Pacers and Thunder NBA Finals is better than it’s ‘small-market’ billing
USA TODAY Sports’ Jeff Zillgitt breaks down the star-studded NBA Finals between the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder.
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OKLAHOMA CITY — The email hit my inbox with the subject line “Will viewers watch Pacers-Thunder?”
The headline in the newsletter from Front Office Sports: “History shows Pacers vs. Thunder may draw record-low ratings.”
It’s not the first time and won’t be the last time that TV ratings accompany a discussion of this season’s NBA Finals between Indiana and Oklahoma City.
The small-market matchup has generated this idea that there isn’t or won’t be interest. The NBA biosphere seems to thrive on debate and criticism with an emphasis on how some aspect of the game isn’t good enough and can be better.
The reflexive contempt for teams not from the coasts or bigger markets is odd. It’s not my job to sell this series. That’s on the NBA and its TV partner, Disney’s ABC, which is televising the Finals, with Game 1 on Thursday, June 5, at 8:30 p.m. ET.
There are factors outside of the NBA and ABC’s control. A short, lopsided and uncompetitive series can have an impact regardless of the teams playing.
But this is a series that features this season’s MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Thunder, three All-Stars in Gilgeous-Alexander, teammate Jalen Williams and Indiana’s Pascal Siakam. Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton was an All-Star in 2023 and 2024 and is playing like an All-Star in the playoffs.
Both teams are deep, play hard offensively and defensively and have tremendous coaches. Neither spent outlandishly, incurring millions in luxury taxes. In fact, neither will pay a luxury tax this season.
They emerged as the two best teams in the league ‒ rosters assembled with a savvy eye on making the parts fit. The matchup should be celebrated and appreciated.
The Pacers and Thunder are on the cutting edge of today’s NBA. They play pressure defense, try to dictate a fast pace and have the versatility to go 10-deep.
It’s exactly what fans of basketball should want. The NBA is in an era that fans should embrace. It’s not the same teams and same players season after season. It’s not the teams with the deepest pockets getting to the Finals all the time. Young, talented players are exposed to a wider audience.
The Thunder have been the best team in the NBA all season and combining regular-season and playoff victories, they have won 80 games in 2024-25. Since Jan. 1, the Pacers have been one of the best teams in the league.
The two fan bases are unique given the teams’ locations and relationships to the communities. The Thunder are the only major pro sports team in the city, and basketball’s hallowed place in the heart of Indiana culture is well known.
“I understand that there would be concern for how many people would watch because they’re smaller markets,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “But if we’re celebrating the game and we’re putting the game above all, which is one of the things that Adam Silver said when he became commissioner, then it really shouldn’t matter. …
“So I know that we’re going to do our very best to represent our city, our state at the best possible level. Thunder will do the same. This really hopefully is about the quality of the games. We got our work cut out for us there.”
If that’s not compelling enough to get your interest, that’s a you problem as much as anything. The Venn diagram of people who complain about the same teams and players getting to the Finals and complain about small-market teams in the Finals is probably close to a single circle.
For the seventh consecutive season, the NBA will have a different champion, and this is the sixth consecutive Finals without a team that was in the Finals the previous season.
This parity is not the result of one thing, but the NBA’s collective-bargaining agreement with the players was designed to foster competitive balance. The CBA has teeth to it – mechanisms that make it more difficult for deep-pocketed teams to stack rosters. Those mechanisms are financially punitive and limit roster additions because of salary cap restrictions.
In today’s NBA, the Golden State Warriors would not have been able to add Kevin Durant to a roster with Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green – without parting ways with Thompson or Green.
Ahead of the 2023 CBA, the Boston Celtics built a roster featuring Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday, Derrick White and Kristaps Porzingis, and they are projected to pay nearly $240 million in luxury taxes and $230 million in salary – that’s approaching nearly half a billion dollars, and that’s why there is much discussion about the Celtics shedding salary and reducing their financial burden ahead of next season.
In theory and practice, it leads to a greater distribution among more teams. This is what NBA owners – as a collective – wanted when they agreed to the CBA. It will be interesting to hear what Silver says about this Finals matchup when he meets with the media before Game 1.
Regardless of ratings, the NBA has capitalized on multi-year TV deals. The NBA is wrapping up a nine-year, $24 billion deal, and the NBA embarks on a new TV deal next season that includes Amazon and NBC in addition to ESPN/ABC that is worth nearly $76 billion over 11 years.
Silver has been agnostic on the topic of big-market teams vs. small-market teams winning titles.
“As long as we can create something close to a level playing field in terms of the tools available to teams to compete, I’m absolutely fine with dynasties and I’m fine with new teams emerging every year,” Silver said nearly a year ago. “What the fans want to see is great competition. And for fans of whatever team they’re rooting for, they want to believe that their team, regardless of the size of the market or the depth of the pockets of ownership, are in a position to compete in the same way the 29 other teams are.”
You can’t force anyone to watch. Maybe it’s a great Finals, maybe it’s not. But dismissing the series before it begins means missing out on watching teams who envisioned how to win in today’s NBA and made it happen.
Follow NBA columnist Jeff Zillgitt on social media @JeffZillgitt
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