Greatest Team to Never Win a Ring Tournament: '14 Clippers vs. '12 Thunder

[pandrade83]

This is a voting based tournament to determine who was the GOAT team to not win a title. The original thread for this is

here

Each matchup will utilize the rules, refs, & equipment of the older team in this tournament. This hopefully will eliminate a bit of the recency bias. Health is as it was at the close of the Regular Season; perhaps a team didn't win because of injury.

One last thing. Voting without any reason listed at all will not be counted. Each thread will be open until it slips to page 2 of the board.

'14 Clippers 57-25, +7.27 SRS, +5.4 Offense, -1.9 Defense, lost in 2nd rd to '14 Thunder in 6

D. Jordan
B. Griffin
M. Barnes
J. Reddick
C. Paul

J. Crawford
D. Collison
J. Dudley

'12 Thunder 47-19, +6.44 SRS, +5.2 Offense, -1.4 Defense, lost in Finals to Heat in 5

Perkins
Ibaka
Durant
Sefolosha
Westbrook

J. Harden
D. Cook
N. Collison

[pandrade83]

I might be oversimplifying a bit, but given that the '14 Thunder beat the '14 Clippers and the biggest changes were:

-Loss of Harden from '12 Thunder
-Those minutes going to washed J. Lamb & super washed D. Fisher. . .
-'14 Thunder have a better version of Durant

I'm going to have to go with the Thunder. I guess I'm not sure what changed enough from '12 to '14 to allow the Clips to take this.

[penbeast0]

I don't know about that but they just seem to be more talented. Durant is the best player in the series, Westbrook the 3rd best, and Harden off the bench. LAC has the inside edge with DeAndre and Griffin but I just don't think it can overcome that.

[RoyceDa59]

Easily the Thunder in this one.

Easily.


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[Eskobar13]

Harden was already really good - assuming he doesn't disappear again I'm going to say Thunder win this. Ibaka matched up very well with Griffin back then.

[CodeBreaker]

Thunder. Star power + youth would be their key. And they have the best player