Sansterre's Top 100 Teams, #17-18, 2012 MIA, 1999 SAS

[sansterre]

Bump for team #17, the 1999 San Antonio Spurs!

[AdagioPace]

I can't help but compare the 1999 Spurs to the 2020 Lakers. Top heavy team with a great duo, mediocre supporting cast, not great PS competition, but absolutely impressive yeld in the end.

I'm surprised you never used the word "asterisk". Respect

Let's take a moment to appreciate Sansterre's imagination "Duncan = Blake Griffin with more defense" ahaha

[sansterre]

I can't help but compare the 1999 Spurs to the 2020 Lakers. Top heavy team with a great duo, mediocre supporting cast, not great PS competition, but absolutely impressive yeld in the end.

I'm surprised you never used the word "asterisk". Respect

Let's take a moment to appreciate Sansterre's imagination "Duncan = Blake Griffin with more defense" ahaha

It really wasn't my imagination; that was just what the comp engine spit out

I think there are a lot of similarities between the '99 Spurs and '20 Lakers, for all the reasons that you point to.

But there are a lot of reasons to think that the Spurs are the considerably better team:

1) Their regular season was better (by both RSRS and win percentage);
2) Their playoff opponents were (according to OSRS) better overall;
3) Their MoV, while not quite as good as the Lakers', gives them a similar PSRS;
4) They did all of the above in a far more competitive league than the Lakers did.

In a way, they remind me a little more of the '98 Bulls.

1) The two teams were comparable in the regular season;
2) The Bulls looked better in the playoffs (higher PSRS and better opposition);
3) But the Spurs did it in a considerably more competitive year;
4) What both teams have in common is that there was absolutely nobody close to their level in their year.

The Lakers, on paper, had serious challengers in the Clippers, Bucks or Celtics; it's just that they ended up facing none of those teams.

Anyhow. Seriously interesting team.

[homecourtloss]

Excellent write up for this ‘99 Spurs team. Much like the 2020 Lakers, I wish there had been a series vs. a worthy contender to see what heights the Spurs could reach.

As it was, their playoff series were interesting since even though they were dominant, there were no blowouts from the beginning of games but so many ground-downs of opponents.

1999 playoffs David Robinson’s On-court and ON-OFF numbers are staggering. The Duncan/Robinson pairing on court dominated and the other minutes without these two on court together, Spurs were actually handily outscored.

[70sFan]

I think it's a perfect spot for the Spurs. They weren't dominant enough to make top 15, but I'd take them over all already mentioned teams, besides 1972 Lakers and maybe 1983 Sixers.

Excellent writeups as usual!

[colts18]

A few notes on 1999:

-That season deserves a partial asterisk for the Lockout. The players came in clearly out of shape. There was no training camp or time for the teams to gel.
-The Lockout season timeline was so compressed that it led to a unique scheduling situation. It's the only season I'm aware that had Back to Back to Back games. I've seen instances of 5 games in 6 nights. You have to make a mental adjustment for that. That makes Karl Malone's MVP more impressive because he was 35 years old still playing heavy minutes during those back to back to back games.

-The 1998 Spurs had Will Perdue as their starting SF. That meant they had 3 7+ footers starting in their frontcourt. The 90s had a few of those odd lineups. I don't think a team with Will Perdue at SF can be a legit contender hence why they lost to in the 2nd round that season.

[70sFan]

By the way, 1999 Robinson/Duncan vs 2020 James/Davis is very interesting comparison. It's definitely closer than a lot of people would assume at first glance.

[colts18]

By the way, 1999 Robinson/Duncan vs 2020 James/Davis is very interesting comparison. It's definitely closer than a lot of people would assume at first glance.

I'd take 99 Robinson/Duncan in the slow grind it out defensively focused 1999 season. I would take 2020 LeBron/Davis in the Pace and Space 3 point focused 2020 season. Both duos are a product of their era.

I would love to see how the 99 Spurs do does in today's game. It would be a fascinating experiment. If they had 3 point shooters around them, I do think they could succeed in today's game.

[Odinn21]

Bump for team #17, the 1999 San Antonio Spurs!

Curious about how high they'd rank without the first 14 games.

The Spurs started the season very very weak. They had a losing record in the first 14 games. 6-8 with +1.74 MoV.
Then they went 31-5 with +10.53 MoV for the rest of the regular season and 15-2 with +7.24 MoV for the playoffs. Combined, they were 46-7 with +9.47 MoV (their overall pace was around 87.4-87.5, so they probably had like +10.8 NRtg).

Those numbers are like 1996 Bulls numbers on a smaller scale.

[sansterre]

Bump for team #17, the 1999 San Antonio Spurs!

Curious about how high they'd rank without the first 14 games.

