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Dloading24 wrote:I think its wrong how some people are looking at this, as they are viewing some teams over their single champion season. Most championship teams remain in contention over multiple years thus shouldn't be viewed by their one-off ship. That's why most people would point to Mavs or Raps championship as the weakest, as they were not able to sustain excellence over multiple years. Spurs 07 might have been an easy title run, but they had been a championship team that was kept relatively the same over the course of 05-07, it would be in-correct to just view them from the one ship as it was basically the same team that had won the ship in 05 (only different by like 1-2 rotational players). Same goes for the 08 Celts that if not for KG injury in 09 would have probably gone to the finals 3 straight times. Same with the lakers 10 teams that was basically the championship team from 09 (didn't even make the list) to suddenly in contention one of the worst championship teams because they swapped Ariza for Artest? 15 warriors were basically a team that was able to go 73-9 next season and 1 game from a championship. That just leave Mavs and Raps. My pick is the Raps as the Mavs went through a gauntlet with difficult opponents each round

This is bull crap. Who cares about succeeding seasons? The 2010 Lakers shouldnt be rated higher cause they won in 2009.

Everyone wants to talk about the 19 Raps road to the finals being weak but want to dismiss the 16 Cavs? Who did they even beat that was so impressive in the East? The Pistons? The Hawks? Yeah what a joke

How are you gonna complain about the Raps taking 6 games to beat the Giannis led Bucks when the Derozan led Raptors took the Cavs to 6 games

How is the 2011 Mavs on the list? It was one of the most difficult paths and heroic performances to the championships.

oaktownwarriors87 wrote:

Stan wrote:

oaktownwarriors87 wrote:

"Best player in the world"

You mean 5th best player that season, Kyrie Irving and the shell of Kevin Love?

Yeah, that team gets steam rolled by a healthy 73 win Warriors, a healthy 67 win Spurs and the Thunder (who were arguably the best when healthy).

LeBron/Irving/Love peaked at Rockets/Clippers level.

If you think there were actually 4 players better than LeBron that season, I don't know what to tell ya

MVP Votes: 0
Box Stat Leader: 0
Advanced Stat Leader: 0

And it was the 2nd lowest scoring and 3 point shooting season of his career. Only has rookie season was worse.

Oh, and the Cavs had the 4th highest SRS that season. The three teams in front of them? Thunder, Warriors and Spurs.


And what 4 championship teams have the worst SRS since 2006? Mavs(2011), Lakers (2010), Heat (2006) and Cavs (2016)

That's weird, that's the exact list I had earlier. Now I have the numbers back it up. How very, very odd.

And those four teams are the only four teams since 2006 to win championships without being top three and SRS. Just like I said earlier. Hmmm.

LeBron was 3rd in MVP voting, so that's just factually incorrect. I'm assuming you mean first place votes?

But look, I'm not gonna try to convince you 4 years after the fact LeBron was better than Kawhi & Westbrook. If you want to believe an opinion that would only be shared by minuscule amount of people, that's your right, but one that wouldn't be agreed with by almost anybody else on this site

mademan wrote:

Dloading24 wrote:I think its wrong how some people are looking at this, as they are viewing some teams over their single champion season. Most championship teams remain in contention over multiple years thus shouldn't be viewed by their one-off ship. That's why most people would point to Mavs or Raps championship as the weakest, as they were not able to sustain excellence over multiple years. Spurs 07 might have been an easy title run, but they had been a championship team that was kept relatively the same over the course of 05-07, it would be in-correct to just view them from the one ship as it was basically the same team that had won the ship in 05 (only different by like 1-2 rotational players). Same goes for the 08 Celts that if not for KG injury in 09 would have probably gone to the finals 3 straight times. Same with the lakers 10 teams that was basically the championship team from 09 (didn't even make the list) to suddenly in contention one of the worst championship teams because they swapped Ariza for Artest? 15 warriors were basically a team that was able to go 73-9 next season and 1 game from a championship. That just leave Mavs and Raps. My pick is the Raps as the Mavs went through a gauntlet with difficult opponents each round

This is bull crap. Who cares about succeeding seasons? The 2010 Lakers shouldnt be rated higher cause they won in 2009.

You're right they were two completely different teams, with different players, idk what I was thinking there.

shakes0 wrote:

Texas Chuck wrote:This is not going to end well.

Do you know what they call the person who graduates last in his class in medical school?

Answer: Doctor



In other words, no one should take offense to their team being slighted in this thread. Every team in here is still forever referred to as "champions"

I agree 100%. But we know people are going to get offended regardless. I never want to hear about injuries or easy paths or asterisks. You win 4 out 7 4x and you are champion, period. No team should ever have to apologize.

