The NBA is healthier and more fun than ever in 2022

The NBA has never been better.

The NBA is a global league, but there’s no denying it’s had a limited scope. A few stars and great teams here and there in big markets. The occasional small town heartland enclave, San Antonio, inspires feverish fandom and joy, but that experience was otherwise a rarity.

Not everyone got in on the fun. Not everyone saw what NBA basketball could be about at its peak. It would be the league of Magic/Larry/Isaiah, the league of Jordan/Ewing/Miller, or the league of LeBron/Kobe/Duncan, and no one else truly mattered. No one else had a relevant stake in the game.

The times, they are a-changin’. Now that we sit at the 2022 All-Star break, it’s high time we appreciate where the league stands today:

One of the best places it’s resided in decades.

If I told you on Day 1 of this season that LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Kawhi Leonard would all either be irrelevant, second (or third) fiddle to more interesting stories or out of the picture altogether, and the NBA was still humming along, without a care in the world–would you believe me? No, you’d have written me off. You might have even laughed in my face. But it’s the truth. The cold, hard, but delightful truth.

From coast to coast, seemingly every franchise has a delightful or dynamic centerpiece of a star.

In the West alone, there’s Warriors 2.0 with a reinvented Steph and Klay Thompson. A human triple-double machine Nikola Jokic in Denver’s mountains. The blistering Suns led by classic two-guard Devin Booker in Phoenix. The Grizzlies, and Ja Morant, are coming out of their hibernation in Memphis. Sweet, melodic Jazz spurred by Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert in Utah.

Veer East and the sport’s biggest star, Giannis Antetokounmpo, flashes a toothy grin at you every night while he makes Milwaukee — the great city of Milwaukee — an NBA stronghold. In Philadelphia, Joel Embiid constantly invokes the ghost of Wilt Chamberlain and the example of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with unfiltered dominance. The Heat shine with Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, making the golden era of the early 2000s and early 2010s distant memories. Even Chicago and Cleveland, otherwise regularly frozen in place during the winter, are enjoying renaissances thanks to fun young squads led by DeMar DeRozan and Darius Garland, respectively.

Take titan matchups like Giannis vs. Embiid, for example.

That sort of game used to be the only appointment viewing the league would have only every couple of weeks. Now it’s a shared experience, whether your team is a title contender or not.

Venture outside of the relevant playoff picture, and the cavalry doesn’t stop. Luka Doncic is carving a path toward the most outstanding foreign player ever in North Texas already.  LaMelo Ball, looking more like a veteran than a little brother in Charlotte. Trae Young is putting himself in the legendary company of all-time point guards in Atlanta. Anthony Edwards slashing and dashing in Minnesota. Damian Lillard running and gunning in Portland. Dejounte Murray finding his stroke in San Antonio.

It seems everyone has something to look forward to. Everyone has someone they can refer to affectionately on a first-name basis as someone that brings them harmless joy outside of the 9-to-5 grind.

In terms of title odds over at Tipico Sportsbook, at least five teams (the Suns at +425, Warriors at +480, Bucks at +600, 76ers at +700, and Heat at +1200) have legitimate championship aspirations. You could easily argue and throw Memphis, Denver, and Chicago into the mix, and few would bat an eyelash.

Maybe it’s a sign of the times and being constantly connected to every happening, but I don’t ever remember the NBA ever being this healthy. I don’t remember more than two or three players and teams mattering in the grand scheme of things. It seems like every night brings about some sort of remarkable individual achievement — a 40-burger, an exemplary shooting performance, a defensive masterclass, incomprehensible skill off the dribble — that would’ve been hard to envision even half a decade ago.

The playoffs this spring, as a result? A true crapshoot.

The race to the title? A dead heat.

Basketball is the ultimate game of grace. It demands on-the-fly creativity and adaptability to the moment. Personality and little friendly trash talk are baselines of expectations thrown in. Its drama and melodrama of the highest order.

We are so lucky to have everyone finally experience this wonderful mix that the NBA can offer. The global league is finally a true global league. It’s about time.

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