No one is watching NBA basketball anymore, but an emerging dynasty could fix this problem.

Since the league’s inception, the NBA has relied on the success of large-market teams and dynasties, whether fans and the league are willing to admit it. The NBA has lost an alarming 25% of its viewers in the last decade.

The NBA has seen a dramatic shift toward parity over the last decade, making the idea of dominant “big markets” and dynasties a fleeting memory of the past. Since 2018, the league hasn’t had a back-to-back champion, and there hasn’t been a repeat champion since 2019.

Theoretically, this is ideal for the nature of the game, and one would assume the league would be flourishing, with steady increases in viewership. Anyone’s favorite team can win!

Unfortunately, this idea of parity has had the exact opposite effect on the league’s popularity. Since 2015, the league has experienced a consistent decline in popularity.

There is one leading cause of this decline: the death of big markets and dynasties.

Since its conception, the NBA has had a handful of teams that have had disproportionate success and, in turn, disproportionate influence within the league. For instance, the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics have won nearly 50% of all championships since the 1947 season.

These teams were the backbone and heart of the early NBA; the entire league ran through them. Fans became accustomed to them just being the best. These big markets always had the best aggregations of talent regardless of how other teams played their cards.

For example, in the early 1970s, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was far and away the best player in basketball. He had just come off of 3 MVPs and 2 Finals MVPs in 4 years. In 1975, the year after the Lakers’ previous superstar, Jerry West, retired, Abdul-Jabbar requested a trade from the Milwaukee Bucks to the Lakers, renewing the cycle of stardom in Los Angeles.

This bipartisan dominance continued until the 1990s, when a new team, the Chicago Bulls, stole the crown. The Bulls, led by charismatic icon Michael Jordan, took the league by storm in 1991, dethroning Los Angeles’s prince of the ’80s, Magic Johnson, and never looked back.

Over the next decade, Jordan became the most recognizable athlete in the world. His brand and Nike sneakers became universally recognized even outside of basketball. According to Fortune.com, the NBA’s total revenue grew from $165 million in Jordan’s rookie year (1984) to $2.75 billion when he retired in 1998, a phenomenon known as the “Jordan effect.” Experts estimate Jordan himself generated upward of $3.6 billion by the time he retired (a figure that could even be far greater now, 27 years later).

Jordan was the NBA.

Since Jordan’s retirement, however, the league has not seen a player or team stuff the ratings like Jordan did. Although the NBA’s on-court product has improved and the league has seen other stars such as LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, and Steph Curry thrive, the league still hasn’t found its footing.

James is often pitted in debate against Jordan as the greatest player of all time. However, James won championships with three different teams. Fans never got to associate James with one team throughout his prime, like they did with Jordan.

James never built a dynasty.

Regardless, as James’s illustrious career wanes, and the league’s TV ratings continue to plummet, the NBA is still in a desperate search, not only for the next face of its league, but also for its next dynasty.

The San Antonio Spurs may be the answer to that problem.

Although San Antonio is a small market, the Spurs have their hands on the greatest prospect of all time: Victor Wembanyama. Wembanyama is 7’4 with the skills and fluid movement of a guard, while still being completely dominant on the interior.

By the end of his rookie year, Wembanyama was already considered a top-20 player, and by the end of his second year, a top-10 player. Now, as his third season starts, Wembanyama already looks like the best player in the entire NBA.

Many experts have even higher aspirations, claiming Wembanyama may go down as one of the greatest players ever, health permitting.

Though the Spurs have conquered the most challenging part of starting a dynasty—finding the nucleus—they still face two main hurdles, including building the team around Wembanyama and also marketing him as the face of the league.

First, the team has to develop a competent roster around its star. If the Spurs don’t want to end up like the 2000s Cleveland Cavaliers—a good but not great team that wasted the early years of LeBron James’s career—they have to start now.

So far, the Spurs are on the right track.

Last season, they acquired all-star DeAaron Fox at the trade deadline. Fox is a swift and shifty guard who’s almost unstoppable getting to the rim because of his blazing speed. Fox’s playstyle complements Wembanyama’s perfectly. Fox thrives with the ball in his hand, but can also be scaled down and play off the ball.

The second key piece for the Spurs is rookie Dylan Harper. Harper, the second overall pick in last year’s draft, is a 6’6 “combo guard who, like Fox, is almost unstoppable getting to the rim. Harper’s offensive game is built on craft and finesse rather than raw athleticism, drawing eerie comparisons to superstars Jalen Brunson and Cade Cunningham.

