High Quality Sports

How do we measure the best team ever? Do they have to repeat? Do we simulate games against different eras? Do we look at regular season record or post season record? Which era was hardest to win in?

First, I think we need to look at only Champions, this seems a bit obvious, but we’ll cover the best teams to not win the title later.

Second, we need to put forth criteria that allows teams of any era to be named the best team ever. We can’t allow any bias to proclaim that any one decade is inherently better. This is an important question – not a boomer vs zoomer debate.

Third, I don’t care about time machine arguments. We are never going to be able to teleport the ’87 Lakers to 2013 to play the Heat – and the 2013 Heat would not have been what they were without the ’87 Lakers. So let’s ignore the time machine and look at what teams did against their competition. If we’re looking for the best team ever, we want them beating their opponents be large margins, not winning a 2k simulation.

Next, we want to look at both regular season and post season performance. I think most people would say that the regular season isn’t quite as important as the playoffs but regular season still matters.

So we want regular and post season dominance – which we will measure by margin of victory or point differential – and they need to win the title. And since the post season is such a small sample size – I think total record is important as well. Going 16-2 is better than 16-8 regardless of point differential. So going over these 3 criteria – I looked at every NBA champion. Ordering an exact list is fairly difficult, however, the top quartile I find to be very accurate. Weighing regular season SRS, post season SRS and post season winning percentage equally (thus giving a 2/1 weight to the playoffs) yielded these: 71 bucks, 72 Lakers, 83 76ers, 85 Lakers, 86 Celtics, 87 Lakers, 89 Pistons, 91 Bulls, 93 Bulls, 96 and 97 Bulls, 99 Spurs, 2001 Lakers, 2014 Spurs, 2015 GSW, 2016 Cavs, 2017 GSW and 2024 Celtics as the top 18. That passes the smell test as these are generally regarded as the best teams in history – other than the Celtics that are too recent to tell how they will be remembered. For me, despite their excellent numbers, they had maybe the easiest road to the finals ever given the opposing teams injuries. I think they are definitely in the top half of Champions, but I’m not sold on if I want them in the top echelon.

My first instinct after seeing this result was to dig a bit deeper into the 60s Celtics. How could a team that won 11 titles in 13 years not have one of the best teams ever? Upon further inspection, the story with those teams is that they won many games and series by the skin of their teeth. It’s more a tale of Russell coming up clutch time and time again and a big time shot by Sam Jones squeaking them past the finish line rather than any one year having a truly dominant post season. They also had fewer playoff rounds and other than the Celtics, most of the teams in the 60s had a pretty low SRS. So beating opponents by a slim margin year in year out didnt spit out any particular all time great season. If you want to throw in one of these teams for your list I would understand it, but they didn’t quite make the cut for me. The 64 and 61 teams ranked 25th and 26th among champions.

Next is the question of repeating. Some would argue that in order to prove or cement oneself as the best team ever you have to repeat. I don’t subscribe to this – roster movement, injuries, coaching changes etc can all change which means its not really the same team which is repeating. However, if you do think that a 2 year or 3 year run is required to earn the GOAT team title here are the best teams using the same criteria (reg season SRS, post season SRS, post season win%)

Top 12 2-year runs:

96-97 Bulls, 17-18 Warriors, 91-92 Bulls, 01-02 Lakers, 71-72 Bucks, 89-90 Pistons, 2013-14 Spurs, 86-87 Lakers, 16-17 Cavs, 85-86 Celtics, 72-73 Lakers, 2012-13 Heat

Top 12 3-year runs:

96-98 Bulls, 2015-17 Warriors, 91-93 Bulls, 2000-02 Lakers, 85-87 Lakers, 2012-14 Spurs, 88-90 Pistons, 70-72 Bucks, 2011-13 Heat, 2008-10 Lakers, 84-86 Celtics, 2005-07 Spurs

Notable omissions here are the fo fo fo 76ers (1983) and the 67 76ers which ranked 7th and 21st respectively.

After going through the data here’s my list. I think what’s more important is to recognize these 18 teams as the creme de la creme and not worry too much about the exact order so I’m going to provide ranges for where I can see these teams if I was a bit higher or lower on them.

Honorable mentions: I can see any of these teams squeezing into the bottom of the top 10 or as low as 18.

2024 Celtics, 2015 Warriors, 1993 Bulls, 1997 Bulls, 99 Spurs, 85 Lakers, 91 Bulls, 2014 Spurs

2016 Cavaliers

Rank: 10 Range: 9-17

Regular Season SRS: 5.45 Post Season SRS: 14.97 Post Season Record: 16-5

1972 Lakers

Rank: 9 Range: 8-13

Regular Season SRS: 11.65 Post Season SRS: 10.79 Post Season Record: 12-3

1989 Pistons

Rank: 8 Range: 6-13

Regular Season SRS: 6.24 Post Season SRS: 12.91 Post Season Record: 15-2

1987 Lakers

Rank: 7 Range: 4-9

Regular Season SRS: 8.32 Post Season SRS: 13.68 Post Season Record: 15-3

1983 76ers

Rank: 6 Range: 4-7

Regular Season SRS: 7.53 Post Season SRS: 10.75 Post Season Record: 12-1

1986 Celtics

Rank: 5 Range: 3-6

Regular Season SRS: 9.06 Post Season SRS: 13.85 Post Season Record: 15-3

1971 Bucks

Rank: 4 Range: 1-6

Regular Season SRS: 11.92 Post Season SRS: 14.37 Post Season Record: 12-2

2001 Lakers

Rank: 3 Range: 1-4

Regular Season SRS: 3.74 Post Season SRS: 20.89 Post Season Record: 15-1

1996 Bulls

Rank: 2 Range: 1-4

Regular Season SRS: 11.8 Post Season SRS: 18.35 Post Season Record: 15-3

2017 Warriors

Rank: 1 Range: 1-4

Regular Season SRS: 11.35 Post Season SRS: 16.83 Post Season Record: 16-1

Data for this post is from here: Data