Greatest Team to Never Win a Ring: '02 Kings vs. '98 Pacers

[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.


02 Kings (Have HCA). 61-21, SRS: +7.61. Offense +4.5, Defense -3.4; lost to Lakers in WCF in 7
Divac
Webber
Peja
Christie
Bibby

Pollard
Turkoglu
B. Jackson

'98 Pacers. 58-24 SRS: +6.25. Offense: +3.4, Defense -3.4; lost to Bulls in ECF in 7.

Smits
D. Davis
Mullin
Miller
Jackson

A. Davis
D. McKey
J. Rose
T. Best

[pandrade83]

This is quite the interesting matchup. Both teams weren't known for their defense, but both played defense really well.

Both teams are ensembles of really good players; I don't think either team has anyone who is in many people's Top 30 though; Miller tends to rank the highest on GOAT lists but even some of his case is driven by longevity.

Both teams have skilled big men who are a tier or two below the best of their era; both are fueled by sharp shooters from the perimeter and both came very close to toppling the end of a dynasty. A couple key differences is that the Kings are a relatively young team; aside from Webber & Divac, most players are in the front half of their careers and had the fastest pace in the league. Almost every key member of Indiana is in the back half & they played the 3rd slowest pace.

So who am I taking?

I'll take the Kings in a competitive series that goes 6.

Some of the why's:

-Youth/Athleticism. At this point in everyone's careers, the Kings have a pretty sizeable advantage in the way of athleticism (including size as athleticism). Both teams are skilled & disciplined in the half-court offense but the Kings athleticism should allow them to be able to physically take advantage of the Pacers.
-The Kings achieved more against better competition & there's no real era considerations to take into account. I generally don't think highly of the '98-'04 era. However, the talent was heavily concentrated in the West during this period - not only did the Kings have a better team performance (better SRS, better record, better point differential when they went down), but they did so in the vastly harder conference. I think winning 60 games in the '02 Western Conference is a lot more impressive than winning 58 in the '98 Eastern Conference.
-Better/more diverse offense. Miller's game is hard to slow down, but I think Christie is just about as well equipped as anyone in this tournament to do so; and if he can keep Miller from exploding, the Pacers ways of scoring really diminish. Sacramento has more players who can hurt you offensively and I think Peja in particular is a difficult matchup for Indiana to defend & I see him having a big series.

[KobesScarf]

I think the Pacers are a tougher and more physical team and if Smits can out play Vlade it gives the Pacers a more consistent halfcourt offense

[Prokorov]

neither are close to the greatest team to never win a ring.

[Hal14]

Kings win in 7 games..that Kings team was GOOD. The defense, the chemistry, they were deep, they could move the ball, they could shoot, they were hungry. If they didn't get screwed by the refs vs the Lakers they'd be champs.

The Pacers had a good team. 98 was probably better than their 2000 team that made the finals...of course the 2000 team didn't have to play against Jordan's Bulls.

This is a tough one, would have been a really good series. I just think the Kings have more firepower, they were faster...it definitely would have been a series about pace..Pacers trying to slow it down and Kings trying to speed it up. Even though in playoffs it's usually a half court game, I still think the Kings would have been able to speed it up enough to pull it out.

[Winsome Gerbil]

The Kings were a whole other level than the '98 Pacers.

Birds' Pacers were fun teams, but they never felt like serious contenders. And you go up and down their lineup and they might have had one (1) positional advantage over those Kings. And the '98 squad just did not have enough firepower to keep up in a matchup like this.

[JordansBulls]

The 1998 Pacers for sure. They were deep and organized. They were like a better version of the 2000 Blazers who were deep.

[Winsome Gerbil]

The 1998 Pacers for sure. They were deep and organized. They were like a better version of the 2000 Blazers who were deep.

Deep and organized?

They were tough, but not wildly talented. Not championship talented at any point. They were more like Riley's Heat of that era. One second tier star, one injury prone secondary offensive weapon, lots of tough roleplayers and aging wise old heads, one decently talented 6th man who could give you little boosts.

That's nice, but 58 is what you win with that. 2000 Portland was considerably more talented. But less "organized" if that is a thing. So many talented guys they stacked them up 2 per position, had them split the minutes and take turns, but could never figure out who to feature.

And you can hardly argue "organization" against the Kings, who ran the smartest and most disciplined offense of its era. Peja in fact was kind of a larger Reggie for several years.

[pandrade83]

neither are close to the greatest team to never win a ring.

There are 32 teams in this voting based tournament.

The qualifications were srs of 5 or higher, never won a chip with this core, won at least 1 game in round 2/beyond.

This is round 1.