RealGM

1. Minneapolis/Los Angeles Lakers
2. Boston Celtics
3. Dallas Chaparrals, San Antonio Spurs
4. Chicago Bulls
5. Syracuse Nationals/Philadelphia 76ers
6. Philly/SF/Golden State Warriors
7. Miami Heat
8. Fort Wayne/Detroit Pistons
9. Houston Rockets
10. New York Knicks
11. Indiana Pacers

.....

26. Vancouver/Memphis Grizzlies
27. New Orleans Hornets/Pelicans
28. Charlotte Bobcats/Hornets
29. Buffalo Braves/(San Diego)/Los Angeles Clippers
30. Minnesota Timberwolves

Seattle Supersonics/OKC Thunder is the pick here. Very solid W-L%, 31 playoff appearances over 51 seasons, with a championship and three other finals appearances thrown in. I give a boost for avoiding prolonged spells of ineptitude, and their longest playoff drought was their first seven years (including a 47-35 season that somehow saw them eliminated despite having a better record than two playoff teams ). In the modern era, a lot of their lottery teams haven't even been that terrible.

Vote Sonics/Thunder

They have the close calls and long running contending eras of the Suns (96, 12, etc.) except they also have a title, and very close loss the year before as well.

Yeah, I'm going Sonics/Thunder here too after looking at Portland, Phoenix, and Milwaukee. Is there anyone else I should be considering at this point?

Below I believe are the top 6 candidates for this spot, compared in several measures. Since prior threads I've added one important [imo] category for measure: Playoff Series Win%........


rs Win%
Sonics/Thunder - .542
Jazz - .539
Trailblazers - .538
Suns - .529
Bucks - .515
Hawks - .495

% of Seasons in the Playoffs
Trailblazers - .714
Hawks - .657
Jazz - .622
Bucks - .608
Sonics/Thunder - .596
Suns - .569

% of Seasons going as far as Conference Finals
Sonics/Thunder - .192
Hawks - .186
Suns - .176
Bucks - .176
Trailblazers - .143
Jazz - .133

Playoff Series Win%
Sonics/Thunder - .516
Suns - .473
Jazz - .462
Bucks - .400
Trailblazers - .393
Hawks - .366

% of Seasons going to Finals
Sonics/Thunder - .077
Trailblazers - .061
Hawks - .057
Jazz - .044
Suns - .039
Bucks - .039

% of Seasons Winning Title
Trailblazers - .0204
Bucks - .0196
Sonics/Thunder - .019
Hawks - .014
Jazz - n/a
Suns - n/a

Reviewing what I just posted above, I believe I too will vote Sonics/Thunder for this spot.

They're toward the bottom of six candidates I listed in % of seasons going to the playoffs......but they're otherwise essentially tied for #1 in % of seasons as champions [technically 3rd, but it's splitting hairs between the top three, who all have 1 title in 50(ish) seasons], and #1 on their own in EVERY other category (and in particular have a decent lead over the field in Playoff Series Win%).

Perhaps not as close/competitive for this spot as I initially thought. Next few should be interesting, though.

I see four votes for the Sonics/Thunder, zero for anyone else. This is technically about 9 hours premature, but I don't see this result changing in that span, and I won't be available to start the new thread this evening.

So I'm gonna call it for the Thunder now. Will have the next up in a moment....