NBA Coastal Elites: The Geography of Basketball Success

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are all NBA superstars destined to leave smaller market teams for Brooklyn, L.A. or Miami? Across the league, high-performing players are gravitating to coastal teams and bigger markets. The trend’s been building for years, increasingly splitting the league into teams that “have” or “have not.” Kirk Goldsberry plots the map and salary data, why this trend is bad for the NBA, and what strategies could turn things around. Then, as part of ESPN’s Women’s History Month celebration, hear from Lisa Salters’ sit-down with NFL referee Sarah Thomas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey Pablo, imagine this.
0:10.0	It's the summer of 2021 and it's the NBA Finals, and we just turn on game one, and it is the Nets versus the Lakers.
0:19.0	I am already viscerally excited for this future.
0:25.1	Kirk Goldsbury is an NBA analyst for ESPN,
0:28.5	a New York Times bestselling author,
0:30.7	and a professor at the University of Texas.
0:34.8	Imagine the star power here, Bamba.
0:41.1	We have James Harden running a pick and roll with Kevin Durant,
0:43.9	Kyrie Irving on the weak side, Blake Griffin,
0:46.9	waiting for a lob, D'Andre Jordan, too.
0:52.4	And then on the Lakers, of course, you have the best player of our generation LeBron James teaming up with another superstar
0:55.1	Anthony Davis and it's these jam-packed games
0:58.6	full of superstars.
1:01.2	Those players I just named are not just awesome to watch.
1:04.7	They also have an enormous influence
1:06.8	on which teams are winning and losing those finals.
1:09.7	This is a crazy moment in the NBA.
1:12.9	It seems like all the best players are convening in a few super cities like Los Angeles and New York.
1:20.3	And the question is, is this sport, the NBA is like Hollywood, a star-driven business.
1:40.3	A realistic contender now needs two big names on its movie poster, probably even three.
1:49.3	But in this age of player empowerment where stars have more say than ever over where they
1:54.1	want to work, a lot of teams are worried, worried about weather geography really is their destiny and where that leads.
	...

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