right. but if you let phil jackson manage my local rec league team and you let me manage the spurs, the spurs would still win.
That's not a fair comparison because people have been playing basketball in the US for a very long time. It's developed here. Of course the best teams are going to be in the top league.
BB is a different story. There have only been 2+ seasons. Imagine if some new sport became popular overnight in the USA and people were split up into various teams that were arbitrarily put into leagues with a promotion/relegation scheme. For the first few seasons, I don't think that the league a team is in would say much about how good the team is. Eventually, the best teams will rise to the top, the next tier of teams would be in the second division, etc. But it takes time.
And combining time with your original point, if Phil Jackson was managing a rec team and you were managing the Spurs AND there was some sort of promotion/relegation scheme between the two leagues, there's a possibility that he'd eventually move ahead of you, right?