Golden State Warriors 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  1975-76 (59-23)

-Most Wins: 1975-76 (59-23)

-Best Playoff Run: 1974-75 (12-5)

The best player in Warriors history is clearly Wilt Chamberlain, who put up his historic 50 ppg season with the Philadelphia Warriors.  In his five full seasons with the Warriors, Wilt’s teams were generally pretty good but they never won more than 49 games and made only one NBA Finals (in 1963-64).  As great as Wilt was, the teams were usually not very deep.  They had some good starters (Paul Arizin, Guy Rodgers, Tom Meschery, and Tom Gola) but not the caliber of Bill Russell Celtics and I don’t think the Philly Warriors had enough to contend with the other strong non-Wilt teams that the Warriors later produced.

Really, the best years for the Warriors came in the 1970s when Rick Barry led the team to its most recent title (they notched one in 1955-56 before the NBA hit overdrive).  It was a brief little three year run from 1974-75 to 1976-77 but this really was the Warriors’ peak.  By 1974, Barry was not a young player anymore.  He was already 30 and spent five years in his 20s litigating with the Warriors about his contract and playing in the ABA.  He returned to the NBA in 1972-73 attempting to make the Warriors a good team.  Upon his return Barry put up two good years but not quite what he had been before he left the NBA in the late 1960s.  

All of sudden, out of the blue, Barry had his absolute peak season in 1974-75  (30.6 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 6.2 apg) and the team went 48-34 and beat two 40ish win teams to get the NBA Finals, where they surprised everyone by sweeping a 60-win Bullets team.  The Warriors followed this up in 1975-76 by proving that they were no fluke and winning 59 games with Barry (21.0 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 6.1 apg), and Phil Smith (20.0 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 4.4 apg) and Jamaal Wilkes (17.8 ppg, 8.8 rpg) scoring and defense provided up front by Clifford Ray and George Johnson (a young Gus Williams scored off the bench).  The team was second in points per possession and first in defense (points allowed per possession).  This time, they were upset in the Conference Finals by a 42-40 Suns team.  In 1976-77, the Warriors fell to 46-36 with the same core but made it to the second round, losing a seven game series to the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Lakers.  The Warriors missed the playoff  the next season, after which they let Rick Barry go and they spent most of the next decade floundering in the lottery.

Of this group, the 1975-76 team is the best.  They won the most games and had the best expected wins.  How did they lose to an essentially .500 team like the Suns?  According to Roland Lazenby in “The NBA Finals”: “The Suns took the seventh game in Oakland, 94-86, by holding Rick Barry scoreless for nearly 30 minutes.  Barry, for his part, maintained that the Warriors could have been the first back-to-back champions since the ‘69 Celtics had they not traded away [point guard] Butch Beard after the ‘75 playoffs.”  I highly doubt that.  Beard was decent for the 1974-75 team (12.8 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 16.1 PER) and became a bench player for Cleveland the next year and never really started again.  The bottom line is the Suns got hot and Barry had a poorly timed bad game and, voila, 59 wins down the drain.  Still, this is the only team with 59 wins in team history and has the best point differential by a healthy margin. 

The second best team in Warriors history might surprise you. Of Don Nelson’s run-and-gun teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s, they had only one that entered the playoffs as a favorite.  In fact, the 1991-92 Warriors were 55-27 and had the third seed in the playoffs and were only two games behind the Blazers for the top seed.  The Warriors ran at a break neck pace (first in the league) and scoring 118.7 ppg, leading the NBA by 5.5 ppg!  And it wasn’t just raw points.  They had third most points scored per possessions.  They allowed 114.8 ppg but were a more respectable (relatively speaking) 19th in the NBA in points allowed per possession.  This wasn’t the a Nellie three-point bomber squad (they shot 763 three, sixth in the NBA which was well behind the Bucks’ 1,005 attempts) and they didn’t even pass that well (11th in the NBA assists despite their crazy pace).  No, these Warriors won by taking it to the basket.  They shot the second most free throws in the NBA (1,944)  and had the second most steals and forced opponents into the most turnovers in the NBA.  

Unlike Utah with Karl Malone, there was no one player on Golden State that drove their free throw attempts way up.  Rather, pretty much everyone got to the line when he played.  On a per minute basis, almost the entire team had a respectable pace (10 players averaged at or around four free throws per 36 minutes) and Sarunas Marciulonis, racked up 8.1 free throws per 36 minutes.  So, this leaves you with an odd but interesting line up:

PG: Tim Hardaway (in 41.1 mpg, 23.4 ppg, .461 FG%, 3.8 rpg, 10.0 apg, 19.1 PER)

SG: Sarunas Marciulonis (in 29.4 mpg, 18.9 ppg, .538 FG%, 2.9 rpg, 3.4 apg, 18.8 PER)

SF:  Chris Mullin (in 41.3 mpg, 25.6 ppg, .524 FG%, 5.6 rpg, 3.5 apg, 19.9 PER)

PF:  Billy Owens (in 31. 4 mpg, 14.3 ppg, .525 FG%, 8.0 rpg, 2.4 apg, 15.6 PER)

C:  Tyrone Hill (in 23.0 mpg, 8.2 ppg, .522 FG%, 7.2 rpg, 0.6 apg, 12.8 PER)

G:  Mario Elie (in 21.2 mpg, 7.8 ppg, .521 FG%, 2.9 rpg, 2.2 apg, 13.7 PER) 

That’s a pretty fun team but they did earn a reputation as a team that beat you in the regular season and there was skepticism that they could keep that pace in the playoffs.  The Warriors expected won-loss seemed fueled the skepticism whether they were quite as good as their record (only 50-32 expected record).  It also didn’t help that the Warriors ran into a Sonics team that was just learning how to play with young Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp.  Seattle was 20-20 until George Karl took over and they closed 27-15, gelling into the team that would be a title contender the next five years.  They were particularly bad match for the Warriors in the first round because Golden State could not stop big athletes like Kemp and he could run the Warriors pace. 

The Warriors lost a relatively close series 3-1 and Kemp was totally unstoppable (22.0 ppg, 16.3 rpg and 38-47 from the line).  Mullin and Hardaway got hurt the next season and Nellie could never quite make another true contender in Golden State for various other reasons too (see Webber, Chris).  The 1991-92 Warriors should be remembered as a pretty tough team.  I don’t think they were good enough to take out Rick Barry’s 1975-76 squad, as the Smith-Barry-Wilkes trio could’ve matched up favorably to the high scoring 1991-92 backcourt but it’s a pretty close match up. 

Los Angeles Clippers 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  1974-75 (49-33)

-Most Wins: 1974-75 (49-33)

-Best Playoff Run: 2005-06 (7-5) 

Yuck.  This is absolutely the worst franchise in terms of success, excluding teams that existed before 1995.  No 50-win teams here, only six teams that broke .500, and only two teams ever won a playoff series.  There are two real contenders for best Clipper team.  The first comes from the 1970s when the Clippers started out as the Buffalo Braves.  They had a solid playoff team for a few years, winning between 42 and 49 games from 1973-74 to 1975-76.  The team was built around jump shooting forward Bob McAdoo, who led the NBA in scoring each of the years and even won the MVP in 1974-75 (and finished second the other two years).  Outside of McAdoo, the team was very thin: Randy Smith was a good lead guard but there wasn’t much else (Gar Heard and Jim McMillian filled in decently but that’s about it).  The Braves peaked at 49-33 in 1974-75, though they lost their only playoff series to the Bullets in seven.  Here’s what the starting five looked like: 

PG: Ernie DiGregorio (in 23.0 mpg, 7.8 ppg, .440 FG%, 1.5 rpg, 4.9 apg, 12.3 PER)

SG: Randy Smith (in 36.6 mpg, 17.8 ppg, .484 FG%, 4.2 rpg, 6.5 apg,  17.1 PER)

SF:  Jim McMillian (in 34.4 mpg, 14.3 ppg. .499 FG%, 6.2 rpg, 2.5 apg, 14.7 PER)

PF:  Gar Heard (in 32.1 mpg, 11.1 ppg, .388 FG%, 9.9 rpg, 2.8 apg, 13.6 PER)

C:    Bob McAdoo (in 43.2 mpg, 34.5 ppg, .512 FG%, 14.1 rpg, 2.2 apg, 25.8 PER) 

The Braves generally ran McAdoo out at center, which would be harder to do in the modern NBA (though that trend is also changing somewhat).  Still, McAdoo was a force and a highly underrated player.  Against Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld in the playoffs, McAdoo scored a ridiculous 37.4 ppg.  The rest of the line up doesn’t scare you too much.  It’s particularly interesting that Heard was famous for hitting a difficult jumper for Phoenix in the 1976 Finals, considering how poor he shot from the field and the line the rest of his career. 

Some 30 years later, the 2005-06 Clippers also  made a playoff impact with a team we remember pretty well.  Like the Braves, the team was built around a big forward (Elton Brand) and a scoring guard (Sam Cassell).  The Clipps were a bit deeper than the Braves, with a respectable center (Chris Kaman), Corey Maggette, and some decent filler (Vlad Radmanovic and Cuttino Mobley). 

Both teams were interesting but neither really inspires much fear.  In matching the two teams head-to-head, I go with the 2005-06 squad.  Brand (24.7 ppg, 10.0 rpg, 26.5 PER) was as big a monster as McAdoo, and probably a more complete player (if not a better scorer).  I also like Sam-I-Am better than Smith in the backcourt.  Throw in the fact that the Clippers had a much bigger front court (Kaman against the 6′6 Gar Heard?) and more depth and I think the 2005-06 team is the team to beat. 

Los Angeles Lakers

-Kyle’s Best Team:  1971-72 (69-13)

-Most Wins: 1971-72 (69-13)

-Best Playoff Run:  2000-01 (15-1)

Like the Celtics, we have scores of great teams to consider in Los Angeles.  Rather than go through all these teams, let’s cut to the chase.  We all know the great runs in Laker Land.  We have the Baylor-West years, the Magic-Kareem runs, the Kobe-Shaq run, and, potentially, Kobe’s current run (though they haven’t put together a historic team yet).  So, we’ve identified the general ranges of teams.  It’s also not to hard to pick the best team in each run.  For the Baylor-West years, it’s actually a team without Baylor, the 1971-72 Lakers that went 69-13 with Wilt Chamberlain.  For the Magic Johnson teams, the high point came in 1986-87, when they won their most games (65-17) and knocked off the Celts.  Finally, the Shaq/Kobe team cruised to 67-15 in 1999-00 and much more than a third wheel in this debate.  

For some reason, it’s always been ingrained in my head that the 1986-87 Lakers were the best team of All-Time.  Even as the Bulls were eviscerating the NBA in 1995-96 I maintained that belief.  As I’ve studies the numbers more, I’ve retreated from my notions and think that the Bulls were the best ever.  Still, the 1986-87 Lakers are excellent.  But does objective analysis prove their dominance?  Let’s take a look at the three teams and their player stats (on a per/36 basis): 

1971-72 Lakers: 69-13 W-L (67-15 expected W-L) (1st in points scored, 7th in points allowed)

 1986-87 Lakers: 65-17 W-L (62-20 Expected W-L) (1st in Offense, 7th in Defense)

 1999-00 Lakers: 67-15 W-L (64-18 Expected W-L) (4th in Offense, 1st in Defense)

 What we see are three of the great teams ever.  How do we separate the teams?  Let’s review each team: 

-The 1971-72 Lakers have, by far, the most wins and best expected won-loss record.  They played at a fast pace, though we can’t really know the exact pace or efficiency because turnovers were not kept as a stat for another few years.  Even so, it’s pretty safe to say that they were a great offensive team.  The West/Goodrich duo pumped in a ton of points and took 40% of the teams total shots (and had 41% of the team’s points).  Defensively, they gave points but that was also a function of pace because they did hold opponents to .432% shooting, which was near the best number in the NBA (only Kareem’s Bucks had better field goal defense).  Despite the fast pace, the Lakers barely gave up any free throws, which is even more impressive.  They let up a league low 1,972 free throw attempts (much better than the Sonics, who were second with 2,248 attempts allowed).  So we know they played fast because despite these great defensive indicators, they gave up an above average amount of points. 

In terms of weaknesses, this team was not deep.  Flynn Robinson was a great scorer and Jim Cleamons and Leroy Ellis were decent but that’s about all they had.  In addition, the two best players, Wilt and West, while still great, were older (35 and 33 respectively) and not quite in their primes. 

-The 1986-87 Lakers look like the practically perfect team.  They had Magic at his absolute peak (23.9 ppg, 12.2 apg, 6.3 rpg) and above average players at every position and a decent bench too (Michael Cooper, Mychal Thompson, Kurt Rambis) and were the best offensive team (by points per possession) in team history (with the proviso mentioned above that we can’t account for teams before 1973-74).  If you had to find a weakness, you’d note that Kareem was little bit older and not a great rebounder anymore.  Also, they were vulnerable to quick guards, as Sleepy Floyd had some big games against Magic in the playoffs.  Other than that, it’s hard to be find any place to beat them unless you could slow down the pace and try to break them down in the half court, which was not an easy feat. 

-The 1999-00 Lakers don’t receive nearly enough credit for their greatness.  They started out by throwing Shaq at his peak at you, as well as Kobe, Rice, and scores of decent role players (Derek Fisher, Rick Fox, Robert Horry).  When assessing this team it’s important to recognize that Shaq circa 1999-00 is as good as any player in the history of the NBA.  The numbers don’t look quite as gaudy as Wilt’s stats from the early 1960s but in context, Shaq was about as dominant.  We can’t calculate Wilt’s per possession numbers but sometimes comparing a player’s stats to league average helps put thing in perspective.  For example, in 1961-62 , Wilt grabbed 25.7 rpg in a season where the average team grabbed 71.4 rpg.  By contrast, in 1999-00, Shaq grabbed 13.6 rpg where the average team only grabbed 42.9 rpg.  By comparing ratios to league averages, we can translate each player’s stats to other eras.  So if we assume that Shaq and Wilt were magically exchanged to 1961-62 and 1999-00 respectively, how would their ratios translate to the different environments?  Assuming, that the statistical trends do not reflect any change in the essential skill of the average NBA player (which is a faulty assumption in my opinion but necessary to complete this exercise), here’s what the magically exchanged players would look like stat-wise:

1961-62 Chamberlain in 1999-00: 41.4 ppg, .533 FG%, 15.4 rpg

1999-00 O’Neal in 1961-62: 36.2 ppg, .546 FG%, 22.6 rpg 

And, as noted, this is without adjusting at all for the distinct possibility that basketball in 1999-00 was better than it was in 1961-62.  Even still, Shaq looks like Wilt’s equal and perhaps even better, certainly a better rebounder and more efficient scorer (if not quite as porlific).  The point here is not to denigrate Wilt but to recognize that Shaq circa 1999-00 was as much of a force of nature as any player who ever played in the NBA.  When you throw in the fact that he had Kobe (not quite at his peak but still a superstar) and some solid role players who played tough defense, it’s hard to see this team losing to anybody.  While the 1971-72 Lakers and the 1986-87 Lakers were both good defensive teams, the 1999-00 team was a monster.  I think the 1971-72 is probably third of the teams, a great team but short in depth and not quite athletic enough to hang with Magic’s team and not big enough, even with the older Wilt, to stop Shaq in his prime.  Between the Showtime Lakers and the Shaq/Kobe, we’re at virtual push.  Ultimately, I think Shaq against Mychal Thompson and an older Kareem tips the scale to Shaq and, grudgingly, I have to conclude that the 1999-00 team is the best. 

