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The Oklahoma City Thunder and Cleveland Cavaliers both have an SRS over 10 this season. This is pretty impressive considering there have only been 11 teams in league history to put up those numbers for a full season. 7 of those 11 won the title and only twice before (72 Bucks and 72 Lakers, 16 Spurs and 16 Warriors) have their been multiple teams in the same season achieve this. The Thunder are dominating with their suffocating defense while the Cavs are putting up some of the best offensive numbers in NBA history.

Let’s start with OKC. Their defense is currently 7 points per 100 better than league average, putting them in the 99th percentile historically. Of the 18 teams to put up -7 or better on defense, 11 of them won the title that year. This was done with only 6 of them having an offense that was even league average. Only the 2011 Bulls, 99, 05, 16 Spurs, 2020 Bucks, and 08 Celtics had an above average offense, and 3 of those 6 won the chip that year. Oklahoma City, however, has an offense that is 5.5 points above league average, better than any of the -7 on defense teams by quite a margin. In fact, you have to go down to the 42nd best regular season defense of all time, the 1996 Bulls to find an offense that’s as good as the Thunder this year. This dominant of a defense is unheard of throughout league history and their blend of high level play on both sides of the floor is why they have the highest SRS ever up to this point in the season. It’s hard to not pin these guys as title favorites.

From one non-destination city to the next, we go to Cleveland and the swashbuckling Cavaliers. Their offense dynamic and they can beat you in multiple ways. Some nights its the big guys inside dominating. Other nights Donovan Mitchell is going off as an unrelenting force on the basket and sometimes your favorite team gets lit up by Ty Jerome and the rest of the sharp shooting battalion that Cleveland has managed to put together. This has led them to a scoring +8.3 pts/100 better than league average offense. Good enough for 3rd all time! Trailing only the 05 Suns and the 04 Mavericks while inching just ahead of the 2016 Warriors and the Celtics from last year. Offense doesn’t have quite the correlation with winning titles that historic defenses have though. Only 8 of the top 25 offensive teams won the chip, so about a third compared to 14 of the top 25, or more than half, of the best defenses raising the Larry O’Brian at year end. Similar to the Thunder, the Cavs are good at the other side of the ball in ways that most similarly scalding offenses have not been. Their -3 defense is matched only by the 2024 Celtics and the MJ/Pippen Bulls. Most other historic offenses can’t even muster a league average D.

So it looks like we have two teams putting up historic numbers. However, will this dominance continue in the playoffs? Even among the best SRS teams ever, the 2020 Bucks lost in the first round due to an ankle roll. The 72 Bucks ran into the 72 Lakers. The 2016 Spurs didn’t even make it past round 2 and the all time best team in the regular season lost to the Cavs! Winning a title is hard and there are no guarantees. Additionally, neither of these teams have had deep playoff runs before, and that matters more that you would think. Only 6 teams have ever won the title without getting at least to the conference finals in the previous 5 years. Credit to u/phoenixbekfast on reddit for that factoid. The western conference is loaded and theres a 290 lb Serbian with maybe the best offensive output in NBA history looming for the Thunder. This on top of doubts that Jalen Williams can carry enough offensive load deep into May and June. The Cavs are on track to take on the Celtics, who sonned them last year (despite Mitchell putting up an astounding 33 pts/75 on +12 TS%) and have generally struggled in the second season. Allen admitting that the lights were “too bright” in a tough loss to New York a few years back and a frisky Orlando team pushed them to 7 last year. The competition in both conferences is no slouch and there are plenty of all time great teams that come up short. I’m going to post my top 12 offenses and defenses (post merger) here and hopefully after this season I can make an adjustment and slide one of these teams in. I used regular season and opponent adjusted post season performance to do the rankings.

Defense

12. 2016 San Antonio Spurs:

Regular Season: -7.4, Post Season: -10, Result: Western Semis

11. 2003 San Antonio Spurs:

Regular Season: -3.9, Post Season: -8.65, Result: Title

10. 1996 Seattle Supersonics:

Regular Season: -5.5, Post Season: -7.825, Result: Finals

9. 2005 Detroit Pistons

Regular Season: -4.9, Post Season: -7.25, Result: Finals

8. 1990 Detroit Pistons

Regular Season: -4.6, Post Season: -8.1, Result: Title

7. 1997 Miami Heat

Regular Season: -6.1, Post Season: -8.066, Result: East Finals

6. 1996 Chicago Bulls

Regular Season: -5.8, Post Season: -10.05, Result: Title

5. 2008 Boston Celtics

Regular Season: -8.6, Post Season: -5.75, Result: Title

4. 1993 New York Knicks

Regular Season: -8.3, Post Season: -6.33, Result: East Finals

3. 1994 New York Knicks

Regular Season: -8.1, Post Season: -7.175, Result: Finals

2. 1999 San Antonio Spurs

Regular Season: -7.2, Post Season: -8.9, Result: Title

1. 2004 Detroit Pistons

Regular Season: -7.5, Post Season: -13.725, Result: Title

Offense

12. 1996 Chicago Bulls

Regular Season: 7.6, Post Season: 8.55, Result: Title

11. 1992 Chicago Bulls

Regular Season: 7.3, Post Season: 7.5, Result: Title

10. 1989 Los Angeles Lakers

Regular Season: 6, Post Season: 9.775, Result: Finals

9. 1991 Chicago Bulls

Regular Season: 6.7, Post Season: 11.825, Result: Title

8. 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers

Regular Season: 4.5, Post Season: 12.8, Result: Title

7. 2017 Golden State Warriors

Regular Season: 6.8, Post Season: 11.3, Result: Title

6. 1987 Los Angeles Lakers

Regular Season: 7.3, Post Season: 10.975, Result: Title

5. 1985 Los Angeles Lakers

Regular Season: 6.2, Post Season: 11.825, Result: Title

4. 2017 Cleveland Cavaliers

Regular Season: 4.8, Post Season: 13, Result: Finals

3. 2001 Los Angeles Lakers

Regular Season: 5.4, Post Season: 12.375, Result: Title

2. 2010 Phoenix Suns

Regular Season: 7.7, Post Season: 12.533, Result: West Finals

1. 2005 Phoenix Suns

Regular Season: 8.4, Post Season: 16.633, Result: West Finals