Last night, Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert sent an email to NBA Commissioner David Stern asking if 25 of the teams should just be re-named the Washington Generals. The insinuation was that there is a bias towards a select-few big market teams.
Well, Gilbert should take a look at the chart below. During the NBA's previous CBA (2005-06 through 2010-11), there was no correlation between winning and market size (R^2 = 0.0001).
And part of this chart is the success of Gilbert's own Cavs teams. While the system may funnel star players to big markets later in their careers, the system also allows a team in Cleveland to have LeBron James for seven years.
Market size data is based on households with televisions. Data via SportsTVJobs.com. The Nets (not clear which market should be used) and Raptors (only U.S. TV markets were available) were excluded from this study.
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