Phoenix Suns 

-Kyle’s Best Team: 2006-07 (61-21)

-Most Wins: 1992-93, 2004-05 (62-20)

-Best Playoff Run: 1992-93 (13-11) 

How do you go through all the great Suns teams?  Sure, they’ve never won a title but the Suns have been consistently good most of the time since the mid-1970s (with only a few hiccups since).  There are 16 Suns teams with 53 or more wins and they are not all from one or two distinct eras.  While the most wins in a single season come from the Charles Barkley and Steve Nash Eras, the Suns have put 57 wins in 1980-81 (behind Truck Robinson, Dennis Johnson, Walter Davis, and Alvan Adams) and 56 in 1997-98 (Jason Kidd, Antonio McDyess, and Clifford Robinson).  It’s just too varied a history to go through all the potentially great teams.  We’ll have to cut to the chase and accept that the best teams are the ones that won the most, the 1992-93 Suns (Barkley/KJ) and 2004-05 (Nash/Amare/Marion). 

Before getting to that match up, one interesting note is that the late 1980s Suns, behind KJ and Tom Chambers (as well as Jeff Hornacek and Dan Majerle), actually had expected won-loss records in line with the great teams mentioned above.  The weird thing is that those Suns teams consistently under performed the expected records.  Check the differences:

Year        Actual W-L    Expected W-L    Diff.

1988-89        55-23                59-23             -4

1989-90        54-28                58-24             -4

1990-91        55-27                57-25             -2

1991-92        53-29                56-26             -3 

It’s bizarre but the Suns scoring differential just didn’t reflect their record.  It’s not clear if the Suns happened to get too many blow outs or whether the discrepancy in records was just bad luck.  The general thinking from the stat community is that such discrepancies are a function of luck and that they even out over time.  Whatever the reason, the trend reversed itself in 1992-93 (coincidentally, when the Suns traded for Barkley).  In fact, in the heart of the Barkley Era (1992-93 through 1994-95) we see overachieving relative to point differential:

Year        Actual W-L    Expected W-L    Diff.

1992-93        62-20                57-25            +5

1993-94        56-26                54-28            +2

1994-95        59-23                51-31            +8 

How did this trend totally reverse itself?  Did Charles Barkley have some magic dust that made the team play better in close games?  Did these Suns happen to get blown out more (which might skew the point differential)?  Or maybe this was just the bad luck of the late 1980s reversing itself?  Hard to tell at this point but this is something that’ll merit more research at another time.

Now let’s turn to the Barkley Suns versus the Nash Suns.  From the chart above, it is evidence that only the 1992-93 Barkley team can even really compete with two great Nash teams in 2004-05 and in 2006-07.  These teams are practically even in all respects but we choose the 2004-05 team as the representative of the Nash years because they won more games (actually just one more game) and because Amare Stoudemire was much better and because Joe Johnson was playing the shooting guard versus role player Raja Bell in 2006-07.  

Turning to the match up between the 1992-93 club and the 2004-05 club, we have similar teams–fast paces teams with the best offense in the league and just enough defense to be dangerous.  The potential match ups are astounding and exciting for us basketball dorks: KJ v. Nash, Majerle v. Joe Johnson, Ced Ceballos/Richard Dumas v. Quentin Richardson, Barkley v. Shawn Marion, Oliver Miller v. Amare Stoudemire.  As the match ups progress, we see where the 2004-05 team starts to edge ahead.  Sure, the backcourt is close to a push (Nash was better than KJ but it’s close and Nash couldn’t stop him either).  But how would Barkley be able to match Marion and Amare?  The 1992-93 Suns throw Miller and Mark West out at center and neither has much of a chance against Amare.  The 1992-93 has no answer to that front court.  Maybe they could put in the more athletic Tom Chambers in at center but he couldn’t guard anyone either.  Ultimately, I think it’s pretty clear that the 2004-05 team is the best in franchise. 

Sacramento Kings 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  2001-02 (61-21)

-Most Wins: 2001-02 (61-21)

-Best Playoff Run: 2001-02 (10-6)

Putting aside the pre-shot clock era, the best team in Kings/Royals history is, without a doubt, the 2001-02 Kings.  But first let’s give a nod to some of the franchise’s accomplishments during the NBA (actually BAA) times.  In 1949-50, the Royals were an impressive 51-17 and they won a title the next year with the same roster (Bob Davies and Arnie Risen were the leaders).  This was obviously pre-shot clock and so we don’t really think the teams could hang with the bad Kings teams from the 1990s, let alone the Chris Webber Kings of the 2000s that came so close to a title.  But Davies and his teammates certainly deserve some recognition for bringing some joy to Rochester back in the Harry Truman Years.  

Turning to more modern times, the Kings/Royals have primarily been also-rans.  In the 1960s, they were set up with Oscar Robertson and Jerry Lucas and they were usually in the playoffs but weren’t particularly dangerous, winning only two series in that decade.  The only really significant team of this era was the 1963-64 team that went 55-27 and but was dispatched by the Celtics 4-1 in the Conference Finals.  It’s questionable that the Kings of the 2000s had a better player than the Big O but they were just a better team overall.  This is not to say the Royals lacked talent: Robertson had 31.4 ppg, 9.9 rpg, and 11 apg, Lucas was pretty tough too (17.7 ppg, 17.4 rpg).  The line up was rounded with Wayne Embry (17.3 ppg, 11.6 rpg), Jack Twyman (15.9 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 2.0 apg), and guys like Adrian Smith and Bob Boozer.  

As we noted above with Shaq and Wilt, these gaudy 1960s numbers make the stars look even better than they were.  It is probably impossible that Robertson could average a triple double in the modern NBA (slower pace and just not enough rebounds to go around).  As we did with Shaq and Wilt, let’s transpose Oscar, Lucas, Embry, and Twyman to the 2001-02 NBA (we’ll leave out Boozer and/or Smith because there numbers are tepid even by 1963-64 standards): 

-Robertson: 27.0 ppg, .496 FG%, 6.4 rpg, 11.3 apg

-Lucas: 15.2 ppg, .542 FG%, 11.4 rpg 2.9 apg

-Embry: 14.9 ppg, .471 FG%, 7.5 rpg, 1.7 apg

-Twyman: 13.7 ppg. .462 FG%, 3.5 rpg, 2.3 apg 

Robertson still looks likes an All-Star in line with Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady and even Michael Jordan, as an other worldly star he seemed.  The rest of the roster looks okay but not great.  By contrast, transposing the 2001-02 Kings to 1963-64 makes the key members of the Kings look like Hall of Famers: 

-Mike Bibby: 15.9 ppg, .441 FG%, 4.4 rpg, 4.8 apg

-Doug Christie: 13.9 ppg, .448 FG%, 7.1 rpg, 3.9 apg

-Peja Stojakovic: 24.6 ppg, .471 FG%, 8.2 rpg, 2.2 apg

-Chris Webber: 28.5 ppg, .482 FG%, 15.7 rpg, 4.5 apg

-Vlade Divac: 12.9 ppg, .459 FG%, 13.1 rpg, 3.4 apg 

The translations are crude here but it help gives a little context.  Lucas, as great as he was, was not better than Webber and the old Royals have no match for Peja or Bibby.  Again, the Royals were quite respectable, a solid team, but not in the league of the 2001-02 Kings, who were one overtime against the Lakers away from a title.  This team could run and even defended pretty well (sixth in NBA) and won 61 games.  The only teams in franchise that are even close to the 2001-02 team in expected won-loss are from the exact same era, having four such teams before the 1963-64 Royals pop up on the list.   So, 2001-02 Kings have to be the choice.

Denver Nuggets 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  1976-77 (50-32)

-Most Wins: 1987-88 (54-28)

-Best Playoff Run:  1984-85 (8-7) 

In going through this franchise series, a common question I’ve gotten is why I haven’t considered ABA teams in the calculation.  The answer is because I honestly haven’t assessed the relative weight of ABA numbers versus NBA numbers.  It’s hard enough to try to compare NBA teams from different eras, let alone with ABAers, whose ability certainly fluctuated from year-to-year.  The fact is, however, some ABA teams seemed quite formidable.  The Pacers and Nets of the ABA have strong arguments as best teams in their franchises’ histories (the Spurs don’t but they were no slouches in the ABA either).  The Nuggets, however, seem to lap the field with their ABA teams.  The most wins for an NBA Nugget team is the 1987-88 team that went 54-28.  Two ABA Nugget teams look potentially better on paper.  Larry Brown’s 1974-75 and 1975-76 teams were 65-19 and 60-24 respectively.  Seems quite good, though the ABA Nuggets never won a title in the ABA.  The fact is, however, that the Nuggets were dominant in the ABA, even if they couldn’t quite win a title.  They are two of only five ABA teams to break the 60-win barrier.  Here’s the full list: 

-1968-69 Oakland Oaks (60-18): won title behind Rick Barry

-1971-72 Kentucky Colonels (68-16): despite Artis Gilmore, Dan Issel, and Louie Dampier, they lost in conference finals

-1971-72 Utah Stars (60-24): Zelmo Beatty/Willie Wise team lost in conference finals

-1974-75 Denver Nuggets (65-19): lost in conference finals

-1975-76 Denver Nuggets (60-24): lost in finals to the Dr. J Nets 

Denver put up 40% of all 60-win seasons in ABA history.  But there is some evidence that the 60 wins in the ABA is not near 60 wins in the NBA.  The Nuggets took a substantially similar team into the NBA for the 1976-77 season, only to fall to 50 wins, which is good but not dominant.  Let’s take a look at how the Nuggets starters looked and were affected by the change in leagues.  Here are the per-36 minute stats for the starters in the last ABA year and then the following year in the ABA…let’s see what drop off, if any, there was: 

1975-76 Denver Nuggets (60-24 in Final ABA Season)

 1976-77 Denver Nuggets (50-32 in Debut NBA Season)

 In case you’re wondering, Chuck Williams was benched by Larry Brown that first NBA season and Ralph Simpson was traded to Detroit, where his numbers fell off a bit.  The PER stat is a little unreliable in this context because turnovers were not yet counted in the NBA until 1977-78, so we don’t know if that would affect the overall numbers.  We do know that defense was quite a bit tougher in the NBA.  The 1975-76 ABA team was first in pace and scored 121.9 ppg and allowed 115.9 ppg.  Per-100 possessions, they scored 108.7 ppg and allowed 103.4 ppg.  The Nuggets were second in pace in the NBA in 1976-77 but the scoring was way down: 112.6 ppg and 107.4 opp-ppg  (per-100 possessions they scored 100.7 pts and allowed 96.1 pts).  Interestingly, Basketball-Reference.com  rates the pace factor of each team at an identical 111.2 and their shooting was down from .505% in the ABA to .482% in the NBA.  Finally, the kicker here is that the stars were the same but the team dropped 10 wins in the conversion to the NBA. 

Thompson, Issel, and Jones were all close to as good in the NBA as the ABA (and arguably better in the case of Jones and Issel) but the role players were much worse.  The conclusion from this admittedly limited data set has to be that the ABA of the 1975-76 was a good 5-8 wins worse than their NBA counterparts.  Moreover, it’s not clear that this crude conclusion can be extrapolated to the previous ABA seasons (the ABA was presumably improving over time so a win in the ABA in the late 1960s or early 1970s wasn’t worth the same as a win in 1975-76), so it’s quite possible that the 65-win team in 1974-75 was not as good as the 1975-76 team (in fact, looking at the key players, this seems likely).  So, the short answer is that there are a lot of moving parts with the ABA and we’ve removed them from the equation totally in our inquiry.  Had we included ABA teams, however, it is highly unlikely any would’ve been best in franchise.  

Having said all that, the Nuggets in the ABA were very good and the 1976-77 team was also tough (54-28 expected record is the best for an NBA Nuggets team).  But there other contenders to consider:

-1987-88 Nuggets (54-28):  A Fat Lever/Alex English squad had most wins in their NBA history and lost in the second round

-1984-85 Nuggets (52-30):  Stars were Alex English and Calvin Natt and had the best postseason run, making the conference finals before Magic Johnson and the Lakers dispatched them 4-1.  They lose some points because they beat two 41-41 teams to make the conference finals.

-2007-08 Nuggets (50-32):  I know there is a bit of gloom and doom in Denver now because they were swept out of the playoffs but the 2007-08 Nuggets were a pretty good team.  They just got stuck in the one of the best playoff brackets ever.  I like the run and gun Nuggets of the 1980s but it is fair to wonder if Fat Lever, Michael Adams, Alex English, Calvin Natt, and Blair Rasmussen could hang with Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony, Marcus Camby, and some effective role players like J.R. Smith and Kenyon Martin.  Granted, the tattoos make you think they aren’t a “team” or something but this team looks as good on paper as anyone in Nuggets history.  Unfortunately, the team is likely to take a step back in the near future but they match up with the past. 

Between the four contenders, it really is a pick ‘em.  I’m partial to the 2007-08 Nuggets.  They were assembled in the wrong place at the wrong time but they are deeper and more talented than their competitors.  Again, this differentials are miniscule but I think they are the best of the four. 

Minnesota Timberwolves 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  2003-04 (58-24)

-Most Wins: 2003-04 (58-24)

-Best Playoff Run:  2003-04 (10-8) 

In Minnesota, the best team is crystal clear.  The Kevin Garnett Era was pretty good in Minnesota but it reads like a classic graph.  Slow steady progress to a high peak and then slow steady decline.  As the KG teams improved in the early 2000s, they were better than people thought but conventional wisdom clearly is in completely in harmony with statistical measures that 2003-04 is the best in team history.  This was the team with the best record in the West and the only Minny team to even win a playoff series (they actually won two series).  Since there is no real controversy, here’s a few bullet points on the old T-Wolves: 

-The 2003-04 Wolves are better remembered for their decline in 2004-05 than their ascendancy.  The team fell to 44-38 and missed the playoffs.  While the talk was that the Wolves imploded because of contract disputes with Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell, the clearest reason was the defense.  The team allowed 99.7 points per 100 possessions in 2003-04 and that rose to 106.6 in 2004-05.  The argument could be made that the defensive fall was the manifestation of the unhappiness of Cassell and Sprewell.  It’s hard to know if this is true but Cassell had such a good 2003-04 offensively that was really not repeatable no matter how happy he was.  Indeed, Cassell was perfectly happy (and good) on the Clipps in 2005-06 and his season was no better than his 2004-05 year with the Wolves.  Spree was also not young and his athletic decline was quite evident (he virtually stopped dunking in 2004-05). 

-Not to make anyone feel old but of the top 12 players in terms of minutes on the 2003-04 roster, seven are out of the NBA as of the end of the 2007-08 season (counting Troy Hudson who was released in December 2007).  This is not shocking turnover but time definitely keeps marching on.

-The fallout of 2004-05 was that Kevin McHale instantly morphed from a good GM to one who was perceived to be poor.  In fact, before 2004-05, McHale had done a great job of finding good players off of the scrap heap.  This bad reputation was well-earned the next few years. 

-The best Timberwolf that didn’t have Kevin Garnett on it was the 1990-91 team that was 29-53, led by Tony Campbell (21.8 ppg), Tyrone Corbin (18.0 ppg, 7.2 rpg) and Pooh Richardson (17.1 ppg, 9.0 apg).  Despite this record, coach Bill Musselman was fired because the team really wasn’t that good and played an ungodly boring slowdown style (think Mike Fratello with the Cavs, but without much talent).  

