When I decided to
answer the question that nobody asked, who is the best NBA Champion of the past
10 years, I needed away of comparing teams.
So in my rankings I decided to use a variety of both objective and
subjective factors to determine which of the last 10 NBA Champions would be the
best team. I also used a variety of
advanced stats and analytics in my column so here is an explanation of those
statistics below
Expected Record: Basically this
statistic should be a better indicator of how good a team was then record then
the actual record. It is calculated
based on point differential rather than wins and losses, as point differential
over the long-term has proven to be a better indicator of success.
Offense/Defensive Rank: The
offensive and defensive rankings I used were not based on points per game or
points allowed per game, but on efficiency statistics, points allowed per 100
possessions. Using this statistic
adjusts for teams that played at a faster or slower pace so it is a better
indicator of success.
PER: This is a catch all statistic that helps to place together the
value of every contribution a player makes.
A good explanation of the statistic can be found here.
·
2003 Spurs
o
Record 60-22 (.73 winning %), Expected Record 57-25
(.70%)
o
7th offense, 3rd defense
(7+3)/2=5
o
Playoff Record 16-8
o
Average of 4 Rankings (3+7+4+9)/4=5.75
·
2004 Pistons
o
Record 54-28 (.66 winning %), Expected Record
57-25 (.72%)
o
18th offense, 2rd defense
(18+2)/2=10
o
Playoff Record 16-7
o
Average of 4 Rankings (9+5+10+4)/4=6.75
·
2005 Spurs
o
Record 59-23 (.72 winning %), Expected Record
63-19 (.77%)
o
8th offense, 1rd defense (8+1)/2=4.5
o
Playoff Record 16-7
o
Average of 4 Rankings (4+3+2+3)/4=3
·
2006 Heat
o
Record 52-30 (.63 winning %), Expected Record
52-30 (.63%)
o
7th offense, 9rd defense
(7+9)/2=8
o
Playoff Record 16-7
o
Average of 4 Rankings (10+10+8+3)/4=7.75
·
2007 Spurs
o
Record 58-24 (.71 winning %), Expected Record 64-18
(.78%)
o
5th offense, 2rd defense
(5+2)/2=3.5
o
Playoff Record 16-4
o
Average of 4 Rankings (5+2+1+1)/4=2.25
·
2008 Celtics
o
Record 66-16 (.80 winning %), Expected Record
67-15 (.82%)
o
10th offense, 1rd defense
(10+1)/2=5.5
o
Playoff Record 16-10
o
Average of 4 Rankings (1+1+5+10)/4=4.25
·
2009 Lakers
o
Record 65-17 (.79 winning %), Expected Record
61-21 (.74%)
o
3th offense, 6rd defense
(3+6)/2=4.5
o
Playoff Record 16-7
o
Average of 4 Rankings (2+4+2+3)=2.75
·
2010 Lakers
o
Record 57-25 (.70 winning %), Expected Record
54-28 (.66%)
o
11th offense, 4rd defense
(11+4)/2=7.5
o
Playoff Record 16-7
o
Average of 4 Rankings (6+8+7+3)/4=6
·
2011 Mavericks
o
Record 57-25 (.70 winning %), Expected Record
53-29 (.65%)
o
8th offense, 8rd defense
(8+8)/2=8
o
Playoff Record 16-5
o
Average of 4 Rankings (6+9+8+3)=6.5
·
2012 Heat
o
Record 46-20 (.70 winning %), Expected Record 47-19
(.71%)
o
8th offense, 4rd defense
(8+4)/2=6
o
Playoff Record 16-7
o
Average of 4 Rankings (6+6+6+3)/4=5.25
Record
1.
08 Celtics
2.
09 Lakers
3.
03 Spurs
4.
05 Spurs
5.
07 Spurs
6.
12 Heat/11 Mavs/ 10 Lakers
9.
04 Pistons
10.
06 Heat
Expected Record
1.
08 Celtics
2.
07 Spurs
3.
05 Spurs
4.
09 Lakers
5.
04 Pistons
6.
12 Heat
7.
03 Spurs
8.
10 Lakers
9.
11 Mavs
10.
06 Heat
Average Rank of Offense and Defense
1.
07 Spurs
2.
05 Spurs/09 Lakers
4.
03 Spurs
5.
08 Celtics
6.
12 Heat
7.
