We disagree here. I think the NBA has more talent top to bottom right now than at any time in its history. It also happens to be the case that Lebron is just that good.
Really, the skewing here lies with Lebron. He is in year 14 of his career, and seems to actually be getting better.
Jordan was in his second retirement at this point. Bird was retired for good. Magic had retired due to his illness. Shaq was in the “Fat Shaq chasing a ring” stage of his career.
The only wing player to ever remotely do what Lebron is doing was Kobe, and Kobe was kind of one-dimensional.
The Warriors are something like a disruptive historical force. No team has ever played the way they do and succeeded. Mainly because no team has ever had three historically great shooters and player like Draymond Green that can guard centers on defense and play like Larry Bird on offense. It’s really only been three years of this for them, and I think their window will close shockingly fast when it does. They rely on a lot of basketball unicorns.
I also remember the 80s really well. There were a lot of teams with one guy like Alex English - aesthetically pleasing All-Stars who had no chance of ever leading a team to a title.
The NBA sent 6 teams with 43 wins or less to the playoffs this year. 2 with 41 wins. That’s a lot of mediocre at best teams in the playoffs. that’s not Lebron skewing things, that’s a bad league filled with bad teams.
Where Lebron’s skewing effect really comes in is roster building. That trip to Miami to build a super team taught the league two things: if you want to contend you must blow up the cap, if you build a team that good jersey will pay your cap fines. And the Warriors followed suit. I don’t think their window will be closing that quick, because they’ve added another wrinkle to that Miami model: once you have that super team other great players (KD) will beg to join. As long as the Warrior don’t lose more pieces than they can gain, or nobody else in the Western Conference find the right way to rape the cap, they’ll be on top.