Portland Trailblazers 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  1990-91 (63-19)

-Most Wins: 1990-91 (63-19)

-Best Playoff Run:  1976-77 (14-5) 

The Blazers have three well-remembered runs in Portland and it is not immediately apparent which the best team is.  Certainly, a segment of fans would consider the 1976-77 titlists behind Bill Walton and Maurice Lucas as the best (and perhaps even like the 1977-78 team even better, which was dominant until Walton broke his foot).  But the 1990s Clyde Drexler teams and the late 1990s Rasheed Wallace teams were both very close to titles before running into unfortunate endings.  Let’s break down each run and see what we have here… 

Bill Walton Blazers 

The greatest misconception is that the Walton Years were a magical Camelot-like time of happiness and unselfish players.  In fact, Walton’s time in Portland was quite turbulent.  Walton was a much ballyhooed star coming out of college (as big as any college prospect really) and he struggled with injuries and argued with his first coach, Lenny Wilkens, and missed the playoffs his first two years in the NBA.  Then in Walton’s third year, 1976-77, thing clicked a bit.  Walton stayed healthy, the team hired a new coach (Dr. Jack Ramsay), and the Blazers obtained Maurice Lucas from the ABA dispersal draft.  The defense had been fine under Wilkens but the offense really jumped from 96.4 points per 100 possessions (17th in the NBA) in 1975-76 to 103.2 in 1976-77 (2nd in the NBA).  The team shot better from the field (went from .469% to .481%) but also added about 200 more free throw attempts, thanks to Lucas’ bruising style, and they lowered turnovers (though assists were also down). 

In any event, the Blazers had a nice run at 49-33 and beat the Sixers to win the title in 1976-77.  The next season, the Blazers looked even better.  They started out 50-10 and looked to be odds on favorite to repeat.  But Walton broke his foot and the team finished 8-14 after that point before losing to the Sonics (and Lenny Wilkens!) in the semifinals.  Walton would never play another game with the Blazers again and would never really be healthy again either (with the exception of the his 1985-86 campaign in Boston).  

The team was brilliantly examined in David Halberstam’s “The Breaks of the Game” a seminal look at NBA basketball primarily through the lens of the Blazers of 1979-80, that had remnants of the old Walton team.  Halberstam summed up the view of the title Blazers quite well based upon an interview with team trainer Ron Culp: “Culp regarded the championship season as nothing less than–in his own words–a spiritual crusade, unselfish players playing with great generosity and moral conviction who were close off the court as well as on and who, in the Lucas-Walton-Hollins friendship, seemed to symbolize athletic and racial togetherness….Then in the spring of 1978 Culp’s world had collapsed.  First there had been the Walton injury, which knocked Portland out of the playoffs and which was eventually to have serious ramifications for everyone involved, terminating friendship with lawsuit [Walton brought a quasi-malpractice suit against the Blazers' medical staff over the foot injury and their pushing him to play through injury].  But more immediately painful for Culp had been what happened when the players met to vote shares of the playoff money….That day the players, with Maurice Lucas the dominating voice, voted not to give Ron Culp his expected playoff share, roughly $2,500, though finally they gave him–it was as big a slap in the face–a quarter share.”  As for the lawsuit, after breaking his foot his he raised concerns about the professionalism of the Blazers and then in a summer 1978 meeting “Walton read out a statement attacking the Blazer medical practices and demanded that he be traded.”  Trade talks ensued and everyone felt unhappy and betrayed on both sides.  

Eventually Walton signed with the San Diego Clippers and the end was abrupt and bitter. Lucas and Hollins also forced trades after bitter contract disputes.  Lucas bounced around to the Nets, Knicks, Suns, Lakers, and Sonics, before finishing up with the Blazers in 1987-88.  He was still good but not quite the same star after leaving.  Hollins, the player being groomed as the perimeter scorer, was traded to the Sixers, where he became a decent role player but was quickly supplanted by Andrew Toney.  Hollins was out of the NBA by 1985 at age 31. 

This is not to say that the Blazers were a total dysfunctional mess but it is an interesting life lesson to those who allude to the “less complicated” times when the only difference was that there was a smaller money pot to split.  The fact is that NBA players act in their own self-interest often, and that is certainly their right.  Neither Lucas nor Walton was the stereotypical NBA player, they were both very vocal, thoughtful, and connected to politics, but in their heart their concerns were pretty much the same as any other modern player. 

The Drexler Blazers 

The Clyde Drexler Blazers were, in many ways, the antithesis of the Walton teams.  Drexler’s teams were manic on the court, they scrambled and shot a lot more but they were dynamite for three years (from 1989-1991).  For those three seasons, the Blazers were around the NBA Finals and were closer to a title than people realize. The Blazers went 59-23, 63-19, and 57-25 those three years and went to two NBA Finals (losing to the Pistons in 1989-90 and to the Bulls in 1991-92).  Their best team, however, was the 1990-91 team that went 63-19 and had the most wins in the NBA, ranked second in offense (points per minute) and third in defense and doing so at a fast pace and making a ton of threes (a league best .377% on above average attempts) and very few turnovers.  (The only team stat category where they didn’t excel was blocked shots).  In addition to Drexler, Terry Porter was an All-Star point guard and the front court was above average, if not quite All-Star (Cliff Robinson, Jerome Kersey, Buck Williams, Kevin Duckworth).  

The Blazers were the odds on favorites to win a title and all set up to meet the Bulls to battle for the mantle as the team of the 1990s but Portland lost to the Lakers in a tough Western Conference Finals 4-2, thanks in part to a thrown away pass by rookie Cliff Robinson on a four-on-one fast break.  When they finally did meet the Bulls in 1991-92, the Bulls looked like the team of the 1990s and the Blazers a clear notch below.  Still, this was a tough team.  They won consistently in the regular season and rarely lost to a worse team in the playoffs. 

The Jail Blazers of 1999-00 

The Blazers of late 1990s were also a tough and deep squad.  Their peak, was brief (1998-99 and 1999-00) but were dangerous at their best.  This was a slow down team that was even deeper than the Drexler team, with Damon Stoudamire, Steve Smith, Scottie Pippen, Rasheed Wallace, Arvydas Sabonis, Bonzi Wells, Detlef Schrempf, Brian Grant, and even had guys like Greg Anthony, Stacey Augmon, and a young Jermaine O’Neal on the end of the pine.  No player had really gaudy offensive numbers but the team had few weaknesses and guys like Rasheed and Sabonis were really efficient for big men. 

The Blazers are best remembered for some off-the-court issues and their blowing an 18-point lead in the fourth quarter of Game 7 against the Shaq-Kobe Lakers in the 1999-00 Western Conference Finals (people do forget that the Lakers got some favorable calls in that court, including Shaq’s giant hip check on Smith that was not called).  Also, the Blazers took a step down after 1999-00, to a 50-win team and have not won a playoff series since.  This should not take away from a unique and talented team. 

Now comes the hard part, comparing the three great teams.  Because these are three deep teams from three different eras, we won’t do a tale of the tape at the starting positions but instead give you each team stats as they are bit more helpful in this context: 

1976-77 Blazers

W-L: 49-33 (55-27 expected W-L)

Pts/100 poss: 103.2 (2nd in NBA)

O-Pts/100 poss: 98.0 (5th in NBA)

Pace Factor: 7th in NBA

Strength: Front Court of Walton and Lucas

Weakness: Back court was tepid 

1990-91 Blazers

W-L: 63-19 (62-20 expected W-L)

Pts/100 poss: 112.8 (2nd in NBA)

O-Pts/100 poss: 104.3 (3rd in NBA)

Pace Factor: 4th in NBA

Strength: Drexler and Porter, Depth

Weakness:  Soft defense at center 

1999-00 Blazers

W-L: 59-23 (59-23 expected W-L)

Pts/100 poss: 107.9 (3rd in NBA)

O-Pts/100 poss: 100.8 (5th in NBA)

Pace Factor: 25th in NBA

Strength:  Depth up the wazoo

Weakness: a bit small at the point 

With three teams clearly in the running, it is very tough to make a choice.  Indeed, while I think the 1990-91 Blazers could handle the 1999-00 team, they may have problems matching up Kevin Duckworth on Walton.  Conversely, the 1999-00 squad has some bodies to throw at Lucas and Walton that you might think they could wear down the 1970s squad.  With this merry-go-round feeling, I’m left to retreat to point differential, where the 1990-91 team is well ahead of the other two teams.  While I’m troubled by how the 1990-91 team would stop Walton, I think the point differential and the fact that Porter and Drexler would’ve beat up Dave Twardzik, Johnny Davis, and Hollins pretty soundly, make the 1990-91 team the best choice. 

Seattle SuperSonics 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  1993-94 (63-19)

-Most Wins: 1995-96 (64-18)

-Best Playoff Run:  1978-79 (9-8)(won title); 1995-96 (13-8) 

Alas, the Seattle Sonics don’t exist anymore (for now) but their history remains.  The decision comes down to a comparison between the 1970s, when they went to two Finals and won a title (1978-79) and the Gary Payton-Shawn Kemp peak of the mid-1990s.  A few years ago, we already did a little breakdown of the two different eras.  With due respect to the 1970s team, we decided that the 1990s team was superior.  In fact, that 1990s team won more games, was deeper, and had the two best players (Payton and Kemp) and, arguably, the third best player too (Detlef Schrempf).  Hell, the six best teams by point differential in franchise history are the 1992-93 Sonics through 1997-98 Sonics respectively.  Some old-time Sonic fans felt we underrated the 1970s team before but I see no reason to change my conclusion.  Dennis Johnson and Jack Sikma just don’t have firepower to beat the GP-Kemp version. 

The real question is which of the mid-1990s Sonics team is best.  Kyle Wright went with the 1993-94 team that went 63-19 and had the best point differential in team history.  The 1995-96 team, had more wins (64) and made it to the NBA Finals (where they lost to the Bulls 4-2) but weren’t quite as good in point differential (the 1994-95 team that was only a four seed and had 57 wins but also lost in the first round had a similar differential as the 1995-96 team).  Between the 1993-94 team and the 1995-96 team, I think you have to take the latter.  Not only did the team have more success in the playoffs and more wins but Payton, they key player, was entering his peak, whereas in 1993-94, he was still a bit raw (couldn’t shoot the three and wasn’t as good a defender).  

Utah Jazz 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  1996-97 (64-18)

-Most Wins: 1996-97 (64-18)

-Best Playoff Run:  1996-97 and 1997-98 (13-5) 

The Stockton-Malone Years were good to Utah and has no shortage of very good teams, 11 teams with over 50 wins and three wins over 60 wins.  But the best of the bunch is easily the 1996-97 team, which was most successful by all measures (wins, expected wins, and playoff success).  Of the non-Stockton/Malone teams, the 2007-08 team is the best but at 54-28 are not quite in the same league.  Apart from the success the last two years, the only other Jazz team without Stockton and Malone to even have a winning record was the 1983-84 team that went 45-37 with Rickey Green and Adrian Dantley.

Dallas Mavericks 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  2002-03 (60-22)

-Most Wins:  2006-07 (67-15)

-Best Playoff Run: 2005-06 (14-9) 

We start in Dallas, a team with two distinct runs.  First we have the 1980s, when an expansion team methodically built around Derek Harper, Rolando Blackman, Mark Aguirre, and Roy Tarpley, became a contender before fizzling out because of age and Tarpley’s problems.  After an extremely dry 1990s, the Mavs have won at least 50 games each year of the 2000s (as well as three 60-win teams) behind Dirk Nowitzki and a crew of talented players.  The only 1980s teams that can plausibly be in the conversation of best team, the 1986-87 (55-27 but lost in the first round) and 1987-88 (53-29, made Conference Finals) teams, were both pretty good.  

But neither can match up with the best of the 2000s in wins, playoff success, or point differential.  No, the real question is which of the Dirk squads is best.  To that end, there are three contenders, the 2002-03 team that has the best point differential, the 2006-07 team with the most wins, and the 2005-06 team that went the furthest in the playoffs.  The early 2000s Mavs under Don Nelson (represented by the 2002-03 team) were fast paced offensive teams who played just enough defense to be tough.  When Nellie was bounced in 2005, Avery Johnson transformed this into a slow paced defensive squad.  Both versions were very effective and it’s tough to say definitively who was really best but lets take a look at each squads key players: 

2002-03 Mavs 60-22 (62-20 expected record), 1st in Pts/Poss, 9th O-Pts/Poss, 7th in Pace

PG, Steve Nash: 17.7 ppg, .465 FG%, 2.9 rpg, 7.3 apg, 22.6 PER

SG, Michael Finley: 19.3 ppg. .425 FG%, 5.8 rpg, 3.0 apg, 17.6 PER

SF, Adrian Griffin: 4.4 ppg, .433 FG%, 3.6 rpg, 1.4 apg, 11.5 PER

PF, Dirk Nowitzki: 25.1 ppg, .463 FG%, 9.9 rpg, 3.0 apg, 25.5 PER

C, Raef LaFrentz: 9.3 ppg, .518 FG%, 4.8 rpg, 0.8 apg, 16.5 PER

G, Nick Van Exel: 12.5 ppg, .412 FG%, 2.8 rpg, 4.3 apg, 15.7 PER

C, Shawn Bradley: 7.5 ppg, ..536 FG%, 5.9 rpg, 0.7 apg, 18.3 PER 

2005-06 Mavs 60-22 (58-24 expected record), 1st in Pts/Poss, 11th in O-Pts/Poss, 26th in Pace

PG, Jason Terry: 17.1 ppg, .470 FG%, 2.0 rpg, 3.8 apg, 18.4 PER

SG, Jerry Stackhouse: 13.0 ppg, .401 FG%, 2.8 rpg, 2.9 apg, 14.5 PER

SF, Josh Howard: 15.6 ppg, .471 FG%, 6.3 rpg, 1.9 apg, 19.3 PER

PF, Dirk Nowitzki: 26.6 ppg, .480 FG%, 9.0 rpg, 2.8 apg, 28.1 PER

C, Erick Dampier: 5.7 ppg, .493 FG%, 7.8 rpg, 0.6 apg, 13.9 PER

G, Marquis Daniels: 10.2 ppg, .480 FG%, 3.6 rpg, 0.7 apg, 14.9 PER 

2006-07 Mavs 67-15 (61-21 expected record), 2nd in Pts/Poss, 5th in O-Pts/Poss, 28th in Pace

PG, Devin Harris: 10.2 ppg, .492 FG%, 2.5 rpg, 3.7 apg, 16.0 PER

SG, Jason Terry: 16.7 ppg, .484 FG%, 2.9 rpg, 5.2 apg, 18.9 PER

SF, Josh Howard: 18.9 ppg, .459 FG%, 6.8 rpg, 1.8 apg, 20.0 PER

PF, Dirk Nowitzki: 24.6 ppg, .502 FG%, 8.9 rpg, 3.4 apg, 27.6 PER

C, Erick Dampier: 7.1 ppg, .626 FG%, 7.4 rpg, 0.6 apg, 14.9 PER

G, Jerry Stackhouse: 12.0 ppg, .428 FG%, 2.2 rpg, 2.8 apg, 16.8  PER 

Reflexively, I like the 2002-03 team because they have the best core around Dirk with Nash and Finley in their youth.  On the other hand, Dirk wasn’t quite as good in the old days as he’s been the last few years.  When you throw in the fact that the 2002-03 team also had the best expected win-loss record and were not actually bad defensively (despite what it seemed at the time), we’ll take the 2002-03 team as the best in franchise by a smidge.

Houston Rockets 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  2006-07 (52-30)

-Most Wins:  1993-94 (58-24)

-Best Playoff Run:  1994-95 (15-7) 

The 2000s Rockets are currently remembered for their utter inability to make a dent in the playoffs, though they hope that the acquisition of Ron Artest will change things.  The Hakeem Olajuwon Years, on the other hand, represent the golden years of the franchise for the playoff impact they made.  Despite all that, the three best regular season squads in Rocket history, by point differential, all are from the Yao Ming-Tracy McGrady group.  For whatever reason, Hakeem’s team never looked great in the expected win records.  Of course, you can’t live by point differential alone.  The 1993-94 team won a title and has the most wins in franchise history. and the top three teams by wins are from that era. 