The Spurs started the season very very weak. They had a losing record in the first 14 games. 6-8 with +1.74 MoV.
Then they went 31-5 with +10.53 MoV for the rest of the regular season and 15-2 with +7.24 MoV for the playoffs. Combined, they were 46-7 with +9.47 MoV (their overall pace was around 87.4-87.5, so they probably had like +10.8 NRtg).

Those numbers are like 1996 Bulls numbers on a smaller scale.

11th. Their postseason SRS, though good, was too low to be competitive much higher up.

[VanWest82]

I've always felt like the 12 Heat and 93 Bulls were similar: big 3s surrounded by skeleton crews (edit: forgot Heat had Battier that year.). The difference for me is that outside of the first round Bulls played juggernauts. I'd take 93 Cavs, Knicks, and Suns over any of the teams Heat played in 2012; OKC had a higher ceiling than any of those teams but all their main guys were 22 and it showed in the Finals.

We can use Bosh's injury as an excuse to lionize Lebron and Wade but the truth is a lot of Bosh's effectiveness as a player was neutered having to play Lebron-ball so I'm not sure it was as big as advertised. Either way, just because you struggled vs. lesser competition and overcame it that doesn't mean it should count for more.

I respect the effort even though I disagree with a lot of these rankings, but this one feels especially off. Both of these shortened season titles should be further down the list just on games played alone. I don't think it's a coincidence that young stars held up better than their older counterparts with those heavily condensed schedules.

[sansterre]

I've always felt like the 12 Heat and 93 Bulls were similar: big 3s surrounded by skeleton crews. The difference for me is that outside of the first round Bulls played juggernauts. I'd take 93 Cavs, Knicks, and Suns over any of the teams Heat played in 2012; OKC had a higher ceiling than any of those teams but all their main guys were 22 and it showed in the Finals.

We can use Bosh's injury as an excuse to lionize Lebron and Wade but the truth is a lot of Bosh's effectiveness as a player was neutered having to play Lebron-ball so I'm not sure it was as big as advertised. Either way, just because you struggled vs. lesser competition and overcame it that doesn't mean it should count for more.

I respect the effort even though I disagree with a lot of these rankings, but this one feels especially off. Both of these shortened season titles should be further down the list just on games played alone. I don't think it's a coincidence that young stars held up better than their older counterparts with those heavily condensed schedules.

That's totally possible. I don't really know how to responsibly handle teams that played reduced regular seasons. Right now they're basically rewarded (because the playoffs are a bigger share of their games, and everyone performs better in the playoffs) which doesn't seem right. It's a question that will definitely be posted for discussion while I'm working on version 2 of the formula.

My sheet, for better or for worse, disagrees with a lot of the perceptions around those '93 opponents.

Let's ignore the first round.

In the second round we're comparing the '93 Cavs (+6.3 RSRS, weak first round series) and the '12 Pacers (+2.6 RSRS, very strong first round series). The Pacers' strong round was whipping on the Dwight Howard-less Magic, so that's obviously not to be taken entirely seriously. That said, the Cavs barely snuck by the Nets, which isn't a good look either (and the Cavs routinely seemed to underperform in the playoffs). I think saying the Cavs are better here is very fair.

In the Conference Finals you have the '93 Knicks (+5.87 RSRS, one very weak series, one solid series) and the '12 Celtics (+2.26 RSRS, but one solid series and one strong series). My formula really hates the Knicks' first series (beating the +1.87 Pacers but having a negative MoV) and in general it never thinks the 90s Knicks were as good as they appeared. The Celtics played better in the playoffs (with a good win over a nice Sixers team) but were definitely worse in the regular season. Given that '93 was a more competitive year than '12, I'm okay saying that the Knicks were a little better.

And as for the Suns. I've spent way, way too much time talking about the damned Suns. All I can say is that the Suns played the maximum length series in 2 of their 3 series, despite playing two fairly weak teams (and one very good team) and top to bottom had extremely weak MoVs. The major argument for the '93 Suns is that they played the '93 Bulls tight. But I don't see any objective case whatsoever for why the '12 Thunder are worse. The Thunder were better in every single round of the playoffs (until the Finals).

This is a long way of saying, I know that the teams that the '93 Bulls played have strong historical reputations, but I don't see a lot of evidence (at least from playoff performance as measured by wins, opponents and MoV) that the '93 Bulls' opponents were "juggernauts".

And there will absolutely be a lot of discussion on the boards about ways to improve the formula for a second version of this list, so continued feedback is encouraged and appreciated

[VanWest82]

That's totally possible. I don't really know how to responsibly handle teams that played reduced regular seasons. Right now they're basically rewarded (because the playoffs are a bigger share of their games, and everyone performs better in the playoffs) which doesn't seem right. It's a question that will definitely be posted for discussion while I'm working on version 2 of the formula.

