Rank these past NBA Teams
 

Absolutely no reasoning behind this thread other than to create senseless debate, but whatever....

Assume that these 10 teams are all in a league together and they play every other team in the league 9 times(81 total games). What would you predict the final standings to look like? I'll include a brief description of each team so you don't have to look them up to remember their details.


06-07 Phoenix Suns- you guys should obviously remmeber them

89-90 Chicago Bulls- Lost in 7 games to the Pistons in the East Finals. This was the year before they won their first title.

94-95 Houston Rockets- Repeated as champs, but only a 6 seed in the regular season

99-00 Portland Trailblazers- Lost a heartbreaking game 7 to eventual champ Lakers

00-01 Philly 76ers- Year AI led them to the Finals. McKie was 6th man of the year, Brown was Coach of the Year, AI was MVP, and Motombo was Defensive Player of the Year.

01-02 Sacramento Kings-fast paced offensive team led by Webber, Divac, Peja, Bibby, etc.

96-97 Miami Heat- Many forget how good this team really was due to the Bulls/Jazz being so good, but they won 61 games this year

92-93 Phoenix Suns- Won 62 games, lost in 6 to the Bulls in the Finals

96-97 Jazz- Won 64 games, lost in 6 to the Bulls in the Finals

03-04 Pistons- Shocked the Lakers and won the NBA title in what, at the time, was considered a huge upset

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As good as those early and mid 90's Bulls teams were, I can't figure out how the Suns lost those finals. Going 0-3 at home certainly did not help.

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best - '96-'97 Jazz. Poor Stockton.

worst - '76ers. Don't think this one is close, though to be honest I'm not too familiar with the Heat team.

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00-01 Philly 76ers- Year AI led them to the title. McKie was 6th man of the year, Brown was Coach of the Year, AI was MVP, and Motombo was Defensive Player of the Year.

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Umm, wtf? The Sixers didn't win the title in 01, they lost to the Lakers in 5 games.

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Meant to say "Finals"...edited it.

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Assani,

I'm going to meditate on this some more before casting my votes. I do know that 1993 Suns >> 1993 Bulls so they're definitely in the conversation among the best.

Using the classic game Statis Pro Basketball, I once ran a double elimination tournament among all the champions up to 1993 (plus the 1993 Suns). So that encompasses the years prior to your question. Playing a card game is a little different than IRL and doesn't account for changes in the game LDO but the 1967 76'ers absolutely destroyed everyone. I made the finals a best of three but they didn't need it (I think they beat the 1971 Milwaukee Bucks, but one of the early 90s Bulls teams went pretty far, and one season of both the 80s Lakers and 80s Celtics took it deep as well). They just owned everyone, blazing a trail to an undefeated record. Validating that is the fact that they had one of the best regular-season records in NBA history, snapped the Celtics' stranglehold on the NBA title at what, eight in a row? I'd run it again with all the teams you mentioned but with the advent of the internet doing so any other way than online is too cumbersome.

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99-00 Portland Trailblazers- Lost a heartbreaking game 7 to eventual champ Lakers


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This continues to be my worst loss as a fan. The Giants losing the WS in 2002 is up there but doesn't hurt as badly somehow.

I'm not sure I'll get over it even if the Blazers win a title in my lifetime. It's probably not perfectly rational, but I really think the Blazers could have started a dynasty there and instead LA did that.

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i love the jazz. but the suns team is the best. i voted jazz anyway.

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btw, voted the sixers as last place, they were so overhyped. the east THEN was even worse then it is now. like... wow, the east sucked. the [censored] celtics made it to the ecf!!!

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btw, voted the sixers as last place, they were so overhyped. the east THEN was even worse then it is now. like... wow, the east sucked. the [censored] celtics made it to the ecf!!!

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Was that Sixers team really worse than the Cavs that made it last year though?

Once he reaches his prime Lebron is clearly better than AI, but AI in his prime against Lebron now is at least close...although yeah I'd take Lebron if I had to make a choice.

Motombo?>>>Illgauskas(sp?)

Snow was on both teams

McKie imo was better than Boobie even though he had a great playoff stretch

I think a series between those two teams would come down to two things: The coaching edge for Philly(not even close) and Pepe Sanchez's clutchness. Philly wins 4-3.

