The OKC Thunder won their first NBA championship after a resilient win against the Indiana Pacers in the NBA Finals. Thunder won Game 7 with the final score 103-91. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was awarded the Bill Russell Finals MVP Award after averaging 30.3 points, 5.6 assists, and 4.6 rebounds in the series at a young age of 26.
Some analysts even claimed that this could be the beginning of a dynasty era for a young team like the Thunder. But some experts seemed off about a small-market team winning the NBA championship. Among them was Gilbert Arenas, who seemed to make a harsh prediction about the Thunder’s future. In a conversation with Dan Patrick, Arenas claimed that the Thunder’s championship run will be forgotten in a decade.
“Let’s just be honest. When it comes to small-market teams, we don’t remember much about them. We don’t really talk about the Toronto championship, we don’t talk about the Bucks-Giannis championship. With this one, the only memorable thing was the Hali game-winner in Game 1. Other than that, there was nothing really in this Finals that makes you say, ‘Oh my god, this was the great Finals.’”
It seems Gilbert Arenas is biased against small-market teams. Earlier in the series as well, he went on the record to say the Pacers winning the championship would be bad for the NBA. Following the ‘most memorable’ moment of these Finals, Arenas went on the record and antagonized the Pacers fans.
“If you’re Indiana, are you just happy you got here?” Arenas said. “I think them being here does f**k them up, because now I think the Indiana fanbase actually thinks they’re a legit championship team and they’re going to expect this from them. And I don’t think they know reality.”
Okay, let’s talk facts. Agreed that neither of the teams had a superstar face that had been at this level before. But that just goes to show how, over time, parity has indeed materialized in the NBA and is not just dominated by big market teams.
According to SportsPro, the first six games of the NBA Finals averaged 9.91 million viewers, the least watched NBA Finals series since the Bucks faced the Suns right after COVID in 2021. But the bright sign was that this was the first time since 2016 that a series went to Game 7 in the Finals, which drew the most viewership in any NBA Finals game since 2019. While the average viewership was higher in 2022, single-game viewership-wise, this was the most-watched game in an NBA Finals since the Raptors beat the Warriors in 2019.
From Larry Bird and Magic Johnson to Stephen Curry and LeBron James, the NBA Finals have historically been carried and proliferated on the backs of epic rivalries that gave generations of basketball fans something to look forward to every year. This just marks the advent of the new generation of superstars in the NBA and the exit of big names like LeBron James and Stephen Curry.
Now, if next season, the Thunder and Pacers manage to reach the Finals once again, I could bet currency on the fact that the average viewership will be higher, because now there will be history in this matchup. It has nothing to do with small-market or big-market teams per se.