It sounds harsh but I think you have to discount the entire year to a degree. I'd do the same with the bubble title. Certain teams had obvious advantages/disadvantages due those special circumstances which contributed to success/failure. I'm not trying to take away anything from those teams - all three of those titles were legit - but for the purposes of this exercise, yeah they aren't as valuable.

My sheet, for better or for worse, disagrees with a lot of the perceptions around those '93 opponents...

Spoiler:

Let's ignore the first round.

In the second round we're comparing the '93 Cavs (+6.3 RSRS, weak first round series) and the '12 Pacers (+2.6 RSRS, very strong first round series). The Pacers' strong round was whipping on the Dwight Howard-less Magic, so that's obviously not to be taken entirely seriously. That said, the Cavs barely snuck by the Nets, which isn't a good look either (and the Cavs routinely seemed to underperform in the playoffs). I think saying the Cavs are better here is very fair.

In the Conference Finals you have the '93 Knicks (+5.87 RSRS, one very weak series, one solid series) and the '12 Celtics (+2.26 RSRS, but one solid series and one strong series). My formula really hates the Knicks' first series (beating the +1.87 Pacers but having a negative MoV) and in general it never thinks the 90s Knicks were as good as they appeared. The Celtics played better in the playoffs (with a good win over a nice Sixers team) but were definitely worse in the regular season. Given that '93 was a more competitive year than '12, I'm okay saying that the Knicks were a little better.

And as for the Suns. I've spent way, way too much time talking about the damned Suns. All I can say is that the Suns played the maximum length series in 2 of their 3 series, despite playing two fairly weak teams (and one very good team) and top to bottom had extremely weak MoVs. The major argument for the '93 Suns is that they played the '93 Bulls tight. But I don't see any objective case whatsoever for why the '12 Thunder are worse. The Thunder were better in every single round of the playoffs (until the Finals).

This is a long way of saying, I know that the teams that the '93 Bulls played have strong historical reputations, but I don't see a lot of evidence (at least from playoff performance as measured by wins, opponents and MoV) that the '93 Bulls' opponents were "juggernauts".

And there will absolutely be a lot of discussion on the boards about ways to improve the formula for a second version of this list, so continued feedback is encouraged and appreciated

I obv haven't seen your formula but based on your response here you might consider lowering the weighting of opponent playoff priors. The sample size for that is just too small, and you open yourself up to missing too much important stuff like match ups which we know has a major impact on playoff series. For example, I think it's pretty likely that Spurs would've fared much better vs. Heat in 2012 than OKC but as we know from other times they faced that OKC team it was just a terrible match up for them. 93 Suns vs. prime DRob is another example.

I'd place way more emphasis on regular season SRS and try to adjust for injuries if possible. Edit: maybe try adding PS games on top of RS SRS as a 1.5x weighting, so if you played 10 PS games they're really worth 15 on top of the 82, and you just blend it in to get total season SRS.

[colts18]

Unpopular Opinion:

I don't think the 2012 Heat were better than the 2011 Heat. The only reason people believe that is because the Heat won the title in 2012.

The 2011 Heat had a much better version of Wade. Bosh was better that season too. They had a better regular season. The postseason competition was stiffer in 2011 too. The 2011 Celtics were clearly better than the 2012 version that took the Heat to 7. The 2011 Bulls are a step above the 2012 Pacers. The 2011 Mavs are a similar level team to the 2012 Rockets. In 2011, the Mavs beat the Thunder. In 2012, the Thunder beat the Mavs. The 2011 Mavs were more of a matchup problem for the Heat. They were a veteran squad that played discipline defense. They had the pieces to contain LeBron: A perimeter stopper (Marion), and a Rim Protector (Chandler). The Thunder had neither. The Heat shot 71% from the Free Throw Line against the Mavs vs 82% vs the Thunder. That's not a sign of a better team, that's a sign the 2011 Heat had bad luck in the Finals. Dirk hit 45 out of 46 (98%) from the line in the finals.

[sansterre]

Unpopular Opinion:

I don't think the 2012 Heat were better than the 2011 Heat. The only reason people believe that is because the Heat won the title in 2012.

The 2011 Heat had a much better version of Wade. Bosh was better that season too. They had a better regular season. The postseason competition was stiffer in 2011 too. The 2011 Celtics were clearly better than the 2012 version that took the Heat to 7. The 2011 Bulls are a step above the 2012 Pacers. The 2011 Mavs are a similar level team to the 2012 Rockets. In 2011, the Mavs beat the Thunder. In 2012, the Thunder beat the Mavs. The 2011 Mavs were more of a matchup problem for the Heat. They were a veteran squad that played discipline defense. They had the pieces to contain LeBron: A perimeter stopper (Marion), and a Rim Protector (Chandler). The Thunder had neither. The Heat shot 71% from the Free Throw Line against the Mavs vs 82% vs the Thunder. That's not a sign of a better team, that's a sign the 2011 Heat had bad luck in the Finals. Dirk hit 45 out of 46 (98%) from the line in the finals.

