basketball decisions to his front office.   

He thinks he hasn’t been hands on enough, though. 

Via reporting from GoPHNX.com yesterday:

Sorry, Suns fans.

Quick hits

• Look at the numbers on the extension SGA is about to sign. 

• The NBA is changing the ASG format to USA vs. World. 

• Dan Hurley isn’t interested in the Knicks job. 

• The current Finals booth (Doris Burke, Richard Jefferson, Mike Breen) could look different next year. 

• Thibs was fired after meetings with ‘a select few’ Knicks players. 

• Adam Silver thinks Europe is ahead of America in player development.

Reads + Pods

• How the Gen Z takeover is changing the NBA [The Ringer]

• The cool athlete is no longer in production [Defector]

• The Paul George trade is about to deliver an NBA title [ESPN]

That's the buzzer.
Thanks for reading the 397th edition of The Grip.