10 Lakers
8.
06 Heat/11 Mavs
10.
04 Pistons
Playoff Record
1.
07 Spurs
2.
11 Mavs
3.
04 Pistons/05 Spurs/06 Heat/09 Lakers/10
Lakers/12 Heat
9.
03 Spurs
10.
08 Celtics
Average of 4 Rankings
1.
07 Spurs
2.
09 Lakers
3.
05 Spurs
4.
08 Celtics
5.
12 Heat
6.
03 Spurs
7.
10 Lakers
8.
11 Mavs
9.
04 Pistons
10.
06 Heat
My personal Rankings
10.
04 Pistons
As
cool as it was for the 04 Pistons to win the NBA Championship without a
superstar, there is a reason the team is a historical fluke. As strong as that team was defensively, and
as easily they seem to dismantle the Lakers, this Pistons team just wasn’t that
strong. This was a team that really didn’t
have much of a bench, and whose best player was Chauncey Billups, who’s PER
was18.6 that season. In retrospect
looking at this team it is incredible they won the championship, considering
they had a mediocre offense, a weak bench, and no superstar. Looking at that along with their lack of
regular season success, they have to be ranked as the worst champion of the
past 10 years.
9.
06 Heat
By
most objective measures, it would be hard to not consider this the worst
champion of the past 10 seasons. In comparison
to other teams on the list this team struggled by far the most in the regular
season, and the team seemed to have only 2 consistently reliable players. However, there is one factor that vaults them
ahead of the Pistons, and that is Dwayne Wade.
In the 06 season, but more especially the postseason and the Finals Wade
went on a historic run. Wade averaged
34.7 points, 7.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.7 steals, while shooting 97 free
throws in 6 Finals games, putting forth arguably the greatest Finals performance
ever. This alone prevents the 06 Heat
from being placed last.
8.
03 Spurs
This
Spurs team was able to win the title because of the presence of Tim Duncan and
his historic playoffs. In the postseason
Duncan24.7 points per game, 15.4 rebounds, 5.3 assists, and 3.3 blocks to lead
the team in all those categories and finished with a PER of 28.4. This culminated with Duncan’s historic Game’s
1 and 6 in the Finals where in Game 1 he had 32 points, 20 rebounds, 6 assists,
7 blocks, and 3 steals, and in the closeout Game 6 he had 21 points, 20
rebounds, 10 assists and 8 blocks.
Outside of Duncan though the team wasn’t all that strong, they had David
Robinson on his last legs who struggled mightily that season, the still very
young Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, the inefficient Stephen Jackson, and
defensive oriented Malik Rose and Bruce Bowen.
The only reason that the team is ranked this high is the historic play
by Duncan, and the amount of success the team had in an extremely competitive
Western Conference.
7.
11 Mavs
The
Mavs are an interesting team to look at because from a distance they don’t seem
to have the look of a championship team.
They had one superstar who many had thought had missed his opportunity
to get a ring, and a bunch of role players who hadn’t really won much over the
course of their careers. They didn’t
have any great success in the regular season to give the look of a champion,
and were the popular pick to be upset in the first round. Despite all those things the team won the championship
because Dirk turned up the level of his play dramatically and the role players
complemented each other perfectly as the team’s basketball IQ, hunger for a
ring and impeccable coaching by Rick Carlisle was able to combine to get the
team a ring.
6.
10 Lakers
One
team that I thought for sure would be much higher on the list then they
actually deserved is this Lakers team.
They had 3 star players, along with the still competent Lamar Odom and
Ron Artest, making it seem like a team that was possibly better than the 09
Lakers. The problem is that Kobe Bryant
declined substantially from the 09 to 10 seasons. His shooting percentage declined from .467/.351/.856
to .456/.329/.811 while his PER declined from 24.2 to 21.9. Lamar Odom and Derek Fisher showed declines
in play while Ron Artest was slightly less productive then the Trevor Ariza he
replaced. Andrew Bynum was the only
player to be more productive this season, while Pau Gasol’s production remained
almost the same. Actually Gasol in the
postseason was arguably more valuable than Bryant and had a legitimate case for
Finals MVP. They struggled in the
playoffs to win it all against an extremely young OKC team, a flawed Phoenix
team and a Celtics team that many thought would not make it out of the first
round of the playoffs let alone the 7th game of the NBA Finals.
5.
