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A few years back, there was an article by Marc Stein on ESPN talking about The Phil Jackson theory which in part stated that only the teams that had 40 wins before 20 losses were championship contenders?

Last season all of Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Lakers had that and Dallas won it all.

This year only 4 teams have had 40 wins before 20 losses and they are Chicago, Miami, OKC and SAS

With that in mind, are those the only 4 teams that are true contenders?

JordansBulls wrote:A few years back, there was an article by Marc Stein on ESPN talking about The Phil Jackson theory which in part stated that only the teams that had 40 wins before 20 losses were championship contenders?

Last season all of Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Lakers had that and Dallas won it all.

This year only 4 teams have had 40 wins before 20 losses and they are Chicago, Miami, OKC and SAS

With that in mind, are those the only 4 teams that are true contenders?

If there's a year that this fails it would be a lockout season, so I'm not sure about it.

I'd like to see what percentage of championship teams actually accomplished "40 before 20".

They are. But they aren't a lock for their respective conference finals. The playoffs are all about matchups. Almost every year there is an regular season juggernaut that gets upset in the first or second round, so anything is possible. Some teams just go nuts in the playoffs.

I would say it is certainly a fair assessment. It is very unlikely that a lower seed has much success in the NBA playoffs although it has happened before. The one thing I will point out is that b/c this is a shortened season things could be a little screwy. For example the last time this happened an 8 seed made the finals and I could see a team like the Grizzles being a contender this season and they do not meet this criteria.

this year it should be 32 wins before 16 losses, right?

The Houston Rockets obviously defied it.

CROSS+ wrote:I'd like to see what percentage of championship teams actually accomplished "40 before 20".

40/60 is 66.7%, in an 82 game season, that's 53 wins. Of course, some might have had a "poor" record early, but there have been a lot over >53 win teams, so probably a very good amount of them got to 40 wins before 20 losses.

Records from a lockout season are rather stupid, teams rest bad streches are way more damaging etc keep in mind the last lockout a 8th seed went to the finals

Chocobanana wrote:this year it should be 32 wins before 16 losses, right?

I guess it could work that way. Since that is 3/4 of the season.

My theory is that the team that reaches 4 wins before 4 losses in the NBA Finals will be the champion. It has never failed.

shawngoat23 wrote:My theory is that the team that reaches 4 wins before 4 losses in the NBA Finals will be the champion. It has never failed.

OH I saw what you did there....

its a lock out year might be null and void for this season

2006 Miami Heat were 30-20 before a 10 game win streak to go to 40-20
2004 Pistons didn't do it
1995 Rockets didn't do it

It's the same for this season. The point is to reach 40 W before you reach 20 L. So it means you have to do it in 59 games.

It doesn't matter if some teams defied the "odds" before because it can still be a legitimate theory if there's even a strong correlation. What Phil is saying is pretty uninteresting though. He's saying teams with big time winning records win championships most of the time.

NO DUH.

JordansBulls wrote:Last season all of Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Lakers had that and Dallas won it all.

And San Antonio, who won 61 before loss #20.

To put things in perspective since 2000 every championship team has got 40 before 20 except:

2004 Pistons -- 33-20, hit 40 wins with 25 losses but traded for their 'missing piece' Rasheed Wallace at 34-22 (finished season 20-4).

2006 Heat -- 30-20 followed by a 10 game win streak. So got 40 wins before 21 losses.

He's basically saying that being on pace for 53 wins or more in an 82 game season by 60 games is a predictor for championships. It's really saying good teams win championships, which is really saying nothing important.

The length of the season has no bearing on how long it takes to win 40 games. The condensed schedule, might, though.