The 1993-94 team was quite good, beating some really good teams on the way: the Barkley Suns, the Stockton-Malone Jazz, and the Ewing Knicks but scoring was a problem.  The team ranked only 15th in points per possession that season.  With a starting backcourt of Kenny Smith (shot well but had problems creating shots) and Vernon Maxwell (shot a lot but not well at .389%), scoring was a problem.  But there is reason to believe that the 1993-94 team was better than its scoring numbers indicate.  As scrappy Scott Brooks lost playing time to a rookie name Sam Cassell, the team looked tougher, particularly in the playoffs.  So I am definitely willing to accept the fact that point differential sells the 1993-94 Rockets short.  

Moreover, they are clearly the best team of the Hakeem Era.  The Rockets also won a title in 1994-95 after the late season acquisition of Clyde Drexler but they were a tepid 47-35 in the regular season and were so short on depth that they were starting Chucky Brown and Pete Chilcutt at times.  The 1996-97 team, which added Barkley, was also good but older and slow and had similar depth problems (Matt Maloney was the teams only point guard). 

Could the 2000s Rockets stand up to Hakeem & Company?  On paper, the recent Rockets aren’t that far off.  Just last season, the team notched 55 wins (in a bizarre run that mostly came after Yao went down for the season) and have a nice core with McGrady and Yao the last few years.  At this point, we’ll assume that the 2007-08 team is the best recent edition.  The 2006-07 team had just as many expected wins as the 2007-08 team (55) but Yao actually missed more time in that year, though he was available for the playoffs.  In either case, we’re talking about thin teams matching up T-Mac and Yao against Hakeem.  I don’t think it’s too necessary to go over the numbers individually here.  The new Rockets’ weakenesses duplicate those of the Hakeem team.  Neither team had too much depth and the new team had even more trouble scoring than the 1993-94 team.  Factor in that Hakeem has a big edge over Yao and we have to call the 1993-94 team best in franchise but a pretty significant margin. 

For those who are curious, the 1985-86 Twin Tower team that featured Hakeem and Ralph Sampson did not score very well and had a relatively low expected win-loss record.  Also, the best non-Hakeem/Yao team was the 1976-77 team that went 49-33 and lost to the 76ers in the Conference Finals (Houston was in the Eastern Conference back then).  They had a bunch of recognizable names in Moses Malone (13.5 ppg, 13.4 rpg), who wasn’t quite a superstar yet, Rudy Tomjanovich (21.6 ppg), Calvin Murphy (17.9 ppg), John Lucas (11.1 ppg, 5.6 apg), and Mike Newlin (12.7 ppg). 

Memphis Grizzlies 

-Kyle’s Best Team: 2005-06 (49-33)

-Most Wins: 2003-04 (50-32)

-Best Playoff Run: 2003-04, 2004-05, and 2005-06 (0-4) 

The Grizz have the least memorable franchise history of any recent non-Bobcat expansion team.  So far, the only peak we can point to was the three year-run with Hubie Brown and Mike Fratello where they made the playoffs only to be swept all three years.  Here are the squads: 

Year           W-L     Expected W-L

2003-04     50-32          48-34

2004-05     45-37          48-34

2005-06     49-33          52-33 

All three teams were based around Pao Gasol and Mike Miller, who were both pretty consistent in this time.  We’ll go with the 2005-06 team because of expected win-loss but this is really not one worth delving into too deeply.  The best Vancouver Grizzlies team?  This is even less inspiring than the Memphis editions.  In fact, the best team in Vancouver was the 2000-01 team that went 23-59 behind Shareef Abdur-Rahim (20.5 ppg, 9.1 rpg), Michael Dickerson (16.3 ppg), and Mike Bibby (15.9 ppg, 8.4 apg). 

New Orleans Hornets

-Kyle’s Best Team:  2007-08 (56-26)

-Most Wins: 2007-08 (56-26)

-Best Playoff Run: 2007-08 (7-5)

By the numbers it seems pretty clear that the 2007-08 team is the best in franchise history.  Still, they are not the best by that much.  In fact, that Hornets has several different good teams that contended over the years, albeit with very distinct cores.  We identified four distinct mini-peaks in Hornet history: (1) the Alonzo Mourning-Larry Johnson years (1992-1995), the Glen Rice years (1996-1999), the Jamal Mashburn/Baron Davis years (2000-2003), and now the Chris Paul years (2007-present).  Here’s the best of each little run: 

Zo/LJ Years

1994-95 Hornets, 50-32, 50-32 expected record

PG, Muggsy Bogues: 11.1 ppg, .477 FG%, 3.3 rpg, 8.7 rpg, 16.9 PER

SG, Hersey Hawkins: 14.3 ppg, .482 FG%, 3.8 rpg, 3.2 apg, 16.3 PER

SF, Scott Burrell: 11.5 ppg, .467 FG%, 5.7 rpg, 2.5 apg, 15.0 PER

PF, Larry Johnson: 18.8 ppg, .480 FG%, 7.2 rpg, 4.6 apg, 17.1 PER

C, Alonzo Mourning: 21.3 ppg, .519 FG%, 9.9 rpg, 1.4 apg, 20.1 PER 

Glen Rice Years

1997-98 Hornets, 51-31, 47-35 expected record

PG, David Wesley: 13.0 ppg, .443 FG%, 2.6 rpg, 6.5 apg, 15.2 PER

SG, Bobby Phills: 10.4 ppg, .446 FG%, 3.5 rpg, 3.0 apg, 12.5 PER

SF, Glen Rice: 22.3 ppg, .457 FG%, 4.3 rpg, 2.2 apg, 17.4 PER

PF, Anthony Mason: 12.8 ppg, .509 FG%, 10.2 rpg, 4.2 apg, 16.4 PER

C, Vlade Divac: 10.4 ppg, .498 FG%, 8.1 rpg, 2.7 rpg, 19.4 PER 

Mashburn/Baron Years

2000-01 Hornets, 46-36, 48-34 expected record

PG, Baron Davis: 13.8 ppg, .427 FG%, 5.0 rpg, 7.3 apg, 16.6 PER

SG, David Wesley: 17.2 ppg, .422 FG%, 2.7 rpg, 4.4 apg, 15.3 PER

SF, Jamal Mashburn: 20.1 ppg, .413 FG%, 7.6 rpg, 5.4 apg, 17.5 PER

PF, P.J. Brown: 8.5 ppg, .444 FG%, 9.3 rpg, 1.6 apg, 13.3 PER

C, Elden Campbell: 13.1 ppg, .440 FG%, 7.8 rpg, 1.3 apg. 16.4 PER 

Chris Paul Squad

2007-08, 56-26, 56-26 expected record

PG, Chris Paul: 21.1 ppg, .488 FG%, 4.0 rpg, 11.6 apg, 28.3 PER

SG, Morris Peterson: 8.0 ppg, .417 FG%, 2.7 rpg, 0.9 apg, 11.2 PER

SF, Peja Stojakovic: 16.4 ppg, .440 FG%, 4.3 rpg, 1.2 apg, 15.7 PER

PF, David West: 20.6 ppg, .482 FG%, 8.9 rpg, 2.3 apg, 19.9 PER

C, Tyson Chandler: 11.8 ppg, .623 FG%, 11.7 rpg, 1.0 apg, 17.5 PER 

Say what you want about George Shinn but someone in that organization (actually Bob Bass and then Jeff Bower) has  kept this team competitive, despite the fact that they’ve been forced to trade many of their big ticket players for finance reasons.  Getting back to comparing the four teams, I think it’s clear that the Mashburn and Rice squads are the weakest.  Both teams are notable for having a pretty good small forward and a bunch of good, if not great, players. 

Choosing between the LJ/Zo team and the Paul team, as noted above, I prefer the Paul team.  While LJ was tough, I think West could play him pretty competitively.  In addition, Mourning would have an advantage, but not a huge one, over Chandler.  Accepting the fact that the 1994-95 team had a decent advantage in the front court, this is easily offset by the huge disparity in the backcourt.  Paul is already the best player in Hornets history and the 1994-95 team had absolutely no one to match up with him.  I like Muggsy Bogues as much as the next guy but Paul looks like he’s a Hall of Famer if he can continue this pace and already has the best individual season in Hornet history.    

San Antonio Spurs 

-Kyle’s Best Team: 2006-07 (58-24)

-Most Wins: 2005-06 (63-19)

-Best Playoff Run:  1998-99 (15-2) 

Don’t all the Spur teams kind of bleed into one?  Tim Duncan is always looks the same and the team is always around 60 wins.  Whether they win the title in any given year seems to depend on whether they have an injury or the teams around them are playing really well.  Since Duncan came to the Spurs in 1997-98, they’ve made the playoffs every season and won four titles.  Excluding 1999-00, when Duncan missed the playoffs with a knee injury, the Spurs have been eliminated only by the teams that won the conference.  Take a look: 

-1997-98:  Spurs eliminated by the Jazz, who eventually went to the NBA Finals and lost to the Bulls

-1998-99:  Spurs win title

-1999-00:  Duncan injured and the Spurs were eliminated in the first round by the Suns

-2000-01:  Spurs eliminated by Lakers, who eventually won title

-2001-02:  Spurs eliminated by Lakers, who eventually won title

-2002-03:  Spurs win title

-2003-04:  Spurs eliminated by Lakers, who eventually went to the NBA Finals and lost to the Pistons

-2004-05:  Spurs win title

-2005-06:  Spurs eliminated by Mavericks, who eventually went to the NBA Finals and lost to the Heat

-2006-07:  Spurs win title

-2007-08:  Spurs eliminated by Lakers, who eventually went to the NBA Finals and lost to the Celtics 

So, the Spurs have been great with Duncan and around the title every single season.  But this raises a few questions: (1) were there any other non-Duncan teams in the mix? (2) if not, how the hell do we differentiate between the Duncan teams?. 

With respect to question 1, a couple of the David Robinson teams from the 1990s are in the ballpark: the 1995-96 Spurs were 59-23 and the 1994-95 team went 62-20, for the second most wins in franchise history.  The 1994-95 team, is the only real competition to the pure Duncan teams.  The 1994-95 team had the most wins in the Western Conference and David Robinson was in the middle of a statistical peak that actually was better than Tim Duncan’s.  (If you want more on Robinson’s peak, I strongly suggest you check out Kevin Pelton’s excellent review of the great centers of the last two decades over at BasketballProspectus).  

But the 1994-95 Spurs weren’t quite as good as their won-loss record (expected won-loss of 58-24).  Indeed, the 1990s Spurs always seemed to have problems in the half court in the playoffs.  Robinson was beaten pretty convincingly by Hakeem and the Rockets in 1994-95 and that was a common theme for those teams.  Robinson was not a bad playoff player but he really did under perform his gaudy regular season numbers.  By contrast, Duncan is better in the playoffs than he has been as regular season.  I don’t necessarily attribute this to some magic ability as much as the fact that TD’s back to the basket game and jumper were always better than Robinson’s.  Throw in the fact that seven Duncan-led teams outperformed the best of the Robinson-led teams and I think we have to limit our search to the Duncan years. 

That leads us two question two, differentiating the Duncan teams.  The answer is surprisingly easy.  The 2006-07 Spurs have, by far, the best expected won-loss record in franchise history.  Throw in the fact that they won title (with a little help of Robert Horry’s bludgeoning of Steve Nash) and the 2006-07 team is the clear top team in franchise history.

Atlanta Hawks: 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  1986-87 (57-25)

-Most Wins:  1986-87 and 1993-94 (56-26)

-Best Playoff Run:  1958-59 (8-3)

The Hawks have been around since 1949 and have bounced around from Tri-Cities, to Milwaukee, to St. Louis, to Atlanta.  During that whole time, they have some decent runs, in the late 1980s and then again in the mid-to-late 1990s.  From the late 1950s to the late 1960s, however, was the Hawks’ best run.  They made four NBA Finals in five years, even beating the Bill Russell Celtics in 1957-58 on the back of the underrated Bob Pettit (and they stayed competitive for a while afterwards too).  The thing is, during all the team history, no single team really blows you away.  The only title team, the 1957-58 squad, was led the West but was only 41-31 and only outscored opponents by 1.3 ppg.  Factor in that they only had to beat the 33-39 Pistons to get to the Finals and that Russell hurt himself in the Finals (broken wrist) and it’s hard to say this is the best team in franchise history, regardless of whether they seized the day and won a title.  In fact, the Hawks looked significantly better the next three seasons, though they didn’t win it all. 

After Pettit retired in the mid-1960s, the Hawks continued to be an effective team behind Lenny Wilkens, Zelmo Beatty, Bill Bridges, and Lou Hudson and made more waves than I realized: 

-In the 1965-66 and 1966-67 the Hawks made the Western Conference Finals despite having losing records both years.

-They won 56 games in 1967-68 (second best record in the NBA) but didn’t win a playoff series.

-The Hawks were actually primary rivals to the West-Baylor Lakers in the late 1960s.  In 1969-70, the Hawks had the best record in the West (48-34) but were swept in the Conference Finals. 

The Hawks continued to be a solid, if not super threatening team, off and on until the 2000s.  In that time the Dominique Wilkins Era produced four straight fifty wins seasons.  The best remembered season for Nique was 1987-88, when he nearly out dueled Larry Bird in the playoffs.  The best team of the bunch, however, was the 1986-87 team that went 57-25 and outscored opponents by a really impressive 7.2 ppg margin.  At the time, the Hawks and Pistons were both considered the potential heirs to the Celtics dynasty and in the playoffs the Hawks were blitzed by the Pistons, losing 4-1.  The Pistons never looked back and kept the dynastic throne from Boston while Atlanta gradually declined.

In the 1990s, the Hawks also had their highlights, leading the East in wins in 1993-94 (57-25 with Mookie Blaylock, Wilkins, who they traded for Danny Manning, and Kevin Willis) and having a tough team in 1996-97 (56-26) behind Mookie, Steve Smith and Dikembe Mutombo.  As is a common thread Hawks’ history, neither of the big winners did much in the playoffs but still they are in the discussion for Hawks’ best team.  When it gets down to it, the best team competition boils down to the four 56 and 57 win teams.  At first glance, Nique is the best player on any of the teams but none of the four jumps out at me as best.  So let’s look at their point differentials to see what we get: 

-1967-68: 56-26, ppg margin +2.7

-1986-87: 57-25, ppg margin +7.2

-1993-94: 57-25, ppg margin +5.2

-1996-97: 56-26, ppg margin +5.4 

The 1986-87 team’s overwhelming point differential, combined with the fact that it has the best player of all the team (Wilkins had 29.0 ppg, 6.3 rpg, and 3.3 apg) makes me think they are the pretty clear choice as best team in franchise history. 

