When you’re putting together a championship contender, one rule is paramount — get the best talent you possibly can. You’ll be facing off against the best possible rosters your opponents can assemble, so it’s only logical that you should pack your own team full of stars. Sometimes, the stars align and you can even stack your roster with multiple Hall of Famers, thereby guaranteeing you a title.
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Right?
If it makes Nets fans feel any better, it’s not even close to the first time a superteam has failed to win a title. Here are a few examples since the turn of the century.
Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal alone were a combination to be feared, but the Lakers decided to add Karl Malone and Gary Payton to further overwhelm other teams. It wasn’t a bad idea — the team finished first in the Pacific Division and third overall in the Western Conference and cruised through the playoffs, going 12-5 in the first three rounds. Unfortunately, the Lakers met up with a defensive juggernaut in the Detroit Pistons and lost 4-1 in the NBA Finals. Payton would be traded to the Boston Celtics and Malone would retire, making this superteam one-and-done.
The modern Nets, of course, are not the first instance of Durant and Harden being on a team that didn’t quite make it. That dubious honor belongs to the Thunder, who shortly after moving to Oklahoma City drafted Harden to play alongside Durant and Russell Westbrook. The trio immediately began to dominate, and the Thunder improved every year until they made the NBA Finals in 2011-12. That series started off well, with the Thunder defeating the Heat at home in Game 1, but they lost four in a row after that. Harden was traded in the offseason after the team was unable to sign him to an extension.
One pitching ace is pretty great, but what happens when you have four? The Phillies were rocking a rotation of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels, not to mention Ryan Howard and Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins in the lineup. That’s good for 102 wins and a league-lowest 529 runs allowed. They faced off against the St. Louis Cardinals in the division series, and while they ran out to a 2-1 lead in the first three games, St. Louis rallied back to force a Game 5. Skip Schumacher knocked in a run in the first inning against Halladay, and Chris Carpenter pitched a three-hit shutout. The Cardinals would end up winning the World Series.
2011-17 Los Angeles Clippers
One of the most exciting teams in NBA history, the Lob City Clippers looked to use their high-flying style of basketball to bring a non-Lakers title to Los Angeles. The acquisition of Chris Paul meant that Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan would have plenty of alley-oop opportunities — just ask poor Brandon Knight after Jordan threw down an all-time poster dunk on him. The Clippers were a very good team during Paul’s tenure, but fell apart in the playoffs — Lob City never advanced past the semifinals.
