If SA beat LAC in 2015, would they have probably repeated?

[rand]

In 2015 the defending champion 55-win 6th seeded Spurs lost in the first round to 56-win 3rd seeded Clippers on Chris Paul's Game 7 winning shot with 1 second remaining.

Let's say CP3 had missed that well contested midrange banker and the Spurs prevailed in OT. Would they have beaten the Rockets, Warriors and Cavs to win the title? Assume that all injuries remain the same, so Cleveland still loses Love and Kyrie.

*note "probably repeated" was written to acknowledge the probabilistic nature of these events, as the Spurs might have been 67% favorites against each of the Rockets, Warriors and it's still improbable mathematically that they would win the title. Put another way, would you consider them favorites if they had gotten past LAC?

[iggymcfrack]

Nah, the Warriors were definitely better. They went 67-15 through the regular season and 12-3 through the Western Conference playoffs. I mean, the Spurs COULD have knocked them off, but it definitely would have been an upset.

[Lost92Bricks]

They completely escaped criticism for losing that series lol.

If the Warriors had lost to the Kings this year, they would've gotten roasted.

[Dr Positivity]

No, there's probably a reason they lost to the league's #1 pretender team. I think Parker and Manu slipped too much compared to 2014, and Kawhi wasn't in MVP contender mode yet to make up for it.

[Doctor MJ]

In 2015 the defending champion 55-win 6th seeded Spurs lost in the first round to 56-win 3rd seeded Clippers on Chris Paul's Game 7 winning shot with 1 second remaining.

Let's say CP3 had missed that well contested midrange banker and the Spurs prevailed in OT. Would they have beaten the Rockets, Warriors and Cavs to win the title? Assume that all injuries remain the same, so Cleveland still loses Love and Kyrie.

*note "probably repeated" was written to acknowledge the probabilistic nature of these events, as the Spurs might have been 67% favorites against each of the Rockets, Warriors and it's still improbable mathematically that they would win the title. Put another way, would you consider them favorites if they had gotten past LAC?

Rockets yes, they’d be favorites and I’d expect they win, but don’t know why you think the Spurs would be favored going into the Warriors series.

Feels like you’re assuming that they’d have the whole “champs until dethroned” thing going, but that’d be pretty weird for a team known for repeating 0% of the time.

As beautiful as the 2014 team was, the ages of the players involved made it seem likely they’d be able to pull it off again ever before the regular season began.

I’ll also note something I’ve said before: The rule every time the Spurs won the title this millennium was that Ginobili would lead the team in plus minus through those playoffs.

Look at Ginobili’s playoff MPG drop off from 2014 to 2015. When Ginobili stops being Ginobili, that’s basically all she wrote for that core.

Now, when Kawhi emerges as a true superstar that changes things, but he wasn’t there yet.


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[One_and_Done]

The game changed alot from 2010 to 2011. By 2015 it was basically a different sport, and that transformation continued up until today. There are very few pre-2015 teams that could beat a post 2014 champ/contender. Spurs & Heatles would be teams that could maybe do it, but it would be tough for Spurs to recapture lightning in a bottle with the team aging.

[Cavsfansince84]

They completely escaped criticism for losing that series lol.

If the Warriors had lost to the Kings this year, they would've gotten roasted.

I don't think they would have been anymore than the way in which they lost to the Lakers. Most people were just glad to see them lose I think.

[parsnips33]

Warriors would have smoked em