Charlotte Bobcats: 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  2005-06 (26-56)

-Most Wins:  2006-07 (33-49)

-Best Playoff Run:  N/A 

If ever there was a team for whom “best franchise” was not interesting it’d be the Bobcats.  Not much to choose here.  The 2006-07 team has the most wins and the best point differential, though we are really splitting hairs between bad teams here.  I think the interesting question is how often expansion teams progress upward in terms of wins and losses.  The Bobcats raised their wins each of their first three years before falling back slightly in 2007-08.  Let’s take a look at the win increments for the first five years of each expansion team since 1980: 

Dallas Mavericks

Season    W-L        Gain/Loss

1980-81   15-67          N/A

1981-82   28-54          +13

1982-83   38-44          +10

1983-84   43-39           +5

1984-85   44-38           +1 

Charlotte Hornets

Season    W-L        Gain/Loss

1988-89   20-62          N/A

1989-90   19-63            -1

1990-91   26-56           +7

1991-92   31-51           +5

1992-93   44-38          +13 

Miami Heat

Season    W-L        Gain/Loss

1988-89   15-67          N/A

1989-90   18-64          +3

1990-91   24-58          +6

1991-92   38-44         +14

1992-93   36-46          -2

Minnesota Timberwolves

Season    W-L        Gain/Loss

1989-90   22-60           N/A

1990-91   29-53            +7

1991-92   15-67           -14

1992-93   19-63            +4

1993-94   20-62            +1 

Orlando Magic

Season    W-L        Gain/Loss

1989-90   18-64          N/A

1990-91   31-51          +13

1991-92   21-61          -10

1992-93   41-41         +20

1993-94   50-32           +9 

Toronto Raptors

Season    W-L        Gain/Loss

1995-96   21-61          N/A

1996-97   30-52            +9

1997-98   16-66           -14

1998-99   38-44           +22 (projected from 50-game lockout season)

1999-00   45-37            +7 

Vancouver Grizzlies

Season    W-L        Gain/Loss

1995-96   15-67          N/A

1996-97   14-68            -1

1997-98   19-63           +5

1998-99   13-69            -6 (projected from 50-game lockout season)

1999-00   22-60           +9 

Only the Mavs were able to keep improving each of their first five years and the Hornets were also close to having steady improving each year (outside of a second year hiccup).  The Heat drafted pretty well and built themselves into a solid fringe playoff team.  The rest of teams floundered until they hit a home run in the draft (Orlando with Shaq and Toronto with Vince Carter) or just stayed bad (Vancouver).  Which team do the Bobcats seem most similar to?  The Bobcats don’t have a horrendous core but their drafting and decisions look a bit weak.  I see them as a combo of the Grizzlies and the Heat, neither of which is hugely inspiring for Bobcat fans going forward. 

Miami Heat: 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  2004-05 (59-23)

-Most Wins:  1996-97 (61-21)

-Best Playoff Run:  2005-06 (16-7) 

Once again, we have a triumvirate of teams with slightly different high points to evaluate.  The 2004-05 team had the best point differential, the 1996-97 team had the most wins, and the 2005-06 team had fewer wins but has the only title.  This match up brings out the best of Pat Riley’s 1990s teams of Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway fame versus Riley’s Shaq and Dwyane Wade teams.  Right off the bat, I think it is fair to eliminate the 2005-06 team from contention.  They were 52-30 and but Shaq was not quite the player he was in 2004-05 (Wade was better but I don’t think that can offset Shaq’s decline).  So that leaves us with the 2004-05 team, which won 59 games but has better Pythagorean data than the 1996-97 team.  My inclination tells me that Wade was better than any of the 1990s Heat guards and that Shaq trumps Zo but we’ll run a positional match up to see if the stats can support a different conclusion (in per-36 minute stats): 

PG:  T. Hardaway (18.9 pt/36mp, 3.2 reb/36mp, 8.0 ast/36mp, 20.8 PER) v. Da. Jones (13.3 pt/36mp, 3.2 reb/36mp, 4.9 ast/36 mp, 15.5 PER)

SG:  V. Lenard (15.3 pt/36mp, 3.7 reb/36mp, 2.7 ast/36mp, 14.7 PER) v. D. Wade (22.4 pt/36mp, 4.8 reb/36mp, 6.3 ast/36mp, 23.1 PER)

SF:  J. Mashburn (13.0 pt/36mp, 5.4 reb/36mp, 3.4 ast/36mp, 13.1 PER) v. E. Jones (12.9 pt/36mp, 5.1 reb/36mp, 2.7 ast/36mp, 13.6 PER)

PF:  P.J. Brown (10.6 pt/36mp, 9.3 reb/36mp, 1.3 ast/36mp, 13.8 PER) v. U. Haslem (11.7 pt/36mp, 9.8 reb/36mp, 1.5 ast/36mp, 15.5 PER)

C: A. Mourning (20.3 pt/36mp, 10.2 reb/36mp, 1.6 ast/36mp, 21.6 PER) v. S. O’Neal (24.1 pt/36mp, 11.0 reb/36mp, 2.9 ast/36mp, 27.0 PER) 

The more you look at it, the teams are structured identically.  They each have a star guard to create shots (Hardaway and Wade), a designated perimeter shooter (Voshon Lenard and Damon Jones), versatile small forward (Jamal Mashburn and Eddie Jones), a workmanlike power forward (Brown and Udonis Haslem), and the star center (Zo and Shaq).  The difference is that 2004-05 team was better offensively at virtually every match up.  The slight differences in the role players are less significant than the huge advantage Shaq has over Zo and decent size advantage Wade has over Hardaway.  Admittedly, the 1996-97 team was great defensively but they just can’t score nearly enough to take the 2004-05 team. 

Orlando Magic: 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  1994-95 (57-25)

-Most Wins:  1995-96 (60-22)

-Best Playoff Run:  1994-95 (11-10) 

Without splitting hairs between 1994-95 and 1995-96, Shaq controls the best of the Magic franchise.  The 1994-95 team is better remembered for beating Michael Jordan before getting swept by Hakeem Olajuwon and the Rockets but the 1995-96 team won more games (though was swept by the Bulls in the Eastern Conference Finals).  What’s surprising here is that the 1995-96 team had Shaq for only 54 games because he was out for over a month after a Matt Geiger hack broke his wrist in the pre-season.  Oddly enough, Anfernee Hardaway played at a ridiculous level and the team was 17-5 (.773%) with Shaq before actually finishing the season 43-17 ( .716%) after the big man’s return. 

As an aside, at the time Shaq blamed Pat Riley for Geiger’s hack: “I blame Riley for my broken thumb, not Matt Geiger. That ain’t defense Miami is playing. That’s just chopping. I have no idea how his team gets away with it. I guess when you’ve been in the league 30 years you can do it. Respect, he gets it — he’s like John Gotti.”  Obviously, Shaq’s views changed in the 2000s (and perhaps have reverted since the trade to Phoenix).  

Getting back to a comparison between the 1994-95 and the 1995-96 teams, it’s hard to differentiate but we’ll go with the 1994-95 edition.  The only reason is that they have a better point differential (+7.1 ppg versus +5.5 ppg).  The fact that Shaq missed significant time in 1995-96 is to no effect since the team actually played better without him.  Again, this choice is really one of semantics but we had to choose one. 

Washington Wizards: 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  1974-75 (60-22)

-Most Wins:  1974-75 (60-22)

-Best Playoff Run:  1977-78 (14-7) 

If any franchise has any reason to be nostalgic about the 1970s, its the Wizards.  Since winning 54 games in 1978-79 and losing in the NBA Finals, the franchise has not won more than 45 games and has won exactly two playoff series. The 1970s Bullets, however, were also a bit weird.  Their best teams usually had painful losses.  The Bullets have only one 60-win team and it was upset in a shocking sweep by the Rick Barry Warriors in 1974-75.  The Bullets’ one title came from a decidedly mediocre 44-win team in 1977-78.  In the end, it’s quite clear that the best team in franchise history is the 1974-75 team.  They won the most games and were the most dominant (behind Elvin Hayes, Mike Riordan, Phil Chenier, Kevin Porter, and Wes Unseld) and it’s not particularly close. 

So how did this team get swept by the 48-win Warriors?  The Warriors were able to do it by holding down Hayes (who averaged 23.0 ppg) to 29 points total through the first three games of the series.  But the games were actually close.  Warriors coach Al Attles was quoted on the subject in Roland Lazenby’s “The NBA Finals”: “It wasn’t like we blew them out.  Each game was close.”  (The Warriors won the four games by a total of 16 points).

 Chicago Bulls:  

-Kyle’s Best Team:  1995-96 (72-10)

-Most Wins: 1995-96 (72-10)

-Best Playoff Run: 1990-91 (15-2) 

Not really breaking much new ground here but Michael Jordan was pretty good.  The 1995-96 team looks even more astounding in retrospect than it did at the time.  At the time, I wondered if the 1995-96 team was as dominant as the earlier title teams, primarily because Jordan wasn’t quite as good as he was at his uber peak in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  But the 1995-96 team was the best by virtually measure: it was the only Bulls team (or any team in recent memory) to lead the league in points scored and allowed, and the Pythagorean wins was consistent with a 70-win team.  

This got me wondering how the Bulls’ team performance correlated to MJ’s individual stats.  I’m not a huge fan of linear weights formulas to assess a player’s proficiency but when you’re measuring a single player over a few years, the formulas are quite helpful in showing improvement, decline, or even a change in roles.  So here’s a look at the six Bulls title teams, their wins, and MJ’s PER rating for each of them: 

-1990-91, 61-21 (MJ PER 31.6)

-1991-92, 67-15 (MJ PER 27.7)

-1992-93, 57-25 (MJ PER 29.7)

-1995-96, 72-10 (MJ PER 29.4)

-1996-97, 69-13 (MJ PER 27.8)

-1997-98, 62-20 (MJ PER 25.2) 

Not much correlation between wins and Jordan’s stats.  Bottom line is that Jordan was other worldly the entire time.  Even in 1997-98, a clear decline year, MJ’s PER was fourth in the NBA behind only big men Shaquille O’Neal, Karl Malone, and David Robinson.  So, Jordan’s fall from absolute peak in 1990 really didn’t affect the team that much because he was still great.  As another quick aside, here’s the best players by position that happened around MJ in those six great years: 

-PG: Pretty much nobody.  Between John Paxson, Steve Kerr, B.J. Armstrong, and Ron Harper they filled roles but none are anything to write home about individually.

-SG: We’ll reserve this for MJ of 1990-91 (30.1 ppg, .519 FG%, 6.4 rpg, 6.1 apg).

-SF:  Scottie Pippen, 1991-92 (21.0 ppg, .506 FG%, 7.7 rpg, 7.0 apg)

-PF:  Horace Grant, 1991-92 (14.2 ppg, .578 FG%, 10.0 rpg, 2.7 apg)

-C:    Luc Longley, 1997-98 (11.4 ppg, .455 FG%, 5.9 rpg, 2.8 apg)

Finally, it should be remembered that the best non-MJ Bulls team to date were the 1971-72 Bulls, who went 57-25 and had the point differential of a 61-21 team.  They were an excellent team led by Bob Love and Chet Walker, as well as defensive players like Jerry Sloan, Bob Weiss, Clifford Ray, and Tom Boerwinkle.  Of course, they didn’t win a playoff game, getting smoked by the historic 1971-72 Lakers 4-0 in the First Round. 

Cleveland Cavaliers: 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  1988-89 (57-25)

-Most Wins: 1988-89 and 1991-92 (57-25)

-Best Playoff Run: 2006-07 (12-4) 

LeBron, LeBron, LeBron…He is, by far, the best player in Cavs history and he’s taken the Cavs further than they ever have gone before.  But his team is not the best in franchise history.  In fact, the three best teams in Cavs’ history revolve around the Lenny Wilkens years and not LeBron.  The 1988-89 and 1991-92 teams both won 57 games and they won 54 games in 1992-93 (but for Mark Price’s knee injury they may have had a 60-win season at some point too).  All three times, they were taken out by the aforementioned Mr. Jordan in the playoffs.  We matched up the 1991-92 team against the 2006-07 team a while back and concluded that LeBron wasn’t enough to beat the deep 1990s Cavs.  Granted, the older Cavs couldn’t stop a force like Jordan and it would be logical to think that they’d have problems with LeBron.  On the other hand, LeBron, for all his greatness, isn’t quite Jordan nor does he have near the supporting cast yet.  As such, I think the Lenny Wilkens Cavs would beat the current model.  We expect LeBron to have the best team in Cavs’ history eventually but it hasn’t happened yet.

The interesting question is choosing between the two 57-win teams, the1988-89 team with its excellent point differential and the 1991-92 team, which had much more playoff success but wasn’t as good on a Pythagorean level.  It seems futile to speculate which of two teams, with essentially the same personnel, would win in a hypothetical series.  So how to compare in such an instance?  I usually like to err on the side of playoff success in assessing these close cases but, here, playoff success may be a bit a result of context.  Both lost to the Bulls in the playoffs, the 1988-89 team just happened to lose in the first round.  On the other hand, the 1988-89 Bulls were only 47-35 and not the 67-15 monsters of 1991-92 that beat the Cavs 4-2.  Let’s check the match ups and see if we learn anything else: 

-PG: Mark Price 88-89, (18.9 ppg, .526 FG%, 3.0 rpg, 8.4 apg, 20.6 PER) v. Mark Price 91-92 (17.3 ppg, .488 FG%, 2.4 rpg, 7.4 apg, 22.7 PER)

-SG: Ron Harper 88-89 (18.6 ppg, .511 FG%, 5.0 rpg, 5.3 apg, 19.8 PER) v. Craig Ehlo 91-92 (12.3 ppg, .453 FG%, 4.9 rpg, 3.8 apg, 13.8 PER)

-SF:  Larry Nance 88-89 (17.2 ppg, .539 FG%, 8.0 rpg, 2.2 apg, 19.9 PER) v. Larry Nance 91-92 (17.0 ppg, .539 FG%, 8.3 rpg, 2.9 apg, 21.4 PER)

-PF:  Hot Rod Williams 88-89 (11.6 ppg, .509 FG%. 5.8 rpg, 1.3 apg, 17.6 PER) v. Hot Rod Williams 91-92 (11.9 ppg, .503 FG%, 7.6 rpg, 2.5 apg, 18.6 PER)

-C:    Brad Daugherty 88-89 (18.9 ppg, .538 FG%, 9.2 rpg, 3.7 apg, 18.5 PER) v.  Brad Daugherty 91-92 (21.5 ppg, .570 FG%, 10.4 rpg, 3.6 apg, 23.0 PER) 

Statistically speaking, all four of the starters were better in 1991-92.  The lone difference is Ron Harper, who was quite good in 1988-89, versus Craig Ehlo, a good defender and role player, but not nearly as good.  Harper was traded for Danny Ferry, who didn’t do much for the 1991-92 team.  His lone memorable moment occurred when he tried to goad Michael Jordan into a fight in the playoffs (it didn’t work).  We can assume that the loss of Harper’s offense made the rest of the 1991-92 squad put up better offensive numbers.  But the differences are so stark that I think we have to conclude that the 1991-92 team is better, point differential be damned.

Detroit Pistons: 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  2007-08 (59-23)

-Most Wins: 2005-06 (64-18)

-Best Playoff Run: 1988-89 (15-2) 

As with the Cavs, the inquiry boils down to the teams of the 1980s and early 1990s versus the current model.  Detroit’s success has been sharply concentrated on these two eras.  Of the 14 50-win teams in franchise history, only two did not come from the Isiah Era or the 2000s team (the 1973-74 team led by Dave Bing and Bob Lanier lost in Game 7 against the Bulls in First Round and the 1996-97 team with Grant Hill and Doug Collins lost in the First Round to the Hawks).  How do you boil down Isiah’s great teams against the more recent vintage teams with Chauncey Billups?  Before you even get to that point, how do you even pick the best representative for each core?  Both team had a huge winner (1988-89 team went 63-19 and the 2005-06 team went 64-18).  The 2005-06, despite all its wins, is neither the best modern Piston by point differential or by playoff showing.  

With so many plausible choices we should take a look at the total picture of all the Isiah teams when they were a title threat (1986-87 through 1990-91) and the modern teams (2001-02 through 2007-08) and how they scored on wins, point differential, and playoff record: 

                                Isiah Era

                            Chauncey Time

 It’s pretty clear that the 1988-89 team is the best of the Isiah Era.  The 1989-90 team isn’t far off but the 1988-89 dominated the playoffs even more (though they benefited from Larry Bird and Magic Johnson both being injured).  Turning to the more recent Pistons, there really is no clear best chance.  The 2003-04 team won a title, the 2004-05 team was a quarter away from a title, and the 2005-06 and 2007-08 teams were quite good too (but didn’t even make the Finals).  This year’s team was quite underrated also, only getting beat up by a great Celts team.  I still don’t quite understand how the Pistons lost to the Heat in 2005-06 but Dwyane Wade was pretty insane.  In addition, the teams have been remarkably consistent in individual performances.  Of the group, only Chauncey Billups’  2005-06 stands out as an MVP caliber offensive season.  So without any real conviction, we’ll take 2005-06 as the best for the new Pistons because of the regular season dominance and the near best Pythagorean win record. 

