I did this before, but someone has done this better than I...

If you want to see why farces like tonight occur, I point you to a Tweet Brian Tuohy found from NBC NBA analyst Tommy Beer:

Every NBA Finals dating back to 1991 has featured either:
Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant or LeBron James.

28 consecutive Finals with at least one of those six players.

— Tommy Beer (@TommyBeer) May 29, 2018

There have been SIX relevant NBA players since the advent of the jordon era...

Beer then adds this:

44 of the 70 teams (63%) to win an NBA championship have featured one of these eight players:

Bill Russell, George Mikan, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Larry Bird or LeBron James.

— Tommy Beer (@TommyBeer) May 29, 2018

Beer justifies the NBA tanking epidemic with this.