Recently, I’ve been having a conversation with a Fanspo user by the name of ozamoramerino regarding my Jimmy Butler trade to the Lakers. He mentioned that “in the last years not a single team with 3 stars have won” and it made me wonder if the Big Three era is truly over. The past few seasons have indeed resulted in NBA champions without all-star trios. In 2023, the Nuggets won with Jokic and no other All-Stars. The Warriors won with Stephen Curry as the only true superstar on the team in 2022. In 2021, 2020, and 2019, the Bucks, Lakers, and Raptors won championships. None of these teams had three or more All-Stars. However, since 2019, there have been a variety of teams with three star-to-superstar players who have not won the championship. Taking a look at these teams, we can see that they have all fallen victim to their circumstances, and there is not enough evidence behind the prevailing narrative that the Big Three Era is over. Every team with loads of all stars that failed had a different reason other than too much talent that caused their inevitable failure.
Los Angeles Clippers (2019-present)
The Clippers have had Kawhi Leonard and Paul George for five seasons now and not made a single Finals appearance. For parts of this tenure, they have also had such stars as James Harden and Russell Westbrook. However, the Clippers have consistently been injured. Between Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, the Clippers have had at least one injured All-Star for what feels like the majority of the current era. Leonard missed an entire season with an ACL tear, and the duo has played just 181 games together in five seasons. The team has gone 124-57 in these games, winning over 68% of the time. They have also fallen victim to some iconic playoff performers such as Luka Doncic and Jamal Murray. This “superteam” is not a failure from lack of talent but instead because they are injured more often than not.
Brooklyn Nets (2019-2023)
The Brooklyn Nets signed Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in the 2019 offseason in the hopes that after Durant recovered from injury, the team would win championships. Kevin Durant missed the entire 2019-2020 season with a torn Achilles, which was expected when he was signed. Irving also missed a lot of games that season. In the 2020 bubble playoffs, the team was a second-round exit, losing to the Bucks in a Giannis Antetokounmpo MVP season. The Nets traded for James Harden in 2021 and the team was injury plagued. They would have made the Conference Finals (and almost certainly defeated the Hawks and Suns en route to winning a championship) had Durant’s foot been one inch shorter. Harden only played 35 games with Irving and even less with both Irving and Durant. The team would soon trade Harden for Ben Simmons, who barely played, at the 2022 trade deadline. After this, they would trade Durant and Irving at the 2023 trade deadline, signaling the end of the failed Nets superteam.
Los Angeles Lakers (2021-2023)
One year removed from a title in 2020, the Lakers traded pieces including Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Kyle Kuzma to the Wizards in exchange for Russell Westbrook. This move created a big three of Westbrook, LeBron James, and Anthony Davis. The fit was awful; both Westbrook and James needed to have the ball in their hands to be successful, and neither could take a back seat. This led to conflict and poor chemistry within the team. The other problem with the Lakers during this time was a lack of depth; they had lost several key players from the championship and didn't replace them with competent roleplayers. This team failed not because of high talent but instead because of an absence of a competent supporting cast, and the poor construction of the Big Three.
Phoenix Suns (2023-present)
After the Suns traded for Kevin Durant at the 2023 trade deadline, they seemed destined for the championship in the near future. We are two postseasons into the experiment with Durant and Devin Booker, and the furthest they have made it is a second-round exit in 2023 to the eventual champion Denver Nuggets. The team lost Chris Paul in the 2023 series against the Nuggets and the lack of a point guard became a theme for the Suns. Paul was traded in the off-season for Bradley Beal to form the big three with Booker and Durant. This created a backcourt of two shooting guards, Beal and Booker, who had no business running the point. DeAndre Ayton would soon be traded for Jusuf Nurkic and the depth was gone from Phoenix. The team lost to a well-constructed Timberwolves team in 2024 because they couldn’t guard Anthony Edwards and players like Naz Reid and Karl-Anthony Towns outclassed the extremely thin frontcourt in Phoenix, where a consistent, solid starting power forward was never found on the roster. Like the Westbrook Lakers, the Suns failed not because of the three stars being together, but the poor fit and lack of depth on the team.
No team recently has failed because they have too much talent. This argument is flawed and all teams with a big three recently have been poorly constructed or suffered from injuries. I believe we will see a big three dominate at some point this decade, and prove my point.