I agree with almost all of your component observations, but it's really, really, really hard to imagine that the '11 Heat are better than the '12 Heat when one has 22.9% usage LeBron and the other has 32.0% usage LeBron.

[kayess]

Wow, the '99 Spurs are this high? Timmy's my all-time favorite, and I'm probably higher on him than most, but this project's shown me that I take one huge thing about him for granted: he's anchored some ATG teams that compare favorably with the very best (though obviously, he had tons of help).

[freethedevil]

I've always felt like the 12 Heat and 93 Bulls were similar: big 3s surrounded by skeleton crews. The difference for me is that outside of the first round Bulls played juggernauts. I'd take 93 Cavs, Knicks, and Suns over any of the teams Heat played in 2012; OKC had a higher ceiling than any of those teams but all their main guys were 22 and it showed in the Finals.

We can use Bosh's injury as an excuse to lionize Lebron and Wade but the truth is a lot of Bosh's effectiveness as a player was neutered having to play Lebron-ball so I'm not sure it was as big as advertised. Either way, just because you struggled vs. lesser competition and overcame it that doesn't mean it should count for more.

I respect the effort even though I disagree with a lot of these rankings, but this one feels especially off. Both of these shortened season titles should be further down the list just on games played alone. I don't think it's a coincidence that young stars held up better than their older counterparts with those heavily condensed schedules.

That's totally possible. I don't really know how to responsibly handle teams that played reduced regular seasons. Right now they're basically rewarded (because the playoffs are a bigger share of their games, and everyone performs better in the playoffs) which doesn't seem right. It's a question that will definitely be posted for discussion while I'm working on version 2 of the formula.

My sheet, for better or for worse, disagrees with a lot of the perceptions around those '93 opponents.

Let's ignore the first round.

In the second round we're comparing the '93 Cavs (+6.3 RSRS, weak first round series) and the '12 Pacers (+2.6 RSRS, very strong first round series). The Pacers' strong round was whipping on the Dwight Howard-less Magic, so that's obviously not to be taken entirely seriously. That said, the Cavs barely snuck by the Nets, which isn't a good look either (and the Cavs routinely seemed to underperform in the playoffs). I think saying the Cavs are better here is very fair.

In the Conference Finals you have the '93 Knicks (+5.87 RSRS, one very weak series, one solid series) and the '12 Celtics (+2.26 RSRS, but one solid series and one strong series). My formula really hates the Knicks' first series (beating the +1.87 Pacers but having a negative MoV) and in general it never thinks the 90s Knicks were as good as they appeared. The Celtics played better in the playoffs (with a good win over a nice Sixers team) but were definitely worse in the regular season. Given that '93 was a more competitive year than '12, I'm okay saying that the Knicks were a little better.

And as for the Suns. I've spent way, way too much time talking about the damned Suns. All I can say is that the Suns played the maximum length series in 2 of their 3 series, despite playing two fairly weak teams (and one very good team) and top to bottom had extremely weak MoVs. The major argument for the '93 Suns is that they played the '93 Bulls tight. But I don't see any objective case whatsoever for why the '12 Thunder are worse. The Thunder were better in every single round of the playoffs (until the Finals).

This is a long way of saying, I know that the teams that the '93 Bulls played have strong historical reputations, but I don't see a lot of evidence (at least from playoff performance as measured by wins, opponents and MoV) that the '93 Bulls' opponents were "juggernauts".

And there will absolutely be a lot of discussion on the boards about ways to improve the formula for a second version of this list, so continued feedback is encouraged and appreciated

There's no evidence they were not historical juggernauts because they weren't. The thunder were so inexperienced they won 4 straight against a very experienced spurs team that

A. Played 62 win basketball in the regular season and
B. were on a 22 win streak where they demolished everyne in the first and second round(sounds alot like a certain bucks team).

There's nothing historiclaly special abou the knicks compared to the thunder. The thunder at this point had already won 50 games, then 57 games and had already made the conference finals. If success in other seasons is the metric here, the thunder are clearly better than the knicks. The reason why the bulls struggled was because Jordan played terribly in the first three games of the series.

On the other hand, when the heat 'struggled' vs the cleitcs, all three losses were without bosh starting, and all but one of them had bosh missing the whole game. By contrast "lebron ball" --with bosh-- who supposedly lebron was ruining with his ball hogging yieled 3 wins, by a margin of 48 points over a team that played at a 48 win pace..

