What do you think are the best team's in NBA history that failed to repeat as champions.

[coastalmarker99]

My rankings are

1 1968 76ers as they had a peak Wilt surrounded by 4 to five hall of Famers all in their primes and it took basically everyone on the team getting injured otherwise they would have easily repeated.



2 1972 Bucks as they had peak Kareem to go along with a record of 63 and 19 and it took an Oscar injury plus some incredibly bad luck in the 1972 WCF for them to lose vs LA.

3 1987 Celtics were utterly destroyed by injuries and still finished with a 59 and 23 record and were a Bird miss away in game 4 from taking the best version of showtime to seven.

4 1973 Lakers as they started the season off 24 and 4 with a MOV of +9.679 before Hairston got hurt.

Despite that setback, they still managed to finish the season with a 60 and 22 record and make it back to the finals in which they lost three games by five or fewer points.

with a fully healthy Jerry West not hobbled by two pulled hamstrings in those finals they would have easily repeated as champions


5 1978 Portland as they started the season off 50 and 10 before Walton got hurt otherwise they probably would have won 63 to 66 games and easily swept through the playoffs en route to back-to-back titles.

6 2006 Spurs as they finished with a 63 and 19 record and were a dumb play away from going to the finals in which they would have destroyed Miami.

7 2017 Cavs as they posted a 51 and 31 record while having a peak Lebron surrounded by two Allstars they steamrolled the east while posting the best offence of all time before running into a Goat team.

8 2021 Lakers as they posted a 21 and 6 record to start of the year before AD went down and were going to beat the Suns even with a hobbled Lebron before AD went down again.

9 1971 New york

[coastalmarker99]

Looking at those great teams makes me wonder.

How the narratives about them and their superstars get remembered nowadays with back-to-back titles.

Wilt and the 76ers probably get viewed as the best team of the 1960s with one of the greatest two-year runs in NBA history especially if they beat Boston in five games again in the 1968 ECF en route to another title.


Kareem and the Bucks probably go down as the team of the 1970s with back-to-back titles to go along with another finals appearance in 1974.


Bird and the Celtics probably go down as the team of the 1980's with them now having 4 titles and being the only ones to repeat.


Bird over Magic is most likely the popular narrative nowadays as a result of Bird having two Goat finals upsets vs Magic


Walton with 2 rings and 2 finals MVP's in Portland most likely ensures that he and those Blazers teams are more brought up in NBA history


Duncan with 6 rings and four finals MVPs to go along with his two regular season MVP's probably ensures that the argument between him and Kobe is over.

[coastalmarker99]

I think the team that gets the biggest boost with back-to-back titles in terms of reputation is that 2017 Cavs team.


As taking down a 73 and 9 team that just added Durant would elevate the overall legacy of that team to God-tier levels.

As It would be considered by far the greatest achievement in NBA history.

[Homer38]

2016 Warriors

[Colbinii]

#1 is clearly the Warriors

Back-to-back 10+ SRS seasons and MVP's from their best player. As unlucky as they were in the Finals, they win that finals if LeBron is replaced by any player in NBA History--a lot has to go wrong to not win a title that season.

[coastalmarker99]

#1 is clearly the Warriors

Back-to-back 10+ SRS seasons and MVP's from their best player. As unlucky as they were in the Finals, they win that finals if LeBron is replaced by any player in NBA History--a lot has to go wrong to not win a title that season.

I disagree as they were pushed to seven games by OKC beforehand and it took Klay having the game of his life to win that series otherwise they would have gone home in six.

I think Jordan and a couple of others also beat that team if they replaced Lebron.


As he was awful through the first four games outside of game 3.

In fact he had only 18 points to go along with seven turnovers in game 4 before he scored seven points in the last 1.00 when the game was out of reach.

Watch on YouTube

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/lebron-stats-in-first-4-games-of-the-2016-finals

[Colbinii]

#1 is clearly the Warriors

Back-to-back 10+ SRS seasons and MVP's from their best player. As unlucky as they were in the Finals, they win that finals if LeBron is replaced by any player in NBA History--a lot has to go wrong to not win a title that season.

I disagree as they were pushed to seven games by OKC beforehand and it took Klay having the game of his life to win that series otherwise they would have gone home in six.

The same Thunder who beat a 10 SRS team in the semi-finals of the Western Conference? The same Thunder who had peak/prime Westbrook AND Durant?

I think they would push most teams to 7 game series, including the Warriors.

I think Jordan and a couple of others also beat that team if they replaced Lebron.

Jordan couldn't replicate the defense or playmaking the Cavaliers required from LeBron.

[penbeast0]

With the Warriors being mentioned, what about the 67 Celtics following their win in 66? Reasonably comparable 2-6 as the 67 Sixers but if Russell is still better at elevating his team than Wilt and wins that series, it's even more brutal for Wilt's rep.

And not sure I see 4-5 HOF players in their prime around Wilt. Greer and Walker could be labeled as such, Cunningham not quite into his prime yet, but Luke Jackson and Wali Jones aren't HOF players though Jackson was very good.

[Owly]

#1 is clearly the Warriors

Back-to-back 10+ SRS seasons and MVP's from their best player. As unlucky as they were in the Finals, they win that finals if LeBron is replaced by any player in NBA History--a lot has to go wrong to not win a title that season.

I disagree as they were pushed to seven games by OKC beforehand and it took Klay having the game of his life to win that series otherwise they would have gone home in six.

1)There are at least two statements of opinion so the disagreement is ambiguous. But assume it's with Warriors as clear 1.
2) OKC's SRS is north of 7 and Durant missed 10 games (so better than that full strength) and are a team that benefits from tightened rotations. If, say, their real, full strength playoff rotation is circa the quality of an 8.5 SRS team (plucking this out of thin air) even an elite (10.38 SRS Warriors - over the season at relatively full health - their superstar suffered an injury in the playoffs and may still have been somewhat reduced) team is by no means assured of a win.
2a) Counterpoint: It is nonetheless probably notable that OKC outscored the Warriors.
3) Having a player capable of playing an elite game is a negative because .... If one were talking probablisitically for the entire evaluation and players were playing over their heads for the entire series then that's one thing. It's another if they're bad for defeats and in wins some aspect of one players game was "fluky" (as though that isn't typical in tiny samples).

he was awful through the first four games outside of game 3.

LeBron's individual game BPM's for those games (just one measure, don't claim to know the absolute best tool for assessing small samples, am very open to discussion on this)
12
9.3
7.6
9.6
That's a non-minute weighted average of 9.625. And that's against the Warriors. There have been 33 player seasons in history to this point (26 at that point in time) player-seasons above that level (in the BPM era)... against much more average schedules.

At first glance it doesn't appear that they're much better with him off the floor or anything like that, at a glance, they appear (as expected) worse, so there's no great evidence of non-boxscore harm.

I checked the statmuse link and can't see what I'm supposed to see that's "awful".
I feel I must be missing something for that standard of play to be awful.