Welcome to the new, doomed NBA.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, the NBA has irreparably changed. It is difficult to place blame in any one place with regard to modern events, but it is easy to spot the recent evidence.

Exhibit A: the Carmelo Anthony saga. I don’t need to inform sports fans of the kind of circus this was; sure the trade to the Knicks eventually happened, but the trade talk had persisted for months. (Additionally, after seeing the Melo-drama play out for far longer than it should have, the Utah Jazz preemptively traded the face of their franchise, Deron Williams, solely to avoid that kind of media circus.) In the end, Carmelo’s decision was to more or less do what LeBron James did: team up with another megastar to vie for a title.

At this point, everyone has taken a shot at LeBron for the free agency drama that culminated in an hour-long television special. But Exhibit B is not just the LeBron signing: it was the hoopla surrounding it. The NBA has very blatantly become an entertainment-based industry. The 24-hour sports news cycle feeds off of it, and it’s all our fault. If our culture didn’t demand such things, the NBA wouldn’t peddle them out.

Who can blame Carmelo or LeBron for doing what they did? Winning a ring should be the highest goal for every NBA player. But the way of achieving that goal has become completely different, and the implications of this change have changed the landscape of the NBA forever. Now, much of the best talent in the NBA is concentrated in a few select teams.

In the past, an awful team would be rewarded a high draft pick to select a single player to turn the franchise around. Every squad was built essentially from scratch, and the prowess of general managers was in assembling (through the draft, primarily) a strong roster of 15 or so players that could win a championship. Today, general managers hunt desperately for one or two megastars to trade for. There is a total lack of emphasis on actually building a complete roster; only the superstars matter.

Exhibit C: Feb. 24, 2011. On the day of the trade deadline, NBA teams stunningly swapped players furiously to try to improve their title hopes. But what made teams feel so constantly inadequate? I understand deals that make financial sense and deals that truly improve a team, but it seems to me like many of these reported deadline deals are a zero-sum game. Teams without a megastar are feeling like they aren’t doing enough to contend for titles, so they’re making moves solely for the sake of making moves.

I can’t really blame them; the new NBA has brought this on. The superstar-or-bust mentality of teams has taken over, but because there is obviously more demand for superstars than there is supply, the teams that don’t get one are out of luck. This pushes teams to try to make mildly enticing deals to make it appear that they are trying everything they can to capture a title, but can it be done without megastars nowadays?

The future of the NBA belongs to these megastars. They dictate where they go, how much money they make and how they play (coaches be damned). But lest you think this is a new trend in NBA culture, think again. While this is a characteristic of the new NBA, it is very clearly rooted in the past. The NBA has become increasingly centered on entertainment rather than basketball, and this has been a common criticism of the league for years.

This entertainment-centric league needs recognizable faces and teams to market itself to the populace. We crave these stars. We want to see certain teams on SportsCenter. It’s all about the business. And before you dismiss that and argue that teams win titles because they’re the best, think about WHY they’re the best.

There are 30 teams in the NBA. Since the 1983-84 season, 27 NBA championships have been played. In those 27 NBA Finals, exactly seven teams have won. Of those seven, all but one (Heat) won multiple titles — although that is sure to change soon enough. Are you kidding me? The same goes for the players. Since the 1990-91 season, of the 20 NBA Finals played, there have been only nine different MVPs. Nine! Of the few hundred different players to appear in those championship series!

If you disagree with the fact that the NBA is centered on its superstars and nothing else, wait until the Chris Paul free agency chatter begins. If you think other NBA teams have a shot at winning a title, look at the top four title favorites this year (Lakers, Celtics, Heat and Spurs); each has won a title in the past five years.

So to act like the LeBron saga or the Melo-drama was something new would be foolishness. The NBA swerved in this direction years ago; this is simply a new branch of the same old tree. So this is the new NBA. If you don’t like it, get out now. Otherwise, sit back and enjoy the show.