RealGM

How many titles the Bulls win in this scenario?

1991 Bulls vs 1981 Celtics
1992 Bulls vs 1982 Lakers
1993 Bulls vs 1983 76ers
1996 Bulls vs 1986 Celtics
1997 Bulls vs 1987 Lakers
1998 Bulls vs 1988 Lakers

Confident in 1981, rest feel like more of a coinflip.

1981: Win
1982: Win
1983: Lose
1986: Lose
1987: Lose
1988: Win

1991 W
1992 W
1993 L
1996 W
1997 L
1998 W

1991: win
1992: win
1993: lose
1996: lose
1997: lose
1998: toss-up. gun to my head probably lose

1991: win
1992: win
1993: lose
1996: close but lose
1997: lose
1998: no idea, would guess loss

1991: W
1992: W
1993: L
1996: W but close
1997: W but close
1998: L

Win
Win
Lose
Lose
Lose
Toss up—Indy and Utah very easily coukd have won close series.

What makes the 92 Bulls so superior to the 82 Lakers?

wojoaderge wrote:What makes the 92 Bulls so superior to the 82 Lakers?

Seeing 82 Magic vs 92 Jordan would have been something.
But 92 Cartwright vs 82 Kareem would have been ugly on the bulls part.

Just my opinion, and all props to Michael Jordan as the greatest ever, but I don't see any Bulls team beating the 1982-83 76ers in a 7 game series. That team was just dominant, lost only one playoff game, had two players all-NBA 1st team (Malone/Erving) and three players all-defensive 1st team (Malone, Cheeks, Bobby Jones).

Also the 1985-86 Boston team. That team was stacked.

Would love to see a series between either of these teams and the best Bulls team of the 90s. That would be something to watch.

wojoaderge wrote:What makes the 92 Bulls so superior to the 82 Lakers?

Well
their margin of victory
10.44 (10th all time through 2019) to 4.87 (233 all time through 2019 -both include ABA and BAA, NBL)
SRS
10.07 (9th, ABA and BAA included) to 4.37 (252nd, 4th that year).
One might take performance (e.g. 8.27666 SRS in 3 year spell centered on '92 for Bulls; 4.2333 for Lakers), or I suppose more crudely playoff success in adjacent years, as confirmation of luck not being such a great factor in the Bulls' title ...

Anything along those lines ... the Bulls crush the Lakers. One can debate league strength ... expansion versus an expanded international player pool ... and the Lakers made it to the finals more comfortably (though both Bulls conference semi and conference final opponents have a superior SRS to both Laker opponents - the Bulls did have an easy first round) but yeah, the data is there ... the Bulls despite the scares give every sign of being a dominant champ. The Lakers numbers would tend to suggest a fringe contender in many other eras whose weaker conference gave them better odds than their goodness warranted. Now the Lakers still had to win and they did and they went through two ... solid(? ... they have easier paths in other years) teams and had to beat a good team in the finals (though notably they were narrowly outscored in that series, their only somewhat high level competition).

You'd have to heavily ignore RS, probably underweight playoff competition, not mind the possible black mark of getting outscored in a series, substantially prefer the NBA's '82 talent base ... probably multiple of the above to see this as particularly close (even if one thought LA were a little better than their RS numbers).

Owly wrote:

wojoaderge wrote:What makes the 92 Bulls so superior to the 82 Lakers?

Well
their margin of victory
10.44 (10th all time through 2019) to 4.87 (233 all time through 2019 -both include ABA and BAA, NBL)
SRS
10.07 (9th, ABA and BAA included) to 4.37 (252nd, 4th that year).
One might take performance (e.g. 8.27666 SRS in 3 year spell centered on '92 for Bulls; 4.2333 for Lakers), or I suppose more crudely playoff success in adjacent years, as confirmation of luck not being such a great factor in the Bulls' title ...

Anything along those lines ... the Bulls crush the Lakers. One can debate league strength ... expansion versus an expanded international player pool ... and the Lakers made it to the finals more comfortably (though both Bulls conference semi and conference final opponents have a superior SRS to both Laker opponents - the Bulls did have an easy first round) but yeah, the data is there ... the Bulls despite the scares give every sign of being a dominant champ. The Lakers numbers would tend to suggest a fringe contender in many other eras whose weaker conference gave them better odds than their goodness warranted. Now the Lakers still had to win and they did and they went through two ... solid(? ... they have easier paths in other years) teams and had to beat a good team in the finals (though notably they were narrowly outscored in that series, their only somewhat high level competition).

You'd have to heavily ignore RS, probably underweight playoff competition, not mind the possible black mark of getting outscored in a series, substantially prefer the NBA's '82 talent base ... probably multiple of the above to see this as particularly close (even if one thought LA were a little better than their RS numbers).

I go position by position, including the bench