Greatest Team To Never win a Ring: '03 Mavericks vs. '72 Bulls

[pandrade83]

This is a voting based tournament to determine who was the GOAT team to not win a title. The original thread for this is

here

Each player will be considered to be as dominant against his opponents as he was the year that he played (ie. if you are just going to say the more modern team wins, don't bother to participate). And EACH MATCHUP WILL FEATURE THE RULES, REFEREES, AND EQUIPMENT OF THE OLDER TEAM. This doesn't mean that Steph Curry will be called for carrying each time he tries to dribble, just assume that his handle is proportionately as good relative to the era as it is relative to his own. So, in 65, if you think he has the best handle in today's league, you can assume he has the best handle of that era; if he's roughly average for starting PGs of today's league in terms of that one aspect, you can assume he is roughly average for starting PGs of that era. This hopefully will eliminate a bit of the recency bias. Health is as it was at the close of the Regular Season; perhaps a team didn't win because of injury.

One last thing. VOTES WITHOUT ANALYSIS (or with what in my personal subject opinion is stupid analysis) WONT BE COUNTED. (Lots of capital letters!) I will list results here. Each thread will be open until it slips to page 2 of the board.

'03 Dallas 60-22 (HCA), Lost in WCF to Spurs in 6 with a Dirk Nowitzki injury being a key factor. SRS: +7.9 Offense +7.1, Defense -1.3

LaFrentz
Nowitzki
Griffin
Finley
Nash

Van Exel
Bradley
Najera
R. Bell
W. Williams

'72 Chicago 57-25, Lost in 1st round to Lakers in 4. Only team in this tournament to fail to win a game past round 1 - I put them in based on some ad-hoc requests & penalized them on seeding. SRS: +7.91 Offense: +4.0, Defense: -3.6

C. Ray
B. Love
C. Walker
J. Sloan
N. Van Lier

Boerwinkle
B. Weiss
J. King

Keep in mind that Dallas will not be able to shoot 3's in this series.

[pandrade83]

I think Dallas is the better team, but given the rule stipulations, I think this is a dangerous matchup.

Dallas shot 20 3's per game in '03 which was 2nd in the league. While their offense would still be quite dangerous, it would lose a lot of it's spacing & ability to hurt the Bulls. Meanwhile, the Bulls were allowed to really rough it up in this era while being skilled offensively - finishing 3rd in both offense/defense to the Bucks & Lakers in both categories.

Chicago is a deep talented team with skilled guys at every position - & while I feel confident that Dallas has the best player - even under this format - Chicago may have the next 3 or so best players for these conditions.

I think the Bulls - under these rules would be able to slow down Dallas' offense enough to get the W.

I'll take the Bulls in 6.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Getting swept by the Lakers in the first round does not make the Bulls great. I understand why people that want the 1972 Lakers to be the GOAT want the 1972 Bulls to be a great team.

The Bulls shot 45% in the regular season and 43% in the playoffs.
That isn't good enough.

Ray is not a dominant rebounder or a shot blocker. He is just solid. If
Wilt only shot 42% in the playoffs vs the Bulls and yet the Laker team shot 48% which is good foe that era.
Van Lier Anne Sloan are supposed to be great defenders but they did not get the job done.

Part of the 1970s Bulls defensive reputation is undeserved. Their slow pace was making them look better defensively than they were.

Mavericks shot 45% overall and 47% from 2
Playing without the spacing of 3 point shooting should hurt the Mavericks
Spurs affected the Mavericks fg%. The other playoff teams, not so much.

Since it was stipulated that modern players will be able to figure out how to not travelI will also assume the players know how to play without spacing from 3 point shots.

I will take the Mavericks to win this. It is not a blow out.

[LA Bird]

Getting swept by the Lakers in the first round does not make the Bulls great. I understand why people that want the 1972 Lakers to be the GOAT want the 1972 Bulls to be a great team.

This is one of the strangest arguments I have seen. The Bulls are a great team because of their RS performance and getting swept by an all time great team in the playoffs does not detract from that. Even when excluding the expansion teams, the 72 Bulls had a 55 win rate with +8.0 MOV. I doubt any Lakers fans would bother to prop up the 72 Bulls just to support the 72 Lakers since the GOAT case for the team is much more than just them sweeping the Bulls (then record 69 wins + championship, 33 game winning streak, 11.7 SRS).

The Bulls shot 45% in the regular season and 43% in the playoffs.
That isn't good enough.

But the 03 Mavs shot 45% in the regular season and 42% in their playoffs loss to the Spurs....

Ray is not a dominant rebounder or a shot blocker. He is just solid. If
Wilt only shot 42% in the playoffs vs the Bulls and yet the Laker team shot 48% which is good foe that era.
Van Lier Anne Sloan are supposed to be great defenders but they did not get the job done.

One could similarly say Lafrentz is also just solid and that Dirk/Nash are supposed to be great offensive players but they did not get the job done either. I don't know enough about the 72 Bulls to vote here but you are presenting a very one-sided argument by only focusing on the Bulls postseason loss and ignoring the 03 Mavs lost in the playoffs to a team worse than the 72 Lakers.

[trex_8063]

Part of the 1970s Bulls defensive reputation is undeserved. Their slow pace was making them look better defensively than they were.

