The NBA's parity era is officially here.
When the postseason's conference finals begin Tuesday night, four different title droughts are on the line — meaning one of them is guaranteed to come to an end next month when the NBA Finals wrap.
Three of the teams remaining in the playoffs — the Indiana Pacers, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Minnesota Timberwolves — have never won a title in their current hometowns. And the fourth team — the New York Knicks — haven't taken home a championship in more than half a century.
The New York Knicks have not taken the title since 1973, and it's been more than 25 years since they reached the Finals. Oklahoma City hasn't tasted the title series since 2012 — and if you count the achievements of the Seattle SuperSonics before the team moved to Oklahoma in 2008, then the Thunder are the most recent remaining franchise to win it all, with a title in 1979.
The Pacers were a powerhouse in the American Basketball Association in the early 1970s but haven't won a ring since joining the NBA. The Timberwolves, founded in 1989, have never reached the Finals.
"It's one of the most wide open years that we've seen," Indiana head coach Rick Carlisle said after the Pacers' series-clinching win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. "We've got to look at this thing as — just being very opportunistic."
The NBA has long struggled with parity. Since the 1980s, one dynasty has often simply given way to another — from the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers to the Chicago Bulls to the Lakers again to the Miami Heat to the Golden State Warriors. In total, 23 of the NBA's 78 champions have been back-to-back winners. Another 14 teams won a title a year after losing in the Finals.
But those numbers have plateaued since 2019, when the Toronto Raptors unseated the Golden State Warriors.
Pascal Siakam, a 31-year-old forward with the Pacers, got a taste of glory that year. That was his third season in the NBA, and Siakam assumed he'd reach the Finals again with the Raptors, he recalled earlier this month. But the Raptors weren't able to repeat, and he was traded to the Pacers last year.
"I can sometimes sound like I'm trying to kill the party, where everyone wants to be excited and I'm just like, 'Man, I want more,'" Siakam said. "We have a real opportunity, and we can't take it for granted."
Many of the remaining players are fresh faces, too. This is a Conference Finals round with no Steph Curry, no LeBron James, no Kevin Durant, no Anthony Davis or Russell Westbrook or James Harden.
Instead, the four teams are fronted by a younger generation of superstars: 28-year-old Jalen Brunson (New York), 26-year-old Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Oklahoma City), 25-year-old Tyrese Haliburton (Indiana) and 23-year-old Anthony Edwards (Minnesota).
Gilgeous-Alexander was still in high school when the Thunder last reached the Conference Finals. Ahead of last Sunday's series-deciding Game 7 against Denver, he said afterward that the pressure had started to feel intense.
"I turned my phone off, honestly. I wanted to, as best as I could, block out all the noise," Gilgeous-Alexander said after the Thunder's clinching win over Denver. "The nerves sat in my stomach for the two days [off]."
The Thunder and Timberwolves tip off for Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals on Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. ET. On Wednesday, the Pacers and the Knicks open the Eastern Conference Finals. The winners of each best-of-seven series will advance to the NBA Finals, which begin June 5.
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