Then the following series vs a team that played at near a 60 win pace and had literally just rattled out 4 straight wins vs a great, red hot, regular season team that obliterated both of their postseason opponents, the heat won by 6 points a game.

The 93 bulls are similar to the 12 heat in terms of results, but with lebron-ball fully realized, the lebron-wade-bosh heat were much more akin to the 91 bulls.

Lebron was so damn ball-dominant, and bosh was so damn under utilized, they played like one of the greatest postseason teams ever with Bosh on the floor. Funny how that works.

Giving teams regular seasons 1.5x as much as weight as the playoffs is nonsensical, since

A. regular season games have a way lower effect on championship probability than postseason games do and
B. Teams being aware of this generally use the regular season to try things experiment, give rest, ect, ect.

That the thunder of all teams is the one you're woried abou sample size with is baffling. They played close to a 60 win pace in the regular season, they did it the season before, and they won 50 games the season before that. They had already proven themselves as a legitmate postseason threat pushing the eventual championship lakers and then makng it to the conference finals.

There is no "noise" to be considered with the thunder. the thunder were consisntely a very good regualar season and postseason team.

[freethedevil]

Unpopular Opinion:

I don't think the 2012 Heat were better than the 2011 Heat. The only reason people believe that is because the Heat won the title in 2012.

The 2011 Heat had a much better version of Wade. Bosh was better that season too. They had a better regular season. The postseason competition was stiffer in 2011 too. The 2011 Celtics were clearly better than the 2012 version that took the Heat to 7. The 2011 Bulls are a step above the 2012 Pacers. The 2011 Mavs are a similar level team to the 2012 Rockets. In 2011, the Mavs beat the Thunder. In 2012, the Thunder beat the Mavs. The 2011 Mavs were more of a matchup problem for the Heat. They were a veteran squad that played discipline defense. They had the pieces to contain LeBron: A perimeter stopper (Marion), and a Rim Protector (Chandler). The Thunder had neither. The Heat shot 71% from the Free Throw Line against the Mavs vs 82% vs the Thunder. That's not a sign of a better team, that's a sign the 2011 Heat had bad luck in the Finals. Dirk hit 45 out of 46 (98%) from the line in the finals.

With the big three starting the celtics went 0-3 vs the heat losing by an average of 16 points a game. So uh...no. Injury aside, the 12 heat were very clearly better than the 11 heat lol.

There's multiple accounts that the 11 heat had no clue what they were doing offensively and it showed in the playoffs.

[VanWest82]

here's no evidence they were not historical juggernauts because they weren't. The thunder were so inexperienced they won 4 straight against a very experienced spurs team that

...was at a match up disadvantage because OKC was the one team athletic enough to hurt them. Match ups matter. I also said that 2012 OKC team had a higher ceiling than anyone MJ faced in 93 due to talent. But we also saw them self-combust repeatedly over the years and not live up to that ceiling. Specifically, Russ was prone to shooting them out of series which he did in the Finals. I think it's fair to say they weren't ready and weren't as good as their resume to that point.

There's nothing historiclaly special abou the knicks compared to the thunder. The thunder at this point had already won 50 games, then 57 games and had already made the conference finals. If success in other seasons is the metric here, the thunder are clearly better than the knicks. The reason why the bulls struggled was because Jordan played terribly in the first three games of the series.

I'd submit that Knicks #1 ranked defense and coaching were historically special, especially in comparison to 2012 Thunder. The reason Jordan struggled vs. Knicks was because they were huge, extremely well coached, and extremely physical with him. The fact you think it was just because he randomly sucked for three games shows once again just how biased you are against MJ.

On the other hand, when the heat 'struggled' vs the cleitcs, all three losses were without bosh starting, and all but one of them had bosh missing the whole game. By contrast "lebron ball" --with bosh-- who supposedly lebron was ruining with his ball hogging yieled 3 wins, by a margin of 48 points over a team that played at a 48 win pace..

Again, just because you struggled vs. lesser competition and then prevailed that doesn't make the feat greater than beating better competition. Celtics were +2 SRS in 2012. Those guys were all in their mid-late 30s. Knicks were +6 and were the best version of that team with everyone in their prime.

Then the following series vs a team that played at near a 60 win pace and had literally just rattled out 4 straight wins vs a great, red hot, regular season team that obliterated both of their postseason opponents, the heat won by 6 points a game.

Yes, credit the Heat for this. It was their lone series vs. a historically good team.

The 93 bulls are similar to the 12 heat in terms of results, but with lebron-ball fully realized, the lebron-wade-bosh heat were much more akin to the 91 bulls.

