Season with the most legit title contenders?

[Hook_Em]

I was looking at 1990:

- Pistons are defending champs
- Bulls (peak MJ)
- Sixers (arguably Barkley’s best season)
- Celtics (old but Reggie Lewis is their third guy now)
- Lakers (63 wins and Magic MVP)
- Blazers (ended up winning the west)
- Jazz (55 wins and two stars)
- Suns (#1 in net rating)

[One_and_Done]

I was looking at 1990:

- Pistons are defending champs
- Bulls (peak MJ)
- Sixers (arguably Barkley’s best season)
- Celtics (old but Reggie Lewis is their third guy now)
- Lakers (63 wins and Magic MVP)
- Blazers (ended up winning the west)
- Jazz (55 wins and two stars)
- Suns (#1 in net rating)

The 1990 Celtics, Sixers, and Jazz were not legit contenders.

[DirtyDez]

I was looking at 1990:

- Pistons are defending champs
- Bulls (peak MJ)
- Sixers (arguably Barkley’s best season)
- Celtics (old but Reggie Lewis is their third guy now)
- Lakers (63 wins and Magic MVP)
- Blazers (ended up winning the west)
- Jazz (55 wins and two stars)
- Suns (#1 in net rating)

The 1990 Celtics, Sixers, and Jazz were not legit contenders.

The Suns/Jazz series was a coinflip. I think Phoenix wins the west if KJ doesn’t hurt his hamstring vs Portland.

[lessthanjake]

The actual answer here is probably some year in the latter half of the 1970s, since the title winners in those years were pretty random—there was a lot of parity, such that most of the teams in the playoffs probably could’ve potentially won.

Beyond that, though, I think 1995 is a pretty good year for this. You had all the following:

- The defending champions Rockets, who would actually win the title that year
- A 62-win Spurs team led by David Robinson
- A 59-win Suns team led by Barkley
- A 57-win Magic team led by Shaq
- A 60-win Jazz team led by Malone & Stockton
- A 55-win Knicks team led by Ewing, who had lost in 7 games in the Finals the year before
- A 57-win Sonics team led by Payton & Kemp, which had an 8 SRS and would win 64 games and make the Finals the next year
- A 52-win Pacers team led by Reggie Miller, which had barely lost in 7 games in the conference finals the year before and would barely lose in 7 games in the conference finals again in 1995
- The Bulls with Jordan having just come back

That’s the best year for this that I can think of, but 2021 is a recent one that is pretty good too. You had the Bucks, Sixers, and Clippers all having had really good seasons and having a major superstar. You had the Jazz with a 9 SRS and the league’s best record. The Nets had had injuries so their regular season didn’t look great on paper, but they were extremely stacked. Similarly, the Lakers didn’t have a great regular season, but they were the defending champions and had just had their stars miss a lot of time during the season. Meanwhile, the Suns had had a great regular season and ended up making the Finals and going up 2-0. So that was probably 7 contenders. In the end, it didn’t quite end up that way, in part because the Nets, Lakers, and Clippers had major injury issues in the playoffs. But, prior to the playoffs, things were definitely very wide open IMO.

[durantbird]

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