Over the past week or so, all sorts of NBA contracts have been negotiated among the free-agents: the greats and even the average players. The dollar amounts these players have settled on are sky-high, and the NBA's salary cap has risen again this year, reaching $94.1 million: $24.1 million more than last year. This shows just how profitable the NBA has become in the recent years. It's also evident when you reflect on the championship series that just occurred a few weeks ago between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The series went seven games deep (in a best of seven series) and the average ticket prices for the games were between $1,000-$3,000. For one ticket. The highest average ticket price for a regular season game for the New York Knicks at around $78 per ticket. So if a season is 82 games, and roughly half of them are home games, that makes for a lot of revenue for just one team. Plus according to Forbes, the average NBA team is valued at about $1.25 billion with TV deals and sponsorships. So obviously the NBA has become an even more profitable organization than it has been in the past.

But one of the hottest topics among basketball fans right now is Kevin Durant's decision to leave Oklahoma City to play for the Golden State Warriors.

A quick run-down on Golden State: They were the NBA Runners Up, after losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers. They score about 114 points per game on average. They are arguably the best shooting team in the NBA. They have several high profile players such as Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and most notably, Steph Curry. And most importantly, they knocked Kevin Durant and Oklahoma City out of the championship running in the semi-finals.

So Kevin Durant signs what is reported to be a two-year max contract for $54.3 million with Golden State to form what is being called a Golden State Super-Team. What does this mean for the NBA?

Well, let's take a look at the Cleveland Cavaliers for a minute. They were the NBA Champions. They score about 104 points per game on average. They have the second highest attendance out of any NBA team. They also have several high profile players like Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, JR Smith and of course, Lebron James. They took the Championship against the other powerhouse team, the Warriors.

So where does that leave all of the other NBA teams?

Oklahoma City was the team that faced the Warriors in the semi-finals, and gave them a bit of a challenge, and they couldn't win with Kevin Durant. Then the Toronto Raptors were promptly beat by the Cavs in the semi-finals, and they haven't seemed to make any moves towards the free-market agency whatsoever. And those are the final four teams in the NBA Finals this year.

Sure, the Spurs have Ginobili coming back. And Dwayne Wade might do a little something for the Chicago Bulls. Maybe Russell Westbrook can hold it down with OKC. But can any of these guys hold a candle to the two power teams in the NBA? Bleacher Report already released (way early) preseason rankings for next year and has Golden State and Cleveland ranked at one and two, respectively.

So will this bring an end to the rapid increase in profitability in the NBA over the past few years? Or will it bring even more hype, with everyone waiting for the finals?

I can't tell you about the profitability, but I will say that in my opinion it is taking some of the competitiveness out of the game of basketball. What is the point in having 30 teams if we're just going to stack two of them and wait until they duke it out in the post-season? What happened to competitiveness and fighting your way to the top?

I know everyone wants to get paid, and trust me, for $54 million, most everyone would move to California and play basketball — but having powerhouse teams like this almost single-handedly ruins the possibility of having a dark horse or having any sense of unpredictability.

So here's to hoping that there's a secret superstar or an underdog team that will come out of the woodwork and shock everyone, for the sake of basketball fans everywhere.