Putting the 1988-89 Pistons against the 2005-06 team is no easier.  They are very similar teams: point guard star (Isiah and Chauncey), All-Star level two guard (Dumars and Rip Hamilton), and a deep frontcourt with tons of defensive muscle (Mark Aguirre, Dennis Rodman, John Salley, Rick Mahorn, and Bill Laimbeer against Tayshaun Prince, Antonio McDyess, Ben Wallace, and Rasheed Wallace).  The match up game doesn’t help much here either because the teams are really close at every position.  In this case, it would really come down to the vagaries of individual match ups (Ben Wallace v. Laimbeer and Isiah and Chauncey seem to be the most interesting).  With no sense of satisfaction, I’m going with the 1988-89 team, if only because they had more big wins in the playoffs and are thus more likely to do so in our hypothetical match up,  whereas the 2000s teams have more disappointing playoff losses.  

Indiana Pacers: 

-Kyle’s Best Team:  1997-98 (58-24)

-Most Wins: 2003-04 (61-21)

-Best Playoff Run: 1999-00 (13-10)

I think the answer is pretty clear in this case.  Though they have neither the most wins (2003-04) nor the best playoff run (1999-00), the 1997-98 Pacers are the toughest team in Pacer history.  The 2003-04 team won 61 games in an abortive peak of the coulda-been Jermaine O’Neal/Ron Artest team.  It was a tough team but was prone to lapses (Besides inciting a riot, Artest had moments of mental inconsistency) and really wasn’t very deep outside of the top two aplyers.  The 1990s Pacers were an altogether better, deeper, and more disciplined team (Mark Jackson, Reggie Miller, Dale Davis, Antonio Davis, and Rik Smits).  

Of the 1990s groups, the 1999-00 team went the farthest but the core of the team was already past its prime (Rik Smits would retire after the season and Reggie Miller and Mark Jackson were down quite a bit off their peaks).  Also, the 1999-00 team didn’t have nearly as tough a road in the playoffs as the previous incarnations.  In 1999-00, the team had to beat the Allen Iverson Sixers (49-33) and the last pieces of the Patrick Ewing Knicks (50-32).  The 1997-98 team had a better point differential, the same players at younger age, and they took the Michael Jordan Bulls (62-20) to the limit before losing 4-3 in the Conference Finals. In fact, the 1997-98 Pacer team gave the MJ his biggest challenge of the title runs, as they led the Bulls in the second half of Game 7 (until MJ beat Smits on a jump ball, which led to a big three by Steve Kerr).  So, to me, it’s pretty clear that 1997-98 was the best team in Pacers’ history. 

Milwaukee Bucks: 

-Kyle’s Best Team: 1970-71 (66-16)

-Most Wins: 1970-71 (66-16)

-Best Playoff Run: 1970-71 (12-2) 

The Bucks have plenty of good teams in their history but this is one of the easier franchises to find a best team.  Kyle actually found the 1970-71 Bucks to be the best team of All-Time.  I don’t necessarily agree with that finding but they were damn good.  By the raw numbers, they blow away all competition in Milwaukee.  The only question is whether an early 1970s team can stack up with the factory of very good Don Nelson teams from the 1980s.  That answer is an emphatic yes.  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar near his peak plus player like Oscar Robertson and Bobby Dandridge could match up with any of the Sidney Moncrief/Terry Cummings squads.  Indeed, Abdul-Jabbar was still a star when he was playing as an older player in the 1980s when the Nelson Bucks thrived.  In fact, the 1970-71 and 1971-72 team are the top two squads by a fair margin (the 1971-72 team lost to the All-Time Lakers squad in the Conference Finals 4-2). 

An interesting digression about those early Bucks teams is the Oscar Robertson saga, who was a key veteran for the early Bucks.  The people of Wisconsin are still talking about the Brett Favre retirement saga.  Though it obviously wasn’t on the scale of the Favre battle, Oscar Robertson had a similar drama with the Bucks when he tried to decide whether to retire after the 1973-74 season.  Oscar was still pretty good but he was turning 36 and was no longer a star.  (In his final season, Oscar had 12. 7 ppg, .438 FG%, 4.0 rpg, and 6.4 apg, all of which were career lows).  Wayne Embry, who was the GM of the Bucks back then, laid out his discussions with Robertson after the 1973-74, where they lost to Boston in a tough seven-game NBA Finals, in his excellent autobiography “The Inside Game”: 

“Oscar had announced he was going to retire, and we were facing expansion, meaning we could lose two players who contributed to our success.  There was no way we could replace Oscar, who, at the age of thirty-four, was still one of the top three players in the league….I was told I did not have to protect him if he wrote a letter to The League stating his intentions.  But this was a touchy subject for me.  What if he really did not want to retire?  I did not want to seem presumptuous, even though it had been well-publicized that he was thinking about it.  I called him in the first thing Monday morning to explain my dilemma.  After commending him for his gallant effort the past week [in the NBA Finals], I asked him about his future.  ‘Big fella, I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,’ he told me.  I prodded him for an answer with no success.  This did not make for an easy decision. In the end, we protected him, I was not going to allow an expansion team to draft him.  It would have been an insult to one of the greatest players in the history of the game, who happened to be a good friend of mine…. 

Finally Jake [Brown, Oscar's agent] called and said Oscar wanted to play another year.  My stomach was tied in knots.  After conferring with Wes [Pavalon, the Bucks' owner]  and [Bill] Alverson [team president], I called Jake and told him we were not going to re-sign Oscar.  We had signed [Gary] Brokaw and [George]Thompson, and they had to play.  This was one of the toughest calls I ever made.  In my heart, I knew Oscar was better than who we had, despite the age.  I was telling my friend and former roommate that we no longer wanted him.  Eventually he decided to retire.” 

While Embry overstates Robertson’s value at that point in his career, it was clearly a tough decision.  In case you’re curious, the Bucks missed the playoffs in 1974-75 and Brokaw (8.1 ppg, .455 FG%, 2.0 rpg, 3.0 apg in 22.5 mpg) and Thompson (10.7 ppg, .443 FG%, 2.5 rpg, 3.1 apg in 27.2 mpg) were both average at best.  The collapse had more to do with Kareem issues (he wanted a trade and missed 17 games) but Oscar might’ve helped.  But who knows the pay he would’ve demanded for declining play?  Certainly, it would’ve been more for his reputation than his future performance.  In the end, it does seem that Embry had a bit better sense of how to handle his stand off than the Pack did with Favre.

There has been a lot of great work already done in this field already.  Notably, Kyle Wright wrote a great book called “The NBA From Top to Bottom,” which ranks every NBA team in history from one to 1,153. Kyle’s book is great and I recommend it to any big NBA fan look it up.  The book, however, limits its rankings solely to regular season proficiency and does not attempt to adjust for era.  So, I thought we’d run through each franchise, identifying Kyle’s best team, the team with the most wins, the most successful playoff team , and finally my subjective choice for best in franchise.  As always, we are well aware that my opinions are entirely unscientific.  Still, we’ll run through the issues in each case and see what we come up with.  With all that said, here’s the Atlantic Division:

Boston Celtics:   

-Kyle’s Best Team:  2007-08 (66-16)

-Most Wins: 1971-72 (68-14)

-Best Playoff Run:  1985-86 (15-3), 1963-64 and 1960-61 (8-2)

Wouldn’t you know it that our very first team ends up being one of the hardest to identify as a best team.  The Celts have 17 title winners, and several other great teams, including the 68-win 1972-73 team.  Putting aside the differences in eras, the Celtics of the Bill Russell dynasty never threw up any really gaudy win numbers, maxing out at 62 wins and breaking the 60-win barrier only two other times.  In the 1970s, the Celts did get up to 68 wins but lost in the Conference Finals to the Knicks (John Havlicek was injured in the series).  The 1980s teams were probably the most successful during the regular season and they had the legendary 1985-86 team that went 67-15 (40-1 at home).  The wild card in our inquiry of the Celts is the current champs (who Kyle ranks as the best regular season squad Celts squad). 

In sorting out this group, we won’t discount the Russell Celts too much, as they were loaded with stars who would be good in any time.  Still, I find it hard to believe that they were quite good enough to beat the 1985-86 Celts or the 2007-08 team either.  The 1972-73 team also gets some demerits because of its failure to win a title but more because the point differential indicated that it was closer to a 61-21 team than the 68-win squad they were.  This leaves us with 1985-86 versus 2007-08.  At first blush, it would seem that the it is sacrilege to question the hallowed 1985-86 squad but the 2007-08 team was also great (much better than I ever thought it would be).  Despite their reputation as a slow team, the 1985-86 Celtics played at a pace factor of 101.2 (16th out of 23 teams) and the 2007-08 team was a much slower 90.9 pace (19th out of 30 teams).  Still, neither team was particularly fast in context and neither had backcourts that really scared teams, though very solid.  So, we really have a bang out battle here between two really formidable front lines.  Check these match ups (their stats per-36 minutes in parentheses):

PG:  Dennis Johnson (16.0 p/36, 3.5 r/36, 6.0 a/36, 14.7 PER) v. Rajon Rondo (12.7 p/36, 5.0 r/36, 6.1 a/36, 15.6 PER)

SG:  Danny Ainge (12.8 p/36, 3.5 r/36, 6.1 a/36, 13.6 PER) v. Ray Allen (17.5 p/36, 3.7 r/36, 4.2 a/36, 16.4 PER)

SF:   Larry Bird (24.5 p/36, 9.3 r/36, 6.4 a/36, 25.6 PER) v. Paul Pierce (19.7 p/36, 5.1 r/36, 4.5 a/36, 19.6 PER)

PF:   Kevin McHale (21.7 p/36, 8.3 r/36, 21.6 PER) v. Kevin Garnett (20.7 p/36, 10.1 r/36, 3.8 a/36, 25.2 PER)

C:     Robert Parish (18.3 p/36, 10.8 r/36, 2.0 a/36, 18.8 PER) v. Kendrick Perkins (10.2 p/36, 8.9 r/36, 1.6 a/36, 13.3 PER)

Both teams have pretty decent benches too (Bill Walton, Scott Wedman, Jerry Sichting v. Eddie House, James Posey).  At the guard position, Allen, is clearly the best of the bunch but he is not so athletic at this point in his career that the 1985-86 team couldn’t stick with him.  DJ v. Rondo is also pretty close, a veteran moxie versus young athlete match up.  Up front, however, the 1985-86 team begins to pull away.  Bird might have some problems guarding Pierce but Pierce absolutely can’t guard Bird.  Nor can the 2007-08 edition put KG on Bird because then there is no one to really guard McHale.  Then you throw in Parish and Walton and the older Celts are just too overwhelming.  That’s why my choice is the 1985-86 Celtics as best in franchise history. 

New York Knicks: 

-Kyle’s Best Team: 1969-70 (60-22)

-Most Wins: 1969-70 and 1992-93 (60-22)

-Best Playoff Run: 1972-73 (12-5) 

The Knicks have been around longer than the NBA, yet they only have two 60-win teams in franchise history.  I was a little surprised by that.  Shouldn’t a team that usually contended have racked up more big win season?  Well, let’s check it out…Here’s a ranking by franchises in 60-win seasons (ABA seasons excluded): 

Boston Celtics: 12

Los Angeles Lakers: 10

Chicago Bulls: 5

Milwaukee Bucks: 4

Philadelphia 76ers: 4

Dallas Mavericks: 3

Phoenix Suns: 3

San Antonio Spurs: 3

Seattle SuperSonics: 3

Utah Jazz: 3

New York Knicks: 2

Detroit Pistons: 2

Washington Wizards: 1

Sacramento Kings: 1

Indiana Pacers: 1

Miami Heat: 1

Orlando Magic: 1

Toronto Raptors: 0

Minnesota Timberwolves: 0

New Jersey Nets: 0

New Orleans Hornets: 0

Los Angeles Clippers: 0

Memphis Grizzlies: 0

Golden State Warriors: 0

Houston Rockets: 0

Denver Nuggets: 0

Cleveland Cavaliers: 0

Charlotte Bobcats: 0

Atlanta Hawks: 0 

So the short answer is that two 60-wins season isn’t actually below average.  Of the original NBA teams, the Hawks, Warriors, Kings, and Wizards all have fewer than 60 win seasons (and the Hawks and Warriors still have zero).  Go figure…

Turning to the Knicks franchise, it’s clear that the rivalry here is between the hallowed “team ball” team of the early 1970s and the Pat Riley/Jeff Van Gundy bruisers of the 1990s who could never get over the hump.  Having grown up in New York, I can say that the man on the street would favor the 1970s team with its tons of Hall of Famers (Walt Frazier, Pearl Monroe, Bill Bradley, Dave DeBusschere, Willis Reed, and Jerry Lucas, two titles, and the free flowing offense.  But the 1990s Knicks shouldn’t be forgotten.  I love Frazier and Reed but Patrick Ewing is pretty clearly the best player in Knicks history.  On the other hand, Ewing’s career is one of painful losses and an inability to beat Michael Jordan.  My memory of the 1990s Knicks also is of a dominant defensive team with not quite enough scoring or point guard play to win.  If the numbers are even close, I would favor the more recent team over the 1970s version.  In fact the 1992-93 Knicks (who lost to the Bulls on Charles Smith’s inability to convert under the basket at the end of Game 5) rank competitively with the 1972-73 title team with Lucas and Monroe.  The 1993-94 team is ranks even better than the 1972-73 team too.  This is actually kind of funny because in my mind the 1992-93 team was the best Pat Riley team but the 1993-94 ranked better defensively.  

Despite all this, the 1969-70 team ranks head and shoulders above all other teams in history.  And it wasn’t just that they beat up on bad teams in the regular season.  In the playoffs, those Knicks dispatched a very good Bullets team (Wes Unseld, Jack Marin, Gus Johnson, Pearl Monroe), the Lew Alcindor Bucks, and then the West/Baylor/Wilt Lakers.  The funny thing is that neither Monroe (obviously) nor Lucas were on the Knicks at this point.  Instead, the Knicks had Frazier and Reed at their peaks, as well as Bradley (who I always considered overrated but still a good shooter), DeBusschere, Dick Barnett, and a great scorer off the bench in Cazzie Russell.  Even accounting for differences in eras, this was a really formidable squad.  Could they have stopped Ewing?  Probably not but they could’ve stopped everyone else.   The 1969-70 team was a great defensive team too.  The team led the NBA points allowed per game at 105.9.  The Lakers came in second but they allowed 5.9 more points per game.  So, they could’ve definitely stayed with the 1993-94 Knicks, who offered Derek Harper, John Starks, Anthony Mason, and Charles Oakley.  Nice players but none were great scorers under any condition.  I like the 1990s Knicks a lot but the numbers gibe quite nicely with historical lore in New York and I’ll take the 1969-70 squad number one, with the 1993-94 team behind by a few pegs. 

New Jersey Nets:

-Kyle’s Best Team: 2002-03 (49-33)

-Most Wins: 2001-02 (52-30)

-Best Playoff Run: 2002-03 (14-6)

Time marches on…All of a sudden, the early 2000s Nets feel like a history.  Not ancient history but certainly not yesterday either.  Conventional wisdom seems to dictate that the best Nets teams of the post-ABA years come from the Jason Kidd run and conventional wisdom is correct.  The 2001-02 team is famous because it was Kidd’s first year in New Jersey, the site of the big turnaround from franchise history, and because they won the most games.  But the 2002-03 team had a much better Pythagorean won-loss record of 56-26 versus 53-29 for the 2001-02 team.  The other funny thing is that Kidd was actually better in 2002-03 than he was in the famous 2001-02 turnaround season.  This improved team was also reflected by the playoff run, where the Nets scorches competition in the East (12-2 and swept the Pistons in the Conference Finals) and they also gave the Spurs a pretty good match in the Finals too. 