Dloading24 wrote:

mademan wrote:

Dloading24 wrote:I think its wrong how some people are looking at this, as they are viewing some teams over their single champion season. Most championship teams remain in contention over multiple years thus shouldn't be viewed by their one-off ship. That's why most people would point to Mavs or Raps championship as the weakest, as they were not able to sustain excellence over multiple years. Spurs 07 might have been an easy title run, but they had been a championship team that was kept relatively the same over the course of 05-07, it would be in-correct to just view them from the one ship as it was basically the same team that had won the ship in 05 (only different by like 1-2 rotational players). Same goes for the 08 Celts that if not for KG injury in 09 would have probably gone to the finals 3 straight times. Same with the lakers 10 teams that was basically the championship team from 09 (didn't even make the list) to suddenly in contention one of the worst championship teams because they swapped Ariza for Artest? 15 warriors were basically a team that was able to go 73-9 next season and 1 game from a championship. That just leave Mavs and Raps. My pick is the Raps as the Mavs went through a gauntlet with difficult opponents each round

This is bull crap. Who cares about succeeding seasons? The 2010 Lakers shouldnt be rated higher cause they won in 2009.

You're right they were two completely different teams, with different players, idk what I was thinking there.

Cause teams never get worse.

SuperFriends because that’s our league now. Buddy up for rings. Killing that competitive spirit.

Texas Chuck wrote:

shakes0 wrote:

Texas Chuck wrote:This is not going to end well.

Do you know what they call the person who graduates last in his class in medical school?

Answer: Doctor



In other words, no one should take offense to their team being slighted in this thread. Every team in here is still forever referred to as "champions"

I agree 100%. But we know people are going to get offended regardless. I never want to hear about injuries or easy paths or asterisks. You win 4 out 7 4x and you are champion, period. No team should ever have to apologize.

I go two ways on this. On the one hand, you win a championship and you are a champ forever and no one can take it away from you or say you don't deserve it. So as fans you should never get too bent out of shape if someone is trying to diminish your team's ship.

But, on the other hand, I have no problem with people wanting to rank champs vs champs and in those instances how you got there and who you played are relevant and worth talking about.

mademan wrote:

Dloading24 wrote:

mademan wrote:
This is bull crap. Who cares about succeeding seasons? The 2010 Lakers shouldnt be rated higher cause they won in 2009.

You're right they were two completely different teams, with different players, idk what I was thinking there.

Cause teams never get worse.

Ya for sure. Teams experience championship hang over. Once players reach the pinnacle of the sport they lose the drive they had the season before and this veteran role players the most as they stop doing the things that made them so successful the season before. That's why repeating is so hard. This should be a testament to the teams overall character for the ones that repeat not a slight.

shakes0 wrote:But, on the other hand, I have no problem with people wanting to rank champs vs champs and in those instances how you got there and who you played are relevant and worth talking about.

I have no problem ranking them. I still put less stock in who you beat unless you really struggled to get by some bad teams. But if you had a fortunate road and you handily beat those teams then I'm not bothered because those teams have no control over who they beat.

On the flip side, if you have to beat a bunch of tough teams/stars to get it done, I definitely factor that in. The Cavs beating the 73 win Warriors certainly get a bump from that for me for instance.

The 2015 Warriors definitely should not be on this list. I don't think that Kyrie and Love being out really changed the series that much in the Warriors favor. Zach Lowe actually wrote after that series that the Warriors' coaching staff thought that the Cavs were a more tough matchup for the Warriors without Love and Kyrie and I'm inclined to agree with that. The Warriors went up 3-1 on the Cavs the next year with both teams fully healthy and in their first two victories, they had a balanced scoring output and didn't even need Curry to go off. The 2015 Cavs without Love and Kyrie were a significantly better defensive team than the 2016 Cavs and were able stop the Warriors from getting out in transition by fighting for offensive boards with Mozgov/TT and limiting turnovers by running every possession through Lebron. Healthy Kyrie would have let the Cavs balance out ISO possessions between he and Lebron, but Kyrie would have been targeted on defense. While Love would have spaced the floor in a useful way for Cleveland, he also would have been targeted on defense and probably wouldn't have been involved enough in the Cavs' offense to make an overall positive impact. Lest we forget, in the 2016 Finals Love averaged 8 points and 7 boards. He was hardly a difference maker for them and probably would have been a negative player in the 2015 Finals.

The 2016 Cavs win was far more of a fluke than the 2015 Warriors. The Warriors were smacking the Cavs around for 4 games until Bogut got injured and Barnes turned into a pumpkin. Before Bogut's injury, the Warriors could stay big and protect the rim and pick apart Kyrie and Love on defense. When Bogut went down, they lost their rim protection just as Barnes became a massive liability on the court. The Cavs kept taking the ball out of Steph's hands and trapping him high and eventually started sagging off of Barnes enough to muck up the Warriors' spacing. Kerr messed up big time by not giving Brandon Rush a shot in some of those small ball lineups. He was a knockdown three point shooter and was big enough to handle Barnes' minutes at the 4. The Warriors had no issue handling those traps in the first 4 games of the series because their role players were hitting shots.

Stan wrote:

oaktownwarriors87 wrote:

Stan wrote:

If you think there were actually 4 players better than LeBron that season, I don't know what to tell ya

MVP Votes: 0
Box Stat Leader: 0
Advanced Stat Leader: 0

And it was the 2nd lowest scoring and 3 point shooting season of his career. Only has rookie season was worse.

