The best team to NOT win a title tournament: '86 Bucks vs '79 Spurs

[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 viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1821547

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 for a day, maybe 2 if it's close.

Our 1st matchup features the '86 Bucks vs. the '79 Spurs; the Bucks have HCA but the rules will be under '79 rules which means no 3 point line.

'86 Bucks: Lost to Boston in ECF (4-0). +4.2 Offense/-4.5 Defense.

Bruer
Cummings
Pressy
Moncrief
Hodges

Pierce
Lister
Fields

'79 Spurs: Lost to Washington in ECF (4-3). +3.3 Offense/-1.4 Defense.

Paultz
Kenon
Gervin
Gale
Silas

Olderbing
Green
Dietrick
Bristow

Who ya got?

[pandrade83]

These are two similarly built squads. They're both highly skilled, offensive powerhouses who got beat because they got hammered inside.

The Spurs ultimately lost to Washington because they got hammered on the boards (7 a game) and aside from Gervin, most of the offense slowed down, although Gervin's offense proved resilient in that series & his career in general.

Although Sid Moncrief was injured & missed parts of the Philadelphia & Boston series, the Bucks got beaten down by Barkley (28/15) & struggled against the Boston front-line - even Buck Williams hurt them bad in their 1st round sweep of New Jersey.

So who do I like? At first glance, I'm inclined to take Milwaukee; the league was stronger in '86 & they had the better SRS - should be pretty cut & dry. Furthermore, the Spurs aren't quite equipped to beat down on the Bucks' interior. Additionally, the Spurs were fairly turnover prone while Milwaukee was superb at forcing turnovers.

However, Gervin is proven to be playoff resilient, whereas the Bucks' defense & lead man (Sid), well - it just wasn't - and that gives me a bit of pause. Then I look at the squads who beat the Bucks of that era - and if you weren't the Sixers or Boston, it just wasn't happening - and those squads were better than any Eastern Team of the late 70's.

Ultimately, I think the Bucks are just better at what they do & I'm taking them - although Gervin takes over a couple games.

Bucks in 6.

[Dr Positivity]

Any chance we can do this after the penbeast one? I like the idea but I feel it may not get as much support as it deserves

[iggymcfrack]

Definitely have to go Bucks. Slightly better offense and much better defense. Good chance they would have won a title in ‘79 had they played the weaker competition at the top that year.

[pandrade83]

Any chance we can do this after the penbeast one? I like the idea but I feel it may not get as much support as it deserves

If turnout on this one (or 1st couple) is low, I'll postpone. I think both are good ideas & don't want this one to die because of people's bandwidth (or lack thereof).

[colts18]

For those who were around that era.

The 86 Bucks had a very good 8.69 SRS. Were they really as good as their SRS suggested? They did get swept by an amazing Celtics team though from what I understand there were injuries on the Bucks side.

[DNice68]

For those who were around that era.

The 86 Bucks had a very good 8.69 SRS. Were they really as good as their SRS suggested? They did get swept by an amazing Celtics team though from what I understand there were injuries on the Bucks side.

I like the 82-83 Bucks that swept the Celtics better then 85-86!

[penbeast0]

I always loved the Bucks . . . Moncrief and Cummings were among my favorite players and they had outstanding depth (Ricky Pierce, Kenny Fields, Jeff Lamp, Charles Davis, Mike Glenn, and Jerry Reynolds were ALL legit NBA rotation wings). This was Paul Pressey's career year and the year "point forward" entered the national lexicon.

I think the Spurs are a bit outgunned though Doug Moe may be the most underrated NBA coach ever. Silas was better than Hodges in pretty much everything except 3 and D and Paultz was stronger and more skilled than Breuer but I'd take Moncrief over Gervin, Cummings over Kenon, and Pressey and the bench give Milwaukee a big advantage. Sorry Ice.

[pandrade83]

Every post has either leaned or explicitly favored towards Milwaukee. If there's no pro-Spurs votes, I'll move onto the next one tomorrow.

[trex_8063]

Don't know how often I'll be contributing to this project, but I too would probably go with the '86 Bucks. One of the greatest teams to miss the finals, wicked strong on both sides of the ball. The starting line-up understates their talent, as they were one of the very few teams [historically] to be bringing TWO 6th Man of the Year candidate types off the bench. Ricky Pierce was a damn potent offensive guard to bring off the bench, and was imo a better player than the "starter" Craig Hodges. Likewise, I think Alton Lister was likely better than the "starter" Randy Breuer. And indeed, it appears they both played marginally more minutes than their starting teammates.

That's an awfully potent bench that boasts those two, imo. And any starting line-up with Moncrief, Cummings, and Pressey obviously is no joke either. Don Nelson has a pretty solid record as a head coach, too, so......

Yeah, I think the '79 Spurs are slightly out-matched.