12 Heat
I’ve
written a lot about this year’s Heat and especially the player that Lebron James
has become this postseason. The reason
they are this high is that they had a legendary season out of Lebron, who
posted a PER of 30.7 in the regular season and 30.3 in the postseason. This player is surrounded by a superstar in
Dwayne Wade, who when healthy is one of the most productive players in the
league, and the now underrated Chris Bosh who while not a great player is an
extremely valuable asset to have on any team.
The reason I can’t put them higher is their overreliance on their Big 3,
and the struggles they had with the Pacers and Celtics, teams they were
significantly better than.
4.
05 Spurs
This
iteration of the Spurs was a tough physical team that could get a stop at any
time it had to. While definitely not the
best Spurs team that won a title, it was probably the best defensive team that
could get a stop at any time. The team
used its Big 3 model of the still in his prime Duncan, the almost there Parker
and Ginobili, and the contributions of key bench players to win it all. They had the greatest clutch shooter in NBA
history, Robert Horry, who had arguably his finest performance in Game 5 of
those Finals. You had the defensive magnificence
of Bruce Bowen to go along with the sharpshooting of Brent Barry among other
solid contributors to win it all. The
only series flaw in this team was exposed in the Detroit series. The team was susceptible to teams that could
match their physicality and the low post play of Duncan, which the Pistons were
able to do with the Wallaces. The team
though was able to go through a fairly competitive Western Conference pretty easily
to get to the finals though.
3.
08 Celtics
To
me there is no harder team to rate on this list than this Celtics team. You could make a solid case for number 1
based on their regular season and defensive dominance. Again though this is the same team that lost
6 games in the first two rounds of the playoffs to a BAD Atlanta Hawks team and
an average Cavaliers team whose only consistently reliable player was Lebron
James. To me that places them in the
upper echelon of teams of the decade, but not good enough to be considered for
the top 2. The team had Paul Pierce, Ray
Allen, and Kevin Garnett at the end of their primes, emerging young contributors
like Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins, and had reliable veteran players like
James Posey and PJ Brown who made constant big shots for the team. If these teams were placed in a round robin
style format, I have no question in believing they would have the best record,
but if forced into a playoff format I would not make them the favorite to win
it all.
2.
09 Lakers
I
said a lot about comparing the 09 Lakers to the 10 Lakers above, but the 09
Lakers were a phenomenal team. They had
arguably the best player in the world in Kobe Bryant, arguably the best big man
in basketball in Pau Gasol, and reliable role players like Trevor Ariza and
Lamar Odom. The latter two were
especially phenomenal in the postseason as Ariza shot .476 from 3 while Odom
shot .514. In the playoffs they beat the
Orlando Magic, Denver Nuggets, and Utah Jazz fairly easily, only running into
trouble in the extremely strange series against Houston. The Rockets were able to push the Lakers to 7
games despite Yao Ming getting hurt during a Game 3 that saw the Lakers go
ahead in the series 2 games to 1. The
Lakers were able to win a strange series that saw only one game determined by a
single digit margin, but as the series progressed it was obvious the Lakers
were a significantly better team. The 7
game series with Houston does hold them back though as the team below did not
display the weakness that the Lakers have.
A team with a defender that could legitimately annoy Kobe Bryant, like
Shane Battier was able to do could challenge them.
1.
07 Spurs
Now
for the best team of the past 10 years I have to choose the 07 Spurs. To me the Spurs have to be considered the
best team on the list because to me they don’t have a strongly discernable
flaw. This team was the only team on
this list to be a top 5 team offensively and defensively! Think about that, of
the past 10 NBA Champions only 1 was able to be both exceptional at offensive
and defense and it was a boring SPURS team that was able to be exceptional at
both ends of the floor. This team had an
exceptional coach, a point guard who can get in the paint at any time, the NBA’s
best 6th man and super-efficient Manu Ginobili, and a man who was still
the best defensive big man in the game in Tim Duncan. This team was surrounded by a group of role
players who knew their niche, and exactly what type of play they needed. The only knock on this team is that they were
lucky to win the Phoenix series because of the controversial suspensions, but
in my opinion they win that series any way.
When you consider their combined regular season, their Expected Record
was 2nd best on the list, and post season success, they lost 4 games
the entire playoffs, I believe you have to consider the Spurs the best champion
of the past 10 years.
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