91 Bulls +8 SRS >> 12 Heat +5 SRS
91 Bulls +8 SRS > 13 Heat +7 SRS

91 Bulls didn't really face stiff competition either but they also didn't have anyone go down and mopped the floor with everyone.

Lebron was so damn ball-dominant, and bosh was so damn under utilized, they played like one of the greatest postseason teams ever with Bosh on the floor. Funny how that works.

We could say the same about 2020 Lakers. They didn't play anyone good until the Finals either and they dominated.

Giving teams regular seasons 1.5x as much as weight as the playoffs is nonsensical, since

A. regular season games have a way lower effect on championship probability than postseason games do and

This made me spit out my coffee. I'm guessing that for the team that wins the championship, their post season wins probably correlate pretty well with winning the championship. Everyone else, not so much.

B. Teams being aware of this generally use the regular season to try things experiment, give rest, ect, ect.

Yes, and they play against bad teams, and not everyone is going full tilt every night, etc. It's still worth more because of the sample size, not just in number of games but in variety of teams played.

As a test case, consider the 67 win Mavs and Warriors in 07. Do you believe that the results from that series was a fair representation of how they'd have performed vs. the other playoff teams? What about the +8 SRS 2018 Raptors who got smoked by Lebron? A lot of time these results are heavily match up driven. The average playoff team plays something like 10 games spread out over two opponents. If you place all the emphasis on that you're likely to get way further from the truth than just looking at regular season success. Blending them with an overweight on post season is a nice balance I think.

That the thunder of all teams is the one you're woried abou sample size with is baffling. They played close to a 60 win pace in the regular season, they did it the season before, and they won 50 games the season before that. They had already proven themselves as a legitmate postseason threat pushing the eventual championship lakers and then makng it to the conference finals.

There is no "noise" to be considered with the thunder. the thunder were consisntely a very good regualar season and postseason team.

Agreed. I didn't say sample size was the issue with Thunder. If anything I said the opposite. We have enough sample size over multiple series to know they were a match up nightmare for that Spurs team. We have enough sample size over multiple years to know they had a high ceiling that they could never reach because someone, usually Westbrook, would self-combust. And yes, we know they were a good enough team that they count as a real check mark in the Heat's corner. I'd probably still take 93 Knicks and Suns over them given where everyone was at in their respective careers.

The fact you spend so little time talking about the almost washed up Celtics and not-quite-ready-for-primetime Pacers says everything about Heat's case to be this high up on the list. They were a pretty good team that won in a screwy, shortened season that favored younger teams due to the condensed schedule.

[freethedevil]

here's no evidence they were not historical juggernauts because they weren't. The thunder were so inexperienced they won 4 straight against a very experienced spurs team that

...was at a match up disadvantage because OKC was the one team athletic enough to hurt them. Match ups matter. I also said that 2012 OKC team had a higher ceiling than anyone MJ faced in 93 due to talent. But we also saw them self-combust repeatedly over the years and not live up to that ceiling. Specifically, Russ was prone to shooting them out of series which he did in the Finals. I think it's fair to say they weren't ready and weren't as good as their resume to that point.
Not live up to their cieling? Huh? This is what the thunder did when healthy. 50 wins, push the lakers, 57 wins, reach th econference finals, 59 wins, reach the final, 2013, westbrook is injured, season after that westbrook is hurt but he comes back for the conference final and they nearly take the 14 spurs, a team that has the third highest playoff srs ever, to 7. 2015, Westbrook is hurt, 2016, they play 65 win basketball when healthy, decisively beat the spurs and then take the warriors, who even with a hampered curry, were probably beating the cavs without an untimely suspension, to 7 nearly winnng in 6. Their --floor-- when healthy was also higher than the knicks.

There's nothing historiclaly special abou the knicks compared to the thunder. The thunder at this point had already won 50 games, then 57 games and had already made the conference finals. If success in other seasons is the metric here, the thunder are clearly better than the knicks. The reason why the bulls struggled was because Jordan played terribly in the first three games of the series.

I'd submit that Knicks #1 ranked defense and coaching were historically special, especially in comparison to 2012 Thunder. The reason Jordan struggled vs. Knicks was because they were huge, extremely well coached, and extremely physical with him. The fact you think it was just because he randomly sucked for three games shows once again just how biased you are against MJ.
In the 2012 run the heat ran into the best, tihrd best, 5th best, and 8th best defenses in the league. And yes, the knicks were well suited to defend him, believe it or not, Jordan is not the only player to run into a bad matchup.(and it was hardly the only time this happened). There was nothing "random" about Jordan and the bulls struggling in the playoffs. With the exception of 1990, Jordan has always had a series or two where he struggled, be it the sixers, the heat, the knicks, the pistons, or the sonics. The Bulls struggling was also clearly not random, because the very next series they fund themselves in what was close to a dead heat vs the suns. The year before in 1992, they were taken all the way by a far less impressive knicks team, and given a run for their money by both the trailblazers and the cavs.(that was easily the best egular season of the three peat, btw). The knicks were not
the only team that could make the bulls play bad, and they were hardly the only defense that could figure out how to defend micheal jordan:
https://youtu.be/wDViQIwOtY8?t=394

On the other hand, when the heat 'struggled' vs the cleitcs, all three losses were without bosh starting, and all but one of them had bosh missing the whole game. By contrast "lebron ball" --with bosh-- who supposedly lebron was ruining with his ball hogging yieled 3 wins, by a margin of 48 points over a team that played at a 48 win pace..