This statement could be called into question depending on just how big you're suggesting this "part" of their reputation is.

DRtg is pace-adjusted, and thus isn't effected by how slow or fast you play as a team. Their rDRTG (and league rank) thru the early 70's follows:
'71: -1.5 (tied for 6th of 17)
'72: -3.6 (3rd of 17)
'73: -1.2 (7th of 17)
'74: -4.1 (tied for 1st of 17)
'75: -3.3 (2nd of 18)

They're solidly above average defensively each year for five consecutive seasons (what could probably be termed "elite" or at least "elite-ish" in three of the five); averaging a -2.74 rDRTG over this 5-year span......that average would roughly tie them with this year's Miami Heat as the 6th-best (of 30) defense in the league.
Were an above average defense in '76 and '77 too, fwiw.

So idk.....it seems like their defensive reputation isn't some kind of illusion, but pretty well-founded [it's not like anyone is trying to characterize it as some GOAT-level defensive team, are they?].

[pandrade83]

One could similarly say Lafrentz is also just solid and that Dirk/Nash are supposed to be great offensive players but they did not get the job done either. I don't know enough about the 72 Bulls to vote here but you are presenting a very one-sided argument by only focusing on the Bulls postseason loss and ignoring the 03 Mavs lost in the playoffs to a team worse than the 72 Lakers.

To be fair, Dirk missed 1/2 the series

[pandrade83]

We're tied at 1 & it slipped to the 2nd page - hoping to get at least one more vote from someone.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Part of the 1970s Bulls defensive reputation is undeserved. Their slow pace was making them look better defensively than they were.

This statement could be called into question depending on just how big you're suggesting this "part" of their reputation is.

DRtg is pace-adjusted, and thus isn't effected by how slow or fast you play as a team. Their rDRTG (and league rank) thru the early 70's follows:
'71: -1.5 (tied for 6th of 17)
'72: -3.6 (3rd of 17)
'73: -1.2 (7th of 17)
'74: -4.1 (tied for 1st of 17)
'75: -3.3 (2nd of 18)

They're solidly above average defensively each year for five consecutive seasons (what could probably be termed "elite" or at least "elite-ish" in three of the five); averaging a -2.74 rDRTG over this 5-year span......that average would roughly tie them with this year's Miami Heat as the 6th-best (of 30) defense in the league.
Were an above average defense in '76 and '77 too, fwiw.

So idk.....it seems like their defensive reputation isn't some kind of illusion, but pretty well-founded [it's not like anyone is trying to characterize it as some GOAT-level defensive team, are they?].

I think that many people in the 1970s thought that the Bulls had an elite defense, just a wrung below GOAT level. I don't think they were an elite defense. I think they were just a good defense.

Back in the days of reading newspaper box scores you saw points that were scored by players and teams. A compressed box score in a newspaper might not even show shots attempted. The Bulls points allowed makes the Bulls look more impressive than their actual good defense.

Points allowed
1970-1971 2nd
1972 1st
1973 3rd
1974 2nd
1975 1st

1976 1st (The 1976 team had a bad record and was 15th in fg% allowed)
1977 1st
1978 5th

No sophisticated stat loving fan with the internet would over-rely on points allowed; but what about fans and even broadcasters of that era? I think Van Lier and Sloan might have been a bit overrated even though they really were good.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Getting swept by the Lakers in the first round does not make the Bulls great. I understand why people that want the 1972 Lakers to be the GOAT want the 1972 Bulls to be a great team.

This is one of the strangest arguments I have seen. The Bulls are a great team because of their RS performance and getting swept by an all time great team in the playoffs does not detract from that. Even when excluding the expansion teams, the 72 Bulls had a 55 win rate with +8.0 MOV. I doubt any Lakers fans would bother to prop up the 72 Bulls just to support the 72 Lakers since the GOAT case for the team is much more than just them sweeping the Bulls (then record 69 wins + championship, 33 game winning streak, 11.7 SRS).

The Bulls shot 45% in the regular season and 43% in the playoffs.
That isn't good enough.

But the 03 Mavs shot 45% in the regular season and 42% in their playoffs loss to the Spurs....

Ray is not a dominant rebounder or a shot blocker. He is just solid. If
Wilt only shot 42% in the playoffs vs the Bulls and yet the Laker team shot 48% which is good for that era.
Van Lier and Sloan are supposed to be great defenders but they did not get the job done.

One could similarly say Lafrentz is also just solid and that Dirk/Nash are supposed to be great offensive players but they did not get the job done either. I don't know enough about the 72 Bulls to vote here but you are presenting a very one-sided argument by only focusing on the Bulls postseason loss and ignoring the 03 Mavs lost in the playoffs to a team worse than the 72 Lakers.

The Mavs won a few playoff rounds but not against a team as dominant as the Lakers. Still the Lakers scored better than I would like them to against an allegedly elite defense.

I am not saying this is a blow out.

How do you translate fg % across eras? The Mavs fg% was lowered by taking 3 point shots. On the other hand taking 3 point shots opens up the paint and should improve fg% inside the 3 point line.

I also did not see those Bulls. I watched a few Cowens / Jo Jo Celtics games but did not really start watching NBA until 1978.