A double standard: The Anthony Davis saga once again shows the league's obsession with the Lakers, Knicks

The NBA has a Warriors problem.

The other 29 teams, the media and everyone on #NBATwitter have been trying to solve it and complaining endlessly to no avail for the last three years.

One of the great dynasties, one of the most dominant teams in the history of the NBA often does not get its due because of the belief that they “cheated the game” or are “too good for the NBA,” like the revered Celtics didn’t win eight titles in a row and have a trophy named after their best player or 1980s Lakers and Celtics didn’t each have five hall-of-famers and three of the top-10 players in NBA history.

Heres the truth: it’s not that they’re too good or did it the wrong way, its because they are the Golden State Warriors, and not the Lakers, Celtics or Knicks.

Everyone knows it, even if nobody says it openly.

A long time ago, the powers that be decided that those three teams would forever be the epicenter of the league.

The NBA is more popular when the Lakers, Celtics, and Knicks are good, and the league has been trying to recapture the magic of the 1980s Lakers-Celtics rivalry since it ended.

“Competitive imbalance” is a myth invented to justify complaining when the Celtics, Lakers and LeBron aren’t in the NBA Finals, or at least contending.

The league has done its due diligence to try to support small-market teams, with the addition of the supermax contracts and creating incentives for star players to stay with their drafted teams. And it has worked in a lot of cases – Russell Westbrook and Paul George with the Thunder, John Wall with the Wizards, Marc Gasol with the Grizzlies.

But keeping top-card stars has more to do with good management and culture than it does with money or even destination.

Nonetheless, every superstar in the last 10-plus years has been rumored to be favoring the Lakers or Knicks.

And it doesn’t help that the only man who has even attracted as much media attention and worship as the Lakers and Knicks organizations (at least since Jordan) is now in La La Land.

To his credit, LeBron has owned the NBA narrative since before he even entered the league. He knows that the mainstream media is obsessed with him and is hungry for news about him, and he has taken full advantage of that.

For months – years, even – we have been hearing that Anthony Davis will end up on the Lakers or Celtics, even before Davis could have possibly been thinking of it, and even before LeBron joined the purple and gold.

And now that he has allegedly requested a trade from the Pelicans we are hearing more the same.

That’s part of the free-agency and player-driven world that we live in – everything is so cryptic. We never hear directly from the players (that's why Kevin Durant’s mindset is almost refreshing, he’s never been afraid to be upfront about who he is and what he wants), we hear from “sources close to [said player]” or from statements from agents. Nobody really knows what players are thinking, what their next move is, so everyone speculates.

And when one “camp” has the pull that LeBron’s does or teams that are as loved as the NBA’s trifecta, who does the media focus on? Who do they trust the most? Along the same lines, what news do they know will get the most clicks, the most attention?

And with the always-growing popularity of the league and its newfound year-round coverage, juicy stories – even ones with no verifiability or basis in truth – are at a premium.

(I want to clarify that I am fully in favor of players determining their own fate and creating their own destinies. Organizations and front offices will always screw over players while at the same time preaching loyalty and sacrifice. Players absolutely deserve to control their own futures, whatever they decide to do. And if I were a 25-year old superstar, I would be pulled in the same directions that many of them are).

Talking heads have been salivating at the very thought of LeBron and Anthony Davis teaming up. It’s been at the top of the docket for every show the past week.

Not that the triumvirate (two of them, at least) haven’t earned praise over league history. The Celtics and Lakers have combined for 33 of the 72 titles in league history, even though they have had only six in the last 30 years. The Knicks, meanwhile, have won only two titles (1970, ‘73) and haven’t made it to the Finals in 20 years.

But you know who else has contended in the years since? The Warriors, who have actually landed two of the biggest free agents in the last five years and have won three of the last four titles, with no end in sight; The Spurs, who have won five titles in the last 20 years, are consistently in the playoffs and have one of the great coaches in NBA history, and even the Thunder, who have been able to keep two of the top 15 players in the NBA and always seem to be one tier away from a championship.

And yet, the first teams that come up every time a star player is approaching free agency or is wilting away in a small market, they are destined to end up in L.A. or New York.

It makes sense in a way– the two biggest destinations in America, the two centers of culture, the Mecca and the City of Angels. But that doesn’t mean they deserve every superstar.

Before LeBron, the only major free agents that have decided to go to L.A., New York or Boston in the last 20 years are Shaq and Carmelo, although Carmelo came via trade and then resigned.

Think of the players who have been rumored to be future Lakers or Knicks in the last few years. Russell Westbrook, Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, Demarcus Cousins, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant and now Kyrie Irving.

No matter if a player states their desire to lead their own team, or be with one franchise for their entire careers, or say nothing at all, “sources say they are interested in joining the [Lakers or Knicks].”

NBA fans and talking heads would be overjoyed with this superteam joining up in the purple and gold and winning title after title, or with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving going to the Knicks to join Porzingis and Zion Williamson, like that cohort of talent is in any way less dominant and talent-heavy and more “fair” than what the Warriors have put together.

All I have heard in the last three years is how Kevin Durant will not truly be respected unless he “builds something” with the Knicks, “brings great basketball back to the Garden” and “brings them a title.” As if (potentially) completing a three-peat while averaging the third-most points all-time in the NBA Finals does not garner respect.

This all ignoring the fact that the Knicks can’t even keep the superstar they have now happy.

Could Davis go to the Lakers? Of course, he could. If I had to bet on it now, I would bet that he is. I wouldn’t blame him for it. A 25-year-old superstar in Los Angeles? Playing alongside LeBron? Especially after being stuck on the Pelicans for years, that would be heaven sent.

But don’t paint it out to be written in the stars.

The NBA doesn’t have a problem with how dominant the Warriors are, or that they got HOF free agents even after winning a title and 73 games, or that they broke the game.

The other 29 teams, the media, and everyone involved has a problem because they are the Warriors, and they aren’t supposed to be this good.