Again, just because you struggled vs. lesser competition and then prevailed that doesn't make the feat greater than beating better competition. Are you intentionally ignoring what I'm saying right now?

You: The Heat struggled against the cletics because lebron-ball relegated bosh
Me: The Heat utterly dominated the celtics when lebron and bosh were on the floor together
You: The Heat struggled against the celtics ca--'

The heat struggled vs the celtics because a max player missed 3 games. When that player, who you say lebron wasn't able to effectively utilize played, they absolutely decimated the celtics. All three games with bosh on the floor were wins by double digits. They outscored the celtics by [b]16 points a game. A 16 point per game sweep of a 48 win team is not 'struggling'. The reason people bring up bosh's injury is because bosh's injury was literally the only reason that series was remotely competitive. Claiming that it was because of bosh-lebron that the heat struggled when they completely wrecked the Celtics when both were on the floor is incredibly disingenuous. [/b]

Then the following series vs a team that played at near a 60 win pace and had literally just rattled out 4 straight wins vs a great, red hot, regular season team that obliterated both of their postseason opponents, the heat won by 6 points a game.

Yes, credit the Heat for this. It was their lone series vs. a historically good team.
And a series they handled more decisively than either of the 93 bulls matchups with good teams. The outscored the suns by a point over 6 games and the knicks by less than 2 points a game. Miami's performance against the thunder was easily he most impressive of the bunch and the only time they strayed from that level of performance was when bosh got hurt pretty much ruining the lebron-ball angle you've got going here.

The 93 bulls are similar to the 12 heat in terms of results, but with lebron-ball fully realized, the lebron-wade-bosh heat were much more akin to the 91 bulls.

91 Bulls +8 SRS >> 12 Heat +5 SRS
91 Bulls +8 SRS > 13 Heat +7 SRS

91 Bulls didn't really face stiff competition either but they also didn't have anyone go down and mopped the floor with everyone.
Just like the heat...when they had chris bosh.

Lebron was so damn ball-dominant, and bosh was so damn under utilized, they played like one of the greatest postseason teams ever with Bosh on the floor. Funny how that works.

We could say the same about 2020 Lakers. They didn't play anyone good until the Finals either and they dominated.
Yes, and you can say the same about the 91 bulls and the 71 Bucks, atg playoff teams. But I'm glad we moved past "the heat struggled because lebron-ball ruined chris bosh." lmao

Giving teams regular seasons 1.5x as much as weight as the playoffs is nonsensical, since

A. regular season games have a way lower effect on championship probability than postseason games do and

This made me spit out my coffee. I'm guessing that for the team that wins the championship, their post season wins probably correlate pretty well with winning the championship. Everyone else, not so much.
Huh? Pretty sure winnign postseason games makes you more likely to win the title regardless of whether you actually win or not.

B. Teams being aware of this generally use the regular season to try things experiment, give rest, ect, ect.

Yes, and they play against bad teams, and not everyone is going full tilt every night, etc. It's still worth more because of the sample size, not just in number of games but in variety of teams played.
Or we can just look at the surrounding postseasons and adjust for context? The 2011 Heat featured a signifcantly less atheltic Lebron who hadn't yet developed a post-game or a repsectable jumpshot. The Heat didn't run offensive sets and their spacing was arocious. Despite this, essentially on sheer isolation talent and high trap defense, the Heat went 12-1 Decisively swatting a 61 win Bulls team and Ripping a 57 win celtics team to shreds(a team who were probably the best defneisve matchup you could ask for vs a lebron-led offense). Then with Lebron posting the second worst series of his prime, they went toe to toe with a maverics team that, aside from being a geat matchup for them, also went 8-1 against a 57 win lakers tem and a 55 win thunder team.