As a digression, I distinctly remember a newspaper reporter asking Dave Wohl, an assistant coach with the Nets during their decent run in the mid-1980s with Micheal Ray Richardson, Otis Birdsong, Buck Williams, and Darryl Dawkins, how the JKidd Nets matched up with the older team.  Wohl basically stated that the 1980s team would wipe the floor with them.  Based upon what you see above, I obviously disagree.  The 1980s team had one bright shining moment (the upset of the Sixers in 1983-84) but they just don’t match up.  For fun, we’ll run through the match ups between the 1983-84 team and the 2002-03 anyway: 

-PG:    Micheal Richardson (16.1 p/36, 4.8 r/36, 6.0 a/36, 15.1 PER) versus Jason Kidd (18.0 p/36, 6.1 r/36, 8.6 a/36, 22.2 PER)

-SG:    Otis Birdsong (22.7 p/36, 2.8 r/36, 4.4 a/36, 16.8 PER) versus Kerry Kittles (15.6 p/36, 4.6 r/36, 3.1 a/36, 18.3 PER)

-SF:     Albert King (19.9 p/36, 6.6 r/36, 3.5 a/36, 15.6 PER) versus Richard Jefferson (15.5 p/36, 6.4 r/36, 2.5 a/36, 16.6 PER)

-PF:     Buck Williams (15.3 p/36, 12.0 r/36, 1.6 a/36, 15.8 PER) versus Kenyon Martin (17.6 p/36, 8.8 r/36, 2.5 a/36, 16.9 PER)

-C:       Darryl Dawkins (20.2 p/36, 8.1 r/36, 1.8 a/36, 17.6 PER) versus Jason Collins (8.7 p/36, 7.0 r/36, 1.6 a/36, 9.9 PER)

Richardson’s injuries and drug problems weighed down his numbers but even if you take all that away, Kidd was other worldly.  This huge advantage isn’t really offset, except at center.  Birdsong was a nice shooter and King was a solid scorer.  Kittles and RJ, however, were better all-around players.  Buck versus Kenyon is a contrast in styles.  Buck was a pounder and a boarder, while Kenyon was a leaper and also a great defender.  Finally, Dawkins and Mike Gminski beats Collins (who wasn’t a total zero at that point) and Dikembe Mutombo.  Overall, the 2002-03 Nets were such an excellent defensive unit (they were the best in the NBA) and they had a marked advantage at the key point match up that I think the 2002-03 team is clearly better but it certainly was interesting to match it up and see. 

Philadelphia 76ers:

-Kyle’s Best Team: 1966-67 (68-13)

-Most Wins: 1966-67 (68-13)

-Best Playoff Run: 1982-83 (12-1) 

Yet another historical powerhouse to deal with.  In Philly, the legends of Wilt compete with the legends of Dr. J and Company.  The 1966-67 team was the first real magical season in NBA history.  The team set the record for wins (68-13) and waltzed through the league without many discernible weaknesses.  The 1982-83 team also dominated the NBA at 65-17 and absolutely blew away the playoffs (remember Moses Malone’s famed Fo’, Fo’, Fo’ prediction?).  

In Wayne Lynch’s book “Season of the 76ers” who has a section ranking the 1966-67 team against the other great All-Time teams and concludes that the 1966-67 team is the best ever.  Lynch only briefly mentions the 1982-83 team for its playoff dominance but doesn’t actually stack the teams up.  Pat Williams (who was the GM of the 1982-83 squad) wrote his own book on the 1982-83 team, “Tales From the Philadelphia 76ers” that reviewed the 1982-83 team and also talked about his team in historical context without giving an opinion.  I was able to ask Williams which team he thought was better and he said they were both in the discussion as best team ever but declined to pick a squad. 

In terms of expected wins, oddly enough, both teams way outperformed their point differentials.  The 1966-67 team was 68-13 but hit an expected wins of 61-21 and the 1982-83 team was 65-17 but only expected to go 60-22 on points allowed and scored.  Obviously, expected wins isn’t a perfect stat but you usually don’t see such disparities between wins and expected wins.  The fact is, the squads are very close and the 1967-68 and 1980-81 teams are also very close to these teams too.  Still, we’ll limit our comparison here to 1966-67 and 1982-83 because winning titles, everything else being equal, should be a big factor in any comparison. 

In this case, the match up is fascinating.  Moses Malone at his peak (24.5 ppg, 15.3 rpg) versus Wilt Chamberlain’s passing version (24.1 ppg, 24.2 rpg, 7.8 apg).  Wilt was probably the better player at his best and his numbers are gaudier but become less so when you factor in that the 1966-67 pace.  There isn’t enough data to calculate possessions per game before 1973-74 but we do know that the 1966-67 team scored 125.2 ppg and allowed 115.8 ppg for a total of 241 points per game, while the 1982-83 team scored 112.1 ppg and allowed only 104.4 points per game (total points 216.5).  It’s safe to say that if we jacked up possessions to 1966-67 levels, that Moses would look almost as impressive.  Given the stat differentials in the eras, there is little point running through the stats of each squad or even running their stats against league average to figure out context.  Still, a rough run through the other positions is really close.  At point, Maurice Cheeks is a decent amount better than Wali Jones.  At the two guard. Andrew Toney and Hal Greer is very close and I’m loath to make a definitive choice.  At small forward, Julius Erving is the choice over Chet Walker and Billy Cunningham, but this isn’t a cake walk.  Power forward is also close between the smaller but more skilled Bobby Jones against big Luke Jackson.  This is a real coin toss but my sense is that the advantage at point guard and small forward gives the 1982-83 team the edge.

Toronto Raptors: 

-Kyle’s Best Team: 2007-08 (41-41)

-Most Wins: 2000-01 and 2006-07 (47-35)

-Best Playoff Run: 2000-01 (6-8) 

Not a huge amount of success in Toronto and the distribution of success has been weird.  The knee jerk reaction would be to pick the 2000-01 squad, the team that won the only playoff series in franchise history and nearly beat the Sixers  to go to the Conference Finals is the best team (Vince Carter missed the winning shot at the buzzer in Game 7).  But this team wasn’t exactly a monolith.  Sure VC was great but the rest of the team was very average (Alvin Williams, Mo Peterson, Charles Oakley, and Antonio Davis).  The 2006-07 team also won 47 games and won the Atlantic but they were only 44-38 in expected win-loss and were schooled in the playoffs by a declining Nets team.  The 2007-08 team was only 41-41 but had the Pythagorean won-loss record of a 49-win team.  In addition, the argument could be made that they had more talent than the 2000-01 team.  Certainly, Jose Calderon and T.J. Ford are better than Williams and Bosh is the most talented forward on either team but there is no match up for the old Vince Carter and the Raps of 2000-01 could throw a ton of solid big bodies at Bosh (Davis, Oakley, and Keon Clark).  Raptors fans might not like it but, for now, Carter still rules.

-Golden State Warriors:  In the case of the Philadelphia Warriors (now Golden State Warriors) there is a wealth of rookies to choose from, including maybe the best player (and the best rookie) of All-Time.  We are, of course, referring to Wilt Chamberlain’s monster rookie season in 1959-60 (37.6 ppg, 27 rpg).  No matter what you think about level of competition or pace if play from the early 1950s, you just can’t top it.  And it’s not like the Warriors or lacking for good rookie seasons from centers.  Nate Thurmond, Robert Parish, Joe Barry Carroll, and Marc Jackson all have been very useful as rookies.

Putting aside center and Wilt, the Warriors have tons of rookie candidates all over the court.  The Warriors have six Rookies of the Year (Wilt, Woody Sauldsberry, Rick Barry, Jamaal Wilkes, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Webber) and these guys figure prominently on the Warrior All-Rookie squad.  At power forward, Webber’s one year Warrior career was pretty good and puts him ahead of Larry “Mr. Mean” Smith, Joe Smith, and Chris Gatling.  Small forward is really full of great players (Tom Gola, Jamaal Wilkes, Chris Mullin, Antawn Jamison) but Rick Barry, who is probably the best non-Wilt Warrior, is the choice by a decent margin. 

Ironically, the backcourt which is remembered as a Warrior forte the past two decades or so, is not nearly as strong as the frontcourt.   At shooting guard, Gus Williams and Purvis Short were pretty good in abbreviated minutes.  Latrell Sprewell and Jason Richardson were also both very promising rookies but not stars.  In fact, they had very similar rookie numbers: 

-Richardson (2001-02): 32.9 mpg, 14.4 ppg, .426 FG%, 4.3 rpg, 3.0 apg, 2.0 topg, 13.8 PER

-Sprewell (1992-93): 35.6 mpg, 15.4 ppg, .464 FG%, 3.5 rpg, 3.8 apg, 2.6 topg, 13.5 PER

The numbers are even closer when you consider that the 1992-93 was a much more offensive friendly time than 2001-02.  Still, none of these guys can compare with Richmond who immediately became a stud (22 ppg as a rook).  Finally at the point, Tim Hardaway, though not a yet a star, is the clear choice.  His only competition was Guy Rodgers, who was decent and missed half the season, and Gilbert Arenas.  Arenas was on T-Hard’s level but also missed half the season and took a while, as a second rounder, to earn minutes.

Golden State’s Forgotten Rookie:  There are a lot of candidates in Golden State but I am partial to Sauldsberry, perhaps the most forgotten Rookie of the Year in the history of the NBA.  Sauldsberry won the award in 1957-58 with the Philadelphia Warriors putting up 12.8 ppg and 10.3 rpg.  Sauldsberry was from Compton, California but ended going to the obscure Texas Southern because the school allowed freshmen to play on the varsity squad.  He left school in 1954 to play with the Harlem Globetrotters.  After a few years with the Trotters, Sauldsberry tired of the Trotters vaudeville aspect and wanted to compete.  He was drafted by the Warriors with an eighth round pick in 1957 and made the team playing well immediately.  After three solid seasons with the Warriors, Sauldsberry went to the Hawks, where he had trouble.  

Why would the Warriors trade a Rookie of the Year so quickly?  At the time, there was an unwritten rule (or perhaps written somewhere) that a team would only have a finite number of black players on the team.  Indeed, Al Attles told the story of Sauldsberry’s departure from Philly in “Tall Tales”: “When I was a rookie, the Warriors already had four blacks–Guy Rodgers, Andy Johnson, Woody Sauldsberry, and Wilt.  Then it became apparent that I was going to make the team, meaning that there would be five blacks.  We–the black players–started hearing that one of us would be traded  The veterans guessed that it would be Sauldsberry who’d go, and sure enough, he was traded.  The theory was that the black players cut each other.”   

St. Louis was not a great for Sauldsberry.  His playing time declined in 1960-61 and was cut in early 1961-62 after having a dispute with his coach Harry Gallatin.  He played a bit with the expansion Chicago Packers/Zephyrs and back with the Hawks in 1962-63 but was out of the NBA after that season.  Sauldsberry did have a brief return to the NBA for the 1965-66 season, when Bill Russell tracked him down to add depth to the bench.  Sauldsberry played on 39 games, putting up 4.4 ppg and 3.6 rpg in 13.6 mpg.  He got a championship ring, though he didn’t log any playoff time.  After this cameo, Sauldsberry left the NBA for good and ended up floating around and becoming detached from friends and families.  In 2001, James Michael Brodie wrote a great recount of Sauldsberry’s life and times, which is a great read, particularly his post-NBA life.  Unfortunately, Sauldsberry died this past September but he is certainly worth remembering. 

-Los Angeles Clippers:  The history of the franchise that is the Buffalo Braves/San Diego/Los Angeles Clippers has never been a particularly illustrious.  Still, the futility of the teams has provided plenty of pretty good rookies, and four Rookies of the Year.  Three of those rookies came in 1970s with the Buffalo Braves (Bob McAdoo, Ernie DiGregorio, and Adrian Dantley) and the fourth came in San Diego (Terry Cummings).  So, despite all the high draft picks, the L.A. Clippers have never had a Rookie of the Year. 

Going to positional picks, Ernie D, despite his award winning status, really isn’t the best rookie point in franchise history.  DiGregorio has the best raw numbers (15 ppg, 8 apg) but Randy Smith and Marko Jaric were both much more productive per-minute.  Check their per-40 minutes states: 

-E. DiGregorio: 17.0 ppg, .421 FG%, 3. 0 rpg, 9.1 apg, 13.6 PER

-R. Smith: 19.5 ppg, .482 FG%, 7.0 rpg, 3.6 apg, 15.5 PER

-M. Jaric:  14.2 ppg, .401 FG%, 4.6 rpg, 5.6 apg, 14.4 PER

Not a great group but Smith is the best of the group and we’d take him at the point but shooting guard is quite weak.  The best we could find were part-timers Brent Barry and Quentin Richardson.  Q-Rich didn’t even break 20 mpg,  which leaves us with Barry as your only two guard, unless you are willing to flip Smith to shooting guard and use one of the point guard.  Jaric and Barry are almost dead ringers for each other stat-wise as rooks.  We’ll take DiGregorio, though less efficient then Barry or Jaric, because he played a bunch and he passed pretty well to boot. 

The strength of the Clippers rookies is up front.  At small forward, you get your choice between Lamar Odom and Adrian Dantley, both of whom are very formidable rooks.  It’s an interesting choice on several levels.  Odom is (and was) a versatile big man versus AD, an undersized pure scorer (and not much else).  But Dantley scored better than almost any other player in history.  So how to choose?  We’ll go with Odom, who fits much better into the rest of the squad. 

Power forward isn’t actually as hard as you’d think to pick.  Terry Cummings was an absolute beast (23.7 ppg, 10.6 rpg), and actually had career highs as a rook.  TC laps the field that is quite formidable: Bob McAdoo, Tom Chambers, Charles Smith, and Maurice Taylor.  But none of these guys peaked as rookies like Cummings did and he is an easy choice with his season that fits quite well into Elton Brand’s career. 

Surprisingly, Benoit Benjamin is a very viable candidate for Clipper rookie center.  Volumes have been written about his underachieving nature and how he dogged it and overslept and missed buses.  But Benoit was volumes better as a rookie than Michael Olowokandi (a much, much bigger bust) and Chris Kaman were.  Benjamin was a very respectable 11.1 ppg, 7.6 rpg in 26.4 mpg as a rook.  I will grant you that Benjamin’s lethargy, which had to be seen to be believed, but he really did blow them away.  No, Benjamin’s competition is old Buffalo Brave Elmore Smith.  Smith also had a decent career but as a rookie in 1971-72, he played a career high 40.8 mpg and happened to also play in a running time and had 17.3 ppg and 15.2 rpg.  Block shots were not compiled as an NBA stat until 1973-74 but at that time Smith averaged an astounding 4.9 bpg that year, the third most blocks per game in a season since the stat was kept.  So, it’s reasonable to infer that Smith was blocking 3-4 bpg even as a rookie, which makes him the winner at the center slot for the Clipper franchise.  