Oh, and the Cavs had the 4th highest SRS that season. The three teams in front of them? Thunder, Warriors and Spurs.


And what 4 championship teams have the worst SRS since 2006? Mavs(2011), Lakers (2010), Heat (2006) and Cavs (2016)

That's weird, that's the exact list I had earlier. Now I have the numbers back it up. How very, very odd.

And those four teams are the only four teams since 2006 to win championships without being top three and SRS. Just like I said earlier. Hmmm.

LeBron was 3rd in MVP voting, so that's just factually incorrect. I'm assuming you mean first place votes?

But look, I'm not gonna try to convince you 4 years after the fact LeBron was better than Kawhi & Westbrook. If you want to believe an opinion that would only be shared by minuscule amount of people, that's your right, but one that wouldn't be agreed with by almost anybody else on this site

Better than Kawhi?

2nd in MVP voting Kawhi?

67 win Kawhi?

50/44/87 shooting Kawhi?

+25 Rtg Kawhi (LBJ was +13)?

The Kawhi that had a higher WS, WS/48 and BPM?

Yeah, how could i ever ague that Kawhi was better. He probably wouldn't fare well in a head to head matchup, either.


That 67 win Spurs team had the 9th highest SRS of all time. LeBrons Cavs had the 167th highest.



And here are all NBA Champions since 2006 all time SRS ranking:

Anticon wrote:

Firespo wrote:

metafisical wrote:2019 Raps are one of the greatest of all time. The Raps playoff run was among the best runs in all of sports history.

Lmao keep telling yourself this rap fans

The sixers were beyond a mess, jimmy butler even said how dysfunctional that Sixers team was. They only got as far as they did by talent alone

And im sorry but I dont see the bucks or giannis as a successful playoff team/playoff performer. If we have a playoffs this year the bucks will show everyone that they are a dominant regular season team but a mediocre playoff team. Giannis will struggle after the 2nd round.

It's incredible logic, your opponents are weak because you were good enough to beat them. The Bucks have that rep because the Raptors beat them. They were 10-1 in the playoffs until Toronto figured them out and they lost four in a row.

they swept a terrible pistons team that basically shouldn't of been in the playoffs and beat a team they happen to match up very well against 4 to 1. Not impressive at all.

I really hate this argument whenever it's brought up, obviously some teams in history are stronger than others, but it's tough to rank champions. What I do know is the answer to this isn't the 2011 Mavs. They faced healthy teams with multiple All-Star talents every round of the playoffs that year and had to beat the defending champions and the supposed favorites without home court. The argument that they had a lightning in a bottle playoff run doesn't cut it for me, they had the exact same regular season record as the Lakers and one less win than the Heat, players are supposed to step up come playoff time and that's what that team did.

2007 Spurs or 2019 Raptors, flip a coin.

Nowitness wrote:I really hate this argument whenever it's brought up, obviously some teams in history are stronger than others, but it's tough to rank champions. What I do know is the answer to this isn't the 2011 Mavs. They faced healthy teams with multiple All-Star talents every round of the playoffs that year and had to beat the defending champions and the supposed favorites without home court. The argument that they had a lightning in a bottle playoff run doesn't cut it for me, they had the exact same regular season record as the Lakers and one less win than the Heat, players are supposed to step up come playoff time and that's what that team did.

It honestly was though. The Mavs had made it past the first round only once the previous 4 years, and after 2011 they never even won another playoff series through the remainder of Dirk's career. Add in the fact they were, regardless of record, considered the underdog, and Dirk was the only legitimate star on the team, if that's not the textbook example of a team catching lightning in a bottle for a playoff run, I don't know what is

Double Post

For fans not clouded by personal biases - the correct answer is either the 2010 Lakers or the 2011 Mavs.....they are the only teams with mediocre SRS and suspect offense/defense rankings.

SRS / Offense rank / Defense Rank
------------------------------------------------
2007 Spurs - 8.35 / #5 / #2
2008 Celtic - 9.30 / #9 / #1
2009 Lakers - 7.11 / #3 / #6
2010 Lakers - 4.78 / #11 / #4
2011 Mavs - 4.41 / #8 / #8
2012 Heat - 5.72 / #8 / #4
2013 Heat - 7.03 / #2 / #9
2014 Spurs - 8.00 / #7 / #3
2015 Warriors - 10.01 / #2 / #1
2016 Cavaliers - 5.45 / #3 / #10
2017 Warriors - 11.35 / #1 / #2
2018 warriors 5.73 / #1 / #11
2019 Raptors - 5.88 / #5 / #5

I'm not really sure why people are voting for the Raps - they had a top 5 offense AND defense last year with Kawhi load managing/coasting. The team going into the playoffs was also better than the reg season with the trade deadline addition of Marc Gasol who really helped bring the D and O together.

After losing Kawhi for nothing - they still had the 3rd best record in the league and were on pace to win 60 games this year.

lakers2020 wrote:2007 Spurs or 2019 Raptors, flip a coin.

2010 Lakers by far.