Greatest Team To Never Win A Ring Tournament: '81 Sixers vs. '00 Blazers

[pandrade83]

We're over halfway in Round 2!

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 - please read the original thread if this is new to you!

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.

'81 Sixers 62-20 (HCA), SRS +7.8, Offense +1.5, Defense -6.0, lost in ECF to Boston in 7
C. Jones
D. Dawkins
J. Erving
L. Hollins
M. Cheeks

B. Jones
A. Toney
S. Mix
C. Richardson


'00 Blazers 59-23 SRS +6.4, Offense +3.8, Defense -3.3, lost in WCF to Lakers in 7
Sabonis
Wallace
Pippen
Smith
Stoudamire

Schrempf
G. Anthony
B. Grant
B. Wells

[pandrade83]

I'm taking the Sixers here quite comfortably. I know both teams came extremely close to toppling a champion, but Philly:

-Has HCA
-Has the best player in the series (rather comfortably, I might add)
-Is just as deep as Portland (if not deeper?)
-Can match the Blazers size

The names on Portland are pretty impressive, but many were outside of their prime.