This leaves the following All-Rookie lineup:

The Clippers’ Forgotten Rookie:  You tend to forget that a lot of players ended up being Clippers at some point.  I didn’t remember that Tom Chambers cut his teeth as a Clipper.  Another rookie for those old Clipps is Craig Hodges, who is best remembered as the three-point specialist for some early Michael Jordan teams.  Hodges was drafter as a third-rounder for the Clipps and surprised everyone by making the team and starting over half the season at guard with decent numbers (10 ppg, 3.6 apg in 26.6 mpg).  Hodges lasted one more season in San Diego before being dealt to Milwaukee as part of the Terry Cummings-Marques Johnson swap.  Despite the fact that Hodges’ ultimate niche was as a three-point shooter, he didn’t make that mark in San Diego, where he shot 30-136 from downtown over two years.  With Don Nelson in Milwaukee, however, Hodges was encouraged to shoot, which he did copiously (his threes jumped from 47 to 73 to 85 over the next three years).  But Hodges’ slight build and limited passing ability made him only a part-timer and when Don Nelson left in 1987, new coach Dell Harris traded him to Phoenix.  After a brief stay in Phoenix, Hodges played three and a half years with the Bulls off the bench (and winning three straight three-point contests) before being cut after 1991-92.  Hodges was only 31 when his NBA career ended and he apparently could still play (he even returned, sans team, in 1992-93 to attempt to continue his streak of winning the titles).  Hodges went on to play in Europe for a few years but this was not the last the NBA heard from him. 

The ending of Hodges’ career was more than a little controversial and he felt that he could still play but his personal views had impeded that goal.  Hodges was a poverty advocate, who famously attempted to convince teammate Michael Jordan to use his fame for social activism in Sam Smith’s “The Jordan Rules.”  As is detailed nicely at Stop Mike Lupica, Hodges apparently spoke out against the first Gulf War and wore “afrocentric” garb at a 1991 visit to the White House (after they won the title) and pissing off Bulls management royally.  

In 1996, Hodges sued the NBA for racial discrimination, claiming that he was blackballed from the NBA for his “blackness” (i.e. that he was too loud in speaking his mind).  In fact, Hodges complaint states an example of the discriminatory behavior against him was that Danny Ainge, a similar player, was an “outspoken and notoriously dirty player” but was given lucrative contract while Hodges was forced out of the league.  The NBA moved to dismiss the complaint stating that Hodges admitted to being a “black militant” and a “rabble-rouser” in his complaint, a political issue that is a legal basis for excluding him from the NBA.  The NBA further argued that Hodges’ action was barred by the two-year statute of limitations for discrimination action.  Hodges countered, stating that he didn’t learn of the conspiracy to bar him 1996 when he had a discussion with the NBA director security. The court rejected this argument, noting that the complaint all sorts of incidents in 1992 and 1993 that should’ve made him aware of a possible conspiracy: 

-Many teams were not accepting his calls looking for jobs.

-In 1992-93, a former executing the in NBA Players Union suggested that Hodges hire a white agent.

-In 1992-93, Billy McKinney of the Sonics front office told Hodges that he would like to sign him but “brothers have families, if you know what I mean.”

-In 1993, the Knicks tried to sign Hodges but backed off because they heard that he had had problems with Jerry Krause of the Bulls front office.

-In 1993-94, a member of the Spurs front office said that he was “perplexed” that Hodges couldn’t get a contract.

In the end, it did not seem that the court bought Hodges arguments.  Rather, the implication was that Hodges, as a fringe player, was hard to employ when there were plenty who could do the shooting specialist job without any headaches–regardless whether Hodges’ political views were enlightened or correct.  So, the moral is, once again, that the NBA is a business and not a place for discourse.  Not a happy lesson but one that is reinforced over and over again.  On a more optimistic note, Hodges’ exclusion has since ended.  In 2005, Hodges’ old Bulls coach Phil Jackson hired him to be an assistant coach on the Lakers. 

-Los Angeles Lakers:  With notable exceptions, the Lakers have slim pickings for their All-Rookie team.  Despite a lot of famous names, the Lakers have only one Rookie of the Year (Elgin Baylor).  Other big stars either weren’t rookies as Lakers or they trumped by someone else.  Magic Johnson lost out to his rival Larry Bird and Jerry West to his nemesis Oscar Robertson. 

Though Magic didn’t get the rookie vote, he is clear point guard pick over a couple of nice points in Nick Van Exel and Norm Nixon. Ironically, both Nixon and Van Exel were snagged with later picks but still immediately contributed to the team.  The temptation would be to rubberstamp West at two guard as well but he was only okay as a rookie (17.6 ppg, .419 FG%, 7.7 rpg, 4.2 apg in 35.4 mpg).  It’s a nice year but when you factor in the high pace, it really isn’t that much better than Eddie Jones’ 1994-95 season (14 ppg, .460 FG%, 3.9 rpg, 2.0 apg in 31 mpg).  I think that West is the choice here but it’s not much more than a flip of the coin.  Small forward is the easiest slot on the team to fill.  Elgin Baylor was dominant as a rookie (25 ppg and 15 rpg).  His only theoretical competition was James Worthy, who was only a part-timer as a rook, and George Lynch, a surprisingly effective rookie). 

Up front, things are more convoluted.  The landscape is not strong.  We have Rudy LaRusso and decent players like A.C. Green, Leroy Ellis, and Jim Krebs.  Though he is smaller and more scorer than defender, LaRusso is the class of this group.  Center is even weaker.  George Mikan would be the clear choice but his rookie season predates the NBA and our cut off of the 1954-55 season.  With vets dominating the position for decades, the only possible candidate was young Vlade Divac, who did well as a part-timer in 1989-90 behind Mychal Thompson.

The Lakers’ Forgotten Rookie:  I’m not sure that Anthony Peeler was a player nobody remembers but the months before he was drafted were a crazy time that have long been forgotten.  Peeler was a star shooting guard out of Missouri and had some huge scoring games as a senior, averaging 23.4 ppg overall.  He was a surefire lottery pick until he had some problems in May 1992, right before the draft.  In a textbook case of bad timing and bad judgment, Peeler was charged with menacing his girlfriend with a firearm and ended up having to plead guilty to felon weapons charges and a couple of related misdemeanors only a week before the draft.  

Peeler’s stock didn’t quite plummet as much as you’d think for his behavior.  He fell to the Lakers at 15th overall, and they snagged right after Malik Sealy.  Had Peeler not been been so out of control, he probably would’ve been drafted in the top eight in the draft.  But Jerry West valued talent over reputation and didn’t seem to have much worry taking Peeler.  Peeler rewarded the Lakers with four solid seasons off the bench.  Peeler probably would’ve logged a couple nice seasons a s a starter but bad timing kept him as a bench player for most of his time in L.A..  As a rook, Peeler sat behind veteran Byron Scott but still had 10 ppg in 21.5 mpg.  Peeler was set to start in 1993-94 but injuries limited him to 30 games (but he put up 14.1 ppg).  In 1994-95, Peeler was healthy but was deposed as a starter by Eddie Jones.  After 1995-96, the Lakers reluctantly gave Peeler away to the Grizzlies to clear cap room to sign Shaquille O’Neal. 

Peeler lasted nine more seasons, mostly with Minnesota, where he was the first guard off the bench for the Wolves during that time.  For this whole time, Peeler had no reported problems at all, let alone another weapons charge.  In the end, Peeler was able to show that sometime a suspect character can be worth the risk. 

-Phoenix Suns:  While never sporting a dynasty, Phoenix has been as successful as franchise can be without ever winning a title.  They’ve missed the playoffs only twice since 1988 and only five times since 1977.  Naturally, you’d assume the Suns have been quite adept at finding rookie talent.  Well that might be true but most of these guys didn’t quite light up as rookies.  Kevin Johnson was pretty good but Steve Nash, Dan Majerle, Jeff Hornacek, Shawn Marion, Cedric Ceballos, and even Larry Nance didn’t play that much as rookies.  In fact, there are only three Rookies of the Year in Phoenix: Alvan Adams and Walter Davis back in the 1970s and, more recently, Amare Stoudemire in 2002-03.  

Consequently, there aren’t a ton of contenders for most positions on the Suns All-Rookie squad.  This is highlighted at the point guard, where your only real choices are Jay Humphries, who was a good bench player his first year, or Kevin Johnson, who started but played only 29 games.  KJ was traded to the Suns in the middle of his rookie year, after sitting behind Mark Price for 52 games.  On Cleveland, KJ had a year that was pretty similar to Humphries’ but on Phoenix, KJ was very good (12.6 ppg, 8.7 apg, 4.3 rpg, in 31.2 mpg).  Given Johnson’s great Phoenix cameo, he gets the point guard slot over Humphries. 

Most of the rest of the Suns’ squad is straightforward.  Walter Davis is the two guard with no competition at all, same with Amare Stoudemire at power forward, and Alvan Adams at center.  The only potentially arguable position is small forward.  Here, we run the gamut.  Let’s take a look: 

-The instant starter:  Michael Finley came in and was a rock solid starter (15 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 3.5 apg in 39 mpg).  He wasn’t a star but the ability to play so much and so effectively is extremely rare for a rookie.  He was dealt to Dallas the next season for Jason Kidd, which wasn’t actually that bad a deal for the Mavs.

-Making his mark on a great team:  Wesley Person came to the 1994-95 Suns and immediately made an impact as a designated shooter (10.4 ppg in 23.1 mpg).  He was good enough to convince the Suns to dump Dan Majerle the next season.

-PER Minute Man:  Shawn Marion played only 51 games and 25 mpg as a rookie but he already could score in board (10.2 ppg, 6.5 rpg). 

-The Waste:  Richard Dumas blends a lot of the same strengths as the all of the above players.  He became a starter as a rookie on good Suns team (probably the best in team history), he played only 27.5 mpg but scored 15.8 ppg, and he missed a bunch of time with drug-related issues.

Of the bunch, I think we can eliminate Marion for missing most of the season and Person for being the weakest of the group.  That leaves us with Finley and Dumas.  Dumas had the highest PER of the entire group (18.6) but he missed a ton of time based upon personal issues.  So, Finley gets the spot because of his ability to soak up minutes reliably.  So, the Suns All-Rookie team ends up looking like this:

Phoenix’s Forgotten Rookie:   When we said there was no competition at power forward against Stoudemire, we overstated the case a little.  In truth, Armen Gilliam was a pretty good rookie power forward (14.8 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 12.9 PER in 32.9 mpg).  Gilliam was a huge star at UNLV (23.2 ppg his final college season) and was the second overall pick in the1987 Draft, behind David Robinson.  Gilliam was okay in Phoenix for two years and a little.  He improved a bit his second season to 16 ppg but it was obvious he wasn’t a great boarder, defender, or passer.  By 1989-90 (his third season, Gilliam had been banished to the bench by the acquisition of star Tom Chambers.  In 16 games for the Suns, Gilliam was down to 17 mpg and only 9 ppg. 

Clearly, Gilliam was frustrated with his role and, perhaps coincidentally, got into fight with Chambers at practice.  He was immediately traded to Charlotte for Kurt Rambis.  After leaving Phoenix, Gilliam bounced around from Charlotte (1989-90) to Philadelphia (1991-93) to New Jersey (1993-96) to Milwaukee (1996-99) to Utah (1999-00).  Through that time, Gilliam kept the same rap, he could score and not much else, being dubbed “The Black Hole” by teammates who noted his tendency to shoot the ball often when he touched it.  Gilliam maxed out at 23 ppg and 10.8 rpg for Philly in 1992-93 but most teams were not satisfied by his total game and he bounced around.  Still, he could help a bad team as a starter and a good team as a scorer off the bench.  He retired after the 1999-00 season at age 35.  Even at the end, Gilliam was still productive and was essentially the same player he was at his peak.  Some other fun random Gilliam notes: 

-According to ex-teammate in Philly and New Jersey Jayson Williams (in his biography “Tall Tales”, Gilliam was tormented by Charles Barkley and Rick Mahorn when they played together in Philadelphia.  After Barkley was traded, Gilliam told the press that he would now get a chance to show his game.  Barkley criticized Gilliam, stating that “I wasn’t with [Gilliam] with him on those other two teams (Phoenix and Charlotte, before Gilliam went to Philly), and he didn’t show his game then. I resent that.”

-Gilliam did not like to talk about his personal life but stated that he became a religious person during his career.  In fact, in 1994, he walked out of the movie “Pulp Fiction” because he found it profane.

-Near the end of his career, Gilliam changed his first name from “Armon” to “Armen” because: “[m]ost people pronounced it Ar-MON,  I’ve been correcting it for a long time, and I just got tired of it. I just thought that if I put the ‘e’ in there, it would make it a lot easier.”

-Jayson Williams had loads of stories about Gilliam.  Williams notably claimed that Gilliam challenged back up Charles Shackelford to a fight only to have Shackelford accost Gilliam with a machete while Gilliam was showering.  Gilliam disavowed Williams’ stories as, at best, exaggerated

-In 2006-07, Gilliam came back to play for Pittsburgh of the ABA and made the All-Star game.  

-Sacramento Kings:  The Kings have a rich history that goes back before the NBA’s beginning, including three of the most famous Rookies of the Year ever, Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas, and Maurice Stokes.  The well dried up as the team went from Cincinnati to the Midwest to Sacramento but there is a lot to review here. At point guard, we have possibly the best non-center rookie season, Oscar Robertson’s 1960-61 season (30.5 ppg, 10.1 rpg, 9.7 apg).  There are actually quite a few good point guard rookies (Tiny Archibald, Phil Ford, Kenny Smith, and Jason Williams) but they aren’t in the same stratosphere as Oscar.  

Shooting guard isn’t too bad either with Adrian Smith and Otis Birdsong.  Birdsong is the better option, because he had a better overall season.  Still, Robertson is plausibly a two guard and we could, alternatively, slot Tiny Archibald to the point and put Oscar at the shooting guard.  In this case, we’ll stick with Birdsong, who was a nice shooter and might’ve complemented Robertson a little better. 

Small forward pits a couple of decent 1990s small forwards, Lionel Simmons and Walt “The Wizard” Williams against Jack Twyman, the franchise star from the pre-Oscar Royals.  All three players were pretty non-descript scoring small forwards as rookies.  Twyman is the sentimental choice because he went on to better things (he maxed out at 31.2 ppg) while knee problems knocked down Simmons after four decent seasons.  Williams was pretty good before being let go to the Raptors but he, too, was merely a scorer off the bench.  Finally, Twyman has to get the bonus points for caring for his incapacitated teammate Stokes.  With the competition being so close, Twyman’s good deeds put him over the top. 

At power forward, we’ll go with the aforementioned Stokes.  The Stokes story is well-chronicled and I won’t go over it here again but if you’re interested, here’s our old rehash.   As a ballplayer only, Stokes was damn good.  He only lasted three seasons, but Stokes was a monster rebounder, leading the NBA in RPG in 1955-56 and 1956-57 and coming in second in 1957-58 to a rookie named Bill Russell.  For his career, Stokes was at 16.4 ppg and 17.3 rpg and 5.3 apg.  There are plenty of very good rookie power forwards in Kings history (Jerry Lucas, Steve Johnson, Otis Thorpe, Brian Grant) but this is almost as easy a choice as Oscar.  Finally, at center we have all sorts of decent players like Wayne Embry, Duane Causwell, and Sam Lacey.  While I hate to make the Kings undersized, I am inclined to put Lucas at center and have a smaller but Hall of Fame frontcourt with Stokes.  In fact, the four of the five rookies on this team ended up in the Hall:

Sacramento’s Forgotten Rookie:  One of the more confounding rookies in Kings’ history was Reggie King, an undersized power forward (6′6, 225 pounds) drafted late in the 1979 first round.  King was rumored to be a top five pick but fell in the draft because of his size and rumors that he had unreasonable contract demands.  King had a nice rookie year statistically (8.2 ppg, 6.9 rpg, 51% from the field in 25 mpg) and he made a name for himself by finishing strong at the rim.  King followed the rookie season up with a better second season (15 ppg, 9.7 rpg in 33.9 mpg).  King was particularly strong during the Kings’ playoff run to the Western Conference Finals that year (21.3 ppg, 9.9 rpg).  King seemed poised to become a star forward and to get a big contract but he slumped to 12 ppg and 6.5 rpg in 1981-82.  King lasted only three more seasons in the NBA, as his playing time diminished.  It’s not clear how he declined so quickly but the write ups indicate that he gained weight and lost some of his previous explosiveness.