Which Team Has the Biggest Asterisk of the Last 7 Champions?

[JN61]

Definitely between Lakers and Warriors.

[LascelleL]

There are no asterisk titles. Winning a championship and building a team requires DEPTH because attrition is a thing. This is why you don't front load your team with 3 max contracts and a bunch of fillers.

[bubonicphoniks]

Lakers

[Dutchball97]

Every single season you'll be able to find some key injuries, lucky bounce or questionable ref call to discredit the legitimacy of the champions. Asterisks are meant to give some additional context so by that logic it'd be most common for unusual seasons like the lockouts in 1999 and 2012 or the merger in 1977, maybe for major rule changes like in 1955 or 1980. So by logic the answer here is clearly the 2020 Lakers but they still legitimately won imo, who else would've won if the season was as usual? They dominated that year.

[Thrilla4Manila]

For anyone saying Raptors just remember, even getting Kawhi was unbelievable, one of the greatest trades ever. His only season w/ the raps was arguably his best yr of his career, not to mention being down 0-2 to the bucks & winning 4 straight, or hitting the only gm 7 buzzer in playoff history. That season was a movie, thank god for open gym!

[Jables]

There are no asterisk titles. Winning a championship and building a team requires DEPTH because attrition is a thing. This is why you don't front load your team with 3 max contracts and a bunch of fillers.

Can't believe the Warriors didn't have depth to cover losing KD and Klay SMDH.

Come on you know better, you had Kawhi for one year and won a ring, it's not that simple

Lots of rings were incredibly lucky, Raptors were far from the only ones. Houston Rockets have been in denial about their two rings coming in between Jordans first retirement for decades, like Hakeem only decided to turn it on for 2 years in his career, it's not just injuries its circumstance

[Plossum]

Asterisk titles aren’t a thing. They’re talking points for salty haters. Each champion deserves their title. Some get a bit more fortune than others but it doesn’t invalidate the win. Their name will be on the Larry O’Brien forever.

[Darthlukey]

Piggybacking from another thread, because he didn't think to create a poll, and I think the people want to know...
Which Team Has the Biggest Asterisk of the Last 7 Champions?


"2021*-Bucks-Everyone major Superstar but Giannis injured

2020*-Lakers-Bubble boy champions, need I say more?

2019*-Raptors-Durant injured, Thompson injured mid-way through series

2018*-Golden State-Paul injury

2017*-Golden State-Zaza foot job on Kawhi

2016*-Cavs-Draymond suspension, Bogut injury

2015*-Golden State- Irving, Love out"

Excuse my ignorance but what major injury did the Suns have in the finals? I don't want to defend giannis after the bull he put my celtics through, but their rotation players were fine (saric is borderline)

[GreatWhiteStiff]

Definitely not 2019

They beat a stacked sixers squad and the giannis lead bucks. Raps should get credit for that even if the finals was disappointing health wise for GS.

[dtbrehm]

Doesn't really make sense to me that the bubble is winning the poll, especially to this degree. The Lakers had HCA every series of that run and got none of the benefit since it was a neutral location. The argument would make more sense if an underdog won, but if anything that situation was harder than normal for the top seeds.

[mademan]

Doesn't really make sense to me that the bubble is winning the poll, especially to this degree. The Lakers had HCA every series of that run and got none of the benefit since it was a neutral location. The argument would make more sense if an underdog won, but if anything that situation was harder than normal for the top seeds.

Lakers+Lebron. Did you think they wouldn't win the poll?

It was the most different title, for sure, but it was easily the fairest title you'll ever see. Every player came in rested, fewer injuries than you normally see in the playoffs, no HCA..etc. The playing field was as level as it gets

[jk31]

I am missing the option "none". Really....I hate all this "asterisk" talk. Every championship since the beginning basically could have an asterisk if you want. So why not just leave it out alltogether?

[shinshiliukas]

:lol: gotta love that the toughest championship in the past 7 years, based on reality and tangible facts, is voted number one. It's honestly embarrassing how deep the Laker hate runs on this board. I'm a laker fan but you could read my post history and see that I'm far from biased when it comes to the Lakers. I'm someone who has been outspoken about the advantages the Lakers have as a franchise, and I have openly admitted that the Lebron era is a great example of this advantage. But this narrative about the 2020 championship is really ridiculous.


If you voted for the Lakers championship, please just do me a favor; Take a honest moment with yourself, and think about if you would have voted for the 2020 championship if Miami won the finals instead. If that's still your opinion, I respect it. I strongly disagree, but I'll respect it.

We could argue about how the bubble impacted those playoffs all day. I could talk about how the bubble was a scenario where only basketball and focus mattered, with no distractions. You could talk about the mental distress players were in due to the bubble and how the irregularity of it all puts an asterisk on those playoffs. We could go back and forth with our opinions. But there are a couple of facts that can't be disputed imo:

1. The 2020 Lakers were the only champions in NBA history (unless I'm mistaken...please call me out if I'm mistaken), that didn't benefit from homecourt advantage.
2. The Lakers equally dealt with any of the many difficulties and struggles that other teams faced in the bubble.

Honestly, there should be an option "no team deserves an asterisk", because the question and a lot of the discussion implies that asterisk means undeserving. But as this option is not available, I, and I've seen posters earlier in the thread argue the same, chose a meaning of an asterisk - "requires additional information". For me, asterisk just means that the season was strange and that there is a footnote explaining how weird that season was in comparison to other seasons. Completely void of any implications of whether it was harder or easier, just different.

[DroseReturnChi]

There are no asterisk titles. Winning a championship and building a team requires DEPTH because attrition is a thing. This is why you don't front load your team with 3 max contracts and a bunch of fillers.

you could argue most of them (no right answer) but 100% is lebron lakers. that disney setting was literally fraud that was built for lebron. entire thing was shady and little was transparent should have been cancelled for legacy sake. if i was silver, i would officially veto it and vacate the ring just like stern did it in cp3 trade to block lakers.

[Roger Murdock]

2017 and 2018 Warriors

When you are preseason -175 to win the title against the entire field winning the title doesn’t mean or prove anything. It was a cowards move by Durant and invalidated basketball for three seasons.

[Rapsin6]

Can we put an asterisk on weak ass fans who want to invalidate a team’s accomplishment of winning it all?

The most common replies here are Raptors and Lakers. The Lakers were in the exact same situation as all the other teams. Why did they have any advantage over the Heat or anyone else? Heat also had several months off. Everyone had the same disadvantage.
As for the Raptors (my team), they were supposedly going to win a close series with Philly, then they were supposedly going to get their asses handed to them, especially after losing the first 2. Then, after GS walked through the west, much of it without KD, and Kawhi was gimpy after Milwaukee, GS would take the series in 5 or 6 without KD. Might I add that Raptors won both RS games against them, one without Kawhi. GTFOH with the asterisk nonsense.

If Boston wins a title this year, do they get a stupid asterisk because they never would have beat Brooklyn with a healthy Simmons?

If

[Statlanta]

The raptors because they wouldn’t repeat with Leonard’s injury situation

[foreigngrammar]

And those Jordan titles do mean nothing… just plumbers and no super teams

[Duffman100]

Can we ban asterisk talk? It's so ridiculous.

[Duffman100]

The raptors because they wouldn’t repeat with Leonard’s injury situation

That doesn't even make sense.