“You draft Harper to initiate offense, put pressure on the rim, create opportunities, and have a player who can take over stretches of a game with his elite driving ability and confidence pulling up, stepping back, or shooting from deep,” wrote basketball analyst Jonathan Wasserman of Bleacher Report.

Furthermore, Harper is a competitive defender, an above-average shooter, and, like Fox, can thrive without the ball in his hands.

The final key building block to the Spurs dynasty is reigning Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle. Castle’s main strength is his tenacity as a physical point-of-attack defender, while still being an impactful offensive player. Last season, Castle averaged just under 15 points per game and 4 assists per game, while carrying an enormous offensive burden in the absence of Wembanyama. Although his efficiency waned as expected in a larger role, it proved that he is the real deal and gave him vital experience playing as a number-one option.

Beyond just these key building blocks, the Spurs have done a great job of surrounding these players with excellent connective “3 and D players” and “glue guys.” Players like Julian Champagnie, rookie Carter Bryant, Harrison Barnes, Luke Kornet, and Jeremy Sochan are just a few of these players that come to mind.

For these reasons, many avid NBA fans, such as Saint Paul’s senior Luca Rodas, view this team’s solid core and have incredibly high expectations for the Spurs, with Rodas arguing that the team is spurring another dynasty.

Secondly, and most importantly, the Spurs have to build their own image and Wembanyama’s as the icon of the NBA, a monumental task for most small-market teams.

The Spurs aren’t struggling much with this task, though. In just his second season, a season in which he played fewer than 50 games, Wembanyama was the fourth most viewed player in the entire league, only behind James, Curry, and Luka Dončić.

Furthermore, because of his sci-fi-like frame and sheer unbelievableness, casual fans and people who aren’t even fans of the NBA know who Wembanyama is. Indeed, many have deemed him “Wemby” or “The Alien.”

For example, in a poll of 10 Saint Paul’s students who did not actively watch the NBA, 7/10 said they knew who Victor Wembanyama was, with some even commenting on his stature and absurdity.

By comparison, none of the 10 students polled had ever heard of NBA All-Star Donovan Mitchell before. For context, Mitchell has been in the NBA since 2017, has made the all-star team six times, and, like Wembanyama, won Rookie of the Year. Needless to say, Mitchell is a fantastic player and a star in the league by all stretches of the imagination, but he doesn’t move the needle for casual fans.

Last year, Wembanyama’s jersey sales ranked sixth in the NBA despite the fact that he was only 20 years old. Moreover, his debut jersey sold at an auction for a record-breaking $762,000, per Sports Illustrated.

Wembanyama is the hero. He has the brand, and the Spurs are ripe for a dynasty.

Now, they need a rival. Every hero needs a villain, and the Los Angeles Lakers are the perfect villain.

The Lakers and Spurs have had a storied history, with the teams going on a 5-year run of dominance, being the only two champions between 1999 and 2003. Additionally, since 1999, the clubs have faced off 7 times in the Western Conference playoffs.

Furthermore, last year, the Lakers made a trade that stunned the entire NBA, acquiring superstar MVP candidate Luka Dončić in a jaw-dropping midnight trade four days before the league’s trade deadline.

Many fans called the trade blasphemous, with some even calling it a schemed plot to bring Dončić to the NBA’s largest market. Given the heap of sketchy details, tens of thousands of NBA fans were calling the league “rigged” on all social media platforms.

Fans’ animosity toward the Lakers has never been stronger.

This new season of Lakers vs. Spurs could rekindle one of the NBA’s most intense rivalries of the 2000s, featuring even more electrifying and polarizing stars.

Going into the 2025-26 season, many fans who already had a strong dislike for Dončić and the Lakers have a burning hate for the “cheaters.” Furthermore, the Lakers’ massive fanbase is often ridiculed by other fans for being annoying bandwagon fans, so the recent trade only adds fuel to the fire.

The fact that the Lakers have such a large fanbase and an equally large group of Lakers haters creates the perfect storm for a new league antagonist.

The Lakers’ polarization, combined with the ensuing dominance of Wembanyama’s Spurs, could be the spark and the storyline that reignites the NBA.

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Featured Image Photo Credit: Andrew Bucholtz