The most recent super team to win an NBA championship was the 2018 Warriors. A team that featured Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green, everybody thought there was no beating this team. Then, in the blink of an eye, Kevin Durant tore his Achilles, Klay Thompson tore his ACL, and KD left for Brooklyn. We haven’t had a super team lift the Larry O’Brien trophy since.

Many teams have attempted to win a championship by building a superteam since: the 2021-22 Lakers, 2021-22 Nets and the 2024-25 Suns. Although each of these teams ran into similar problems. A lack of health from their superstars, a lack of depth around them, the stars didn’t fit well with one another, or there were off-court antics that caused one or multiple of the superstars to join another team.

On top of this, the new CBA has heavily restricted superstars from teaming up with one another due to salary cap issues. If you have 3 stars on your team with a max contract it will massively decrease your team’s ability to put solid depth around them. You’ll pretty much be forced to surround your big 3 with minimum contracts. Also, if your team’s salary goes above the second apron, it’s very, very difficult to make trades or sign free agents. Thus, you’ll practically be stuck with your current team and will only be able to re-sign your own players. The new CBA and second apron have such harsh penalties it’s causing championship contenders to break up their team just so they can stay below the second apron. It’s why the Celtics just traded Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday.

However, with all this being said, there are still ways you can build a superteam and stay below the second apron in the new CBA. The first way is to have drafted your superstars and built a solid team around them while they’re still young. This way, your superstars are still on their cheap rookie contracts so you still have cap space to pay high-level role players to surround them. Another way to avoid the penalties of the CBA is for the stars to take pay cuts so there is still money left on the table to pay depth players.

As you can see, it’s very difficult to build a superteam in the new CBA, but it’s still possible. So that brings up the question: if you have the opportunity to create a superteam, do you do it?

There is much evidence to believe that building a super team is not the best way to build your team  for many reasons. However, there are still many pros to having a super team, and it’s the reason why super teams still exist. Super teams take the burden off one star to carry an entire offense, giving stars more opportunity to rest, which can lead to them being more healthy. And even if one of the stars does get injured, it doesn’t automatically doom a team’s season because there’s still another star or two who can carry the team. Plus, having 2 or 3 stars on your team can attract role players and convince them to take a pay cut if it gives them the best chance to win a championship. We also can’t forget it’s very difficult to add a superstar to your team. For instance, before Giannis, the last superstar the Bucks had was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 50 years ago. In Toronto, before Kawhi came the last superstar to play for the Raptors was Vince Carter who was really only a superstar for the team for 3 seasons.

So taking everything into consideration, if the opportunity presents itself for your team to become a super team, you take it. However, if you already have a superstar or two on your team, you might want to think very carefully about adding another star, even if you’re able to.