The NBA Has a Star Problem

NEW YORK – If you tuned into the thrilling Game 1 of the National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals on June 5, you may have found yourself wondering: Who are these guys?

There’s no LeBron James, no Stephen Curry. No Los Angeles Lakers, no New York Knicks, nor even any Boston Celtics. Neither of the teams – the Indiana Pacers or the Oklahoma City Thunder – had been in the NBA Finals for more than a decade. To the average sports fan, their rosters are largely unknown.

“I’m not sure I completely buy into the premise of your question,” Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, said when asked about a Finals with limited star power. “I think Shai is an enormous star.”

He was referring to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who won the NBA’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) this season after leading the league in scoring and helping drive the Thunder to 68 wins, the most in franchise history. Silver also mentioned Tyrese Haliburton, the Pacers guard with a penchant for late-game heroics.

But even Silver acknowledged those players are lesser known outside basketball fandom than the league’s biggest stars. In some ways, that’s a product of what the league wants – for all of its teams, no matter how small the market, to have a chance at making the Finals. But that change also conflicts with one of its major tenets – that star power sells.

Stars have fuelled the NBA since the 1980s. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson drove its stampede into the popular consciousness, and then Michael Jordan globalised the game. Stars drive viewership and interest, which in turn drive up the price of media rights deals, cash from sponsors, ticket sales and team valuations.

For the past decade, the league’s ecosystem has revolved around James and Curry. James is now