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I was looking at Denver’s ratings and realized they were 6th in regular season Net Rating? Has their been a lower one to win the title?

Pretty sure Houston Rockets 1995. Rank 11th? If I'm reading it right.

Ngl I just looked it up on statmuse on my phone cuz I thought of that team. But they were 6th seed in the west at 47-35 in that championship run

The answer is the 1977-1978 Bullets. Net rating of +0.9.

lessthanjake wrote:The answer is the 1977-1978 Bullets. Net rating of +0.9.

.500 team comes together and grits through every series to win a championship after everyone writes them off.

"It ain't over till the fat lady sings!"

Then the next season they had the strong regular season but lost in the playoffs.

Think Bullets is correct. Fwiw in rank terms they were 7th of 22 in net rating and SRS.

'58 Hawks have the same SRS (0.82) via weaker schedule and stronger net rating (+1.1). Kyle Wright's POST (an SRS equivalent for dominance within the year, from a book just around when Reference SRS took off) actually had the Hawk's slightly weaker/less dominant.

'55 Nationals are somewhat nearby. 1.23 SRS, +1.3 net rating.

The only other team sub-2 SRS is '73 Pacers (1.97, with 1.9 net rating) - ABA is something different though.

Hook_Em wrote:I was looking at Denver’s ratings and realized they were 6th in regular season Net Rating? Has their been a lower one to win the title?

By SRS on bkref, this is my query returns:

1. '57-58 St. Louis Hawks 0.82, 41-31
2. '77-78 Washington Bullets 0.82, 44-38
3. '54-55 Syracuse Nationals 1.23, 43-29
4. '75-76 Boston Celtics 2.25, 54-28
5. '94-95 Houston Rockets 2.32, 47-35
6. '50-51 Rochester Royals 2.54, 41-27
7. '78-79 Seattle SuperSonics 2.69, 52-50
8. '53-54 Minneapolis Lakers 2.71, 46-26
9. '74-75 Golden State Warriors 2.86, 48-34
10. '22-23 Denver Nuggets 3.04, 53-29

And, because it seems interesting given the topic, using MOV for playoff teams:

1. '62-63 Boston Celtics 2.15, 8-5
2. '54-55 Syracuse Nationals 2.27, 7-4
3. '99-00 Los Angeles Lakers 2.35, 15-8
4. '57-58 St. Louis Hawks 2.45, 8-3
5. '47-48 Baltimore Bullets 2.45, 8-3
6. '78-79 Seattle SuperSonics 2.53, 12-5
7. '87-88 Los Angeles Lakers 2.54, 15-9
8. '94-95 Houston Rockets 2.77, 15-7
9. '75-76 Boston Celtics 2.94, 12-6
10. '67-68 Boston Celtics 3.11, 12-7

Teams on both lists:

'57-58 St. Louis Hawks 1st & 4th
'54-55 Syracuse Nationals 3rd & 2nd
'75-76 Boston Celtics 4th & 9th
'94-95 Houston Rockets 5th & 8th
'78-79 Seattle SuperSonics 7th & 6th

Playoff MOVs for the other 5 and their ranks:

'77-78 Washington Bullets 3.67, 14-7, 16th
'50-51 Rochester Royals 7.07, 9-5, 54th
'53-54 Minneapolis Lakers 6.23, 9-4, 46th
'74-75 Golden State Warriors 5.29, 12-5, 31st
'22-23 Denver Nuggets 8.30, 16-4, 63rd

Note that there are 77 champs in the query, so the Nuggets, Royals & Lakers were actually on the dominant side of playoff runs