That a better verson of that team would dominante in the postseason is exactly what you would expect, and suprise suprise, when they were healthy, they were dominant. When the 93 bulls were healthy, they were not. That the 11 Heat were able to dominate two teams on the level of the 93 knicks or thr 93 suns makes the idea that the 12 heat were simply protected by weak opponents silly. And just in case there was any doubt they toppled a postseason juggernaut in the 2013 spurs the next year despite lebron's jumpshot dissapearing and wade **** up his legs. They didn't light up the regular season because they didn't need to. Inidentally, can you guess whch version of the bulls struggled mightily againt mediocre competition? It wasn't the 57 win one, it wasn't the 61 win one, no it was the 67 win 92 Bulls. If we were to go by the regular season the 92 bulls were strongest, yet they did worse against a much weaker version of the knicks than the 93 bulls did. Funny how that works.


As a test case, consider the 67 win Mavs and Warriors in 07. Do you believe that the results from that series was a fair representation of how they'd have performed vs. the other playoff teams?
[b]Maybe not, but it does hint that the Mavs had serious weaknesses that the jazz did not. Posing a hypoetheticla is fairly menaingless if you don't have a substanital basis for a prediction. Wht makes you think the Mavs wouldn't have been exposed vs the suns the way they were vs the warriors? Hypothericals ae fun and dandy, but the best evidence is what actually happens, and the psotseason is where things actuall yhappen. So weight should always, always, always, be primarily put on the postseason.
What about the +8 SRS 2018 Raptors who got smoked by Lebron? A lot of time these results are heavily match up driven.
You mean that raptors team we knew didn't have a chance at winning the title because they had no rim protection, their coach was an obsolete fossil, and their leading scorer was an inefecient chucker against quality defenses? The raptors are a great example of why weight should be put on the postseason, because the psotseason is fa rmore indicative of the raptors quality than their regular seaosn was. The nurse-gasol-siakim-kawhi raptors had a similar regular season to the 2018 raptors, but one team was great in the postseason and the other team was merey okay
The average playoff team plays something like 10 games spread out over two opponents. If you place all the emphasis on that you're likely to get way further from the truth than just looking at regular season success. Blending them with an overweight on post season is a nice balance I think.
Those are 10 games where all of a team's cards are played and no one's pullnig their punches. You can look at surrounding postseasons, adjsut for context,l look at changes in scheme, ect, ect, but a regular season should not outweigh a postseason run. The regular season is simply there to estabish who --could-- win a title, the postseason is what shows us just how great the good teams are.

That the thunder of all teams is the one you're woried abou sample size with is baffling. They played close to a 60 win pace in the regular season, they did it the season before, and they won 50 games the season before that. They had already proven themselves as a legitmate postseason threat pushing the eventual championship lakers and then makng it to the conference finals.

There is no "noise" to be considered with the thunder. the thunder were consisntely a very good regualar season and postseason team.

Agreed. I didn't say sample size was the issue with Thunder. If anything I said the opposite. We have enough sample size over multiple series to know they were a match up nightmare for that Spurs team. We have enough sample size over multiple years to know they had a high ceiling that they could never reach because someone, usually Westbrook, would self-combust. And yes, we know they were a good enough team that they count as a real check mark in the Heat's corner. I'd probably still take 93 Knicks and Suns over them given where everyone was at in their respective careers.
Westbrook was very clearly their best player the three times they reached their cieling, the 14 wcf, the 16 second round and the 16 wcf. Westbrook per AUPM was a +6 postseason player from 16-18 and incedentally the thunder when healthy were --at least-- going to give you a good conference final and at best would go toe to toe with all time great teams.

This is, along with your basless extrapolation of lebron ball- ruining the 12 heat, a nonsensical narrative that has zero rootingin reality. Westbrook was an all-tiem creator and limiated scorer whose creation skyrocketed in the postseason against the best of the best despite his team not being able to shoot. Durant was a great rs scorer who couldn't create much whose effiency plummeted. Westbrook's creation skyrocketed vs the spurs and the heat in 2012 as Durant created basically nothing as the clear mvp. Then from the 14 conference final onward defenses focused on westbrook as much or more than Durant and despite this, --Westbrook-- was the signifcantly more effecient player despite creating more and being the primary ball handler.

Inicdenetally, compared to the Knicks, the thudner were the more impressive postseason team, the more impressive regular season team, and were consistently a better team than the knicks barring injury. I don't know what you mean by "given where everyone was in their careers", the thunder played better, because they were better.
https://backpicks.com/2018/06/10/aupm-2-0-the-top-playoff-performers-of-the-databall-era/

^^^^
(Westbrook imploding so hard he was one of the most valuable playoff players ever, lmao).

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The fact you spend so little time talking about the almost washed up Celtics and not-quite-ready-for-primetime Pacers says everything about Heat's case to be this high up on the list. They were a pretty good team that won in a screwy, shortened season that favored younger teams due to the condensed schedule.

I'm only talking about --the washed up celtics-- because you brought them up. It's not my fault you couldn't be bothered to check who was in the lineup.