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03-04 Pistons would not be in first place. However, they would be tough as hell to beat in a Best of 7 playoff series. That was Ben Wallace in his prime, Sheed focused under LB, and everyone else working well together. Most wins is prob Jazz or Suns.

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Re: Rank these past NBA Teams
 

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btw, voted the sixers as last place, they were so overhyped. the east THEN was even worse then it is now. like... wow, the east sucked. the [censored] celtics made it to the ecf!!!

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Was that Sixers team really worse than the Cavs that made it last year though?

Once he reaches his prime Lebron is clearly better than AI, but AI in his prime against Lebron now is at least close...although yeah I'd take Lebron if I had to make a choice.

Motombo?>>>Illgauskas(sp?)

Snow was on both teams

McKie imo was better than Boobie even though he had a great playoff stretch

I think a series between those two teams would come down to two things: The coaching edge for Philly(not even close) and Pepe Sanchez's clutchness. Philly wins 4-3.

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i think the cavs would win that matchup b/c a)you can't touch lebron, while ai takes tons of contact

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btw, voted the sixers as last place, they were so overhyped. the east THEN was even worse then it is now. like... wow, the east sucked. the [censored] celtics made it to the ecf!!!

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Was that Sixers team really worse than the Cavs that made it last year though?U

Once he reaches his prime Lebron is clearly better than AI, but AI in his prime against Lebron now is at least close...although yeah I'd take Lebron if I had to make a choice.

Motombo?>>>Illgauskas(sp?)

Snow was on both teams

McKie imo was better than Boobie even though he had a great playoff stretch

I think a series between those two teams would come down to two things: The coaching edge for Philly(not even close) and Pepe Sanchez's clutchness. Philly wins 4-3.

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I think Big Z > Mutombo. I remember Matt Harpring (HE PLAYS FOOTBALL) was the 2nd best scorer on that sixers team. Yaouch! (And I love Harp, he plays on the jazz, gotta love him, but... He's a decent 6th man, but 2nd scoring option gets a big WTF)

McKie, Mutombo, Snow were not scorers. That team was so 1 dimensional; AI scored like 33% of the teams points or something ludicrous.

The Cavs of last year are close, though. (As much as I dislike him, they also have Larry Hughes...) Basically, the core of Lebron (>AI) Z (>Mutombo) Hughes (>Harp) Sasha (>Snow) and Varejo (>McKie) is just stronger at every position.

philly does have the coaching edge though. I think the Cavs would win in 6.

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bobbo why are you such a huge jazz fan?

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'96-'97 Heat were down 3-1 to the Knicks in Round 2 until the bench-clearing brawl. They were then manhandled by the Bulls in the Eastern Finals, and it's a [censored] massive disservice to basketball that we didn't get to see the obviously pre-destined Knicks-Bulls in '97. That series would have gone 6-7 and been incredible.

They're my pick for worst.

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i voted for houston cause they had hakeem the dream, can't remember who else.

i loved that guy. i'd take him over tim duncan, moses malone, nate thurmond, bill lambier (obviously)

i voted for the sixers as worst just on a hunch and it seems my hunch was dead on

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Suns FTW, but man that Portland team was good and really choked.

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I didn't vote for them, but the Kings deserve more love. The worst officiating in the last decade lost them that series (edit: which was basically the Finals).

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in this league - i think that blazer team beats the piston team in the finals. not a portland fan but that team was tough.

and yeah - that sac team would finish 3rd.

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Assani, I think it'd be inhumane to make anyone watch Eric Snow play against Eric Snow. There is clearly no worse form of torture.

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bobbo why are you such a huge jazz fan?

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because i loved stockton

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because i loved stockton

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Ugh.

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can anyone make assani a mod?

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'96-'97 Heat were down 3-1 to the Knicks in Round 2 until the bench-clearing brawl. They were then manhandled by the Bulls in the Eastern Finals, and it's a [censored] massive disservice to basketball that we didn't get to see the obviously pre-destined Knicks-Bulls in '97. That series would have gone 6-7 and been incredible.

They're my pick for worst.

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Good pick. I agree.

Whoever said Ilgauskis this year > than Mutombo that year is crazy. Mutombo was teh awesome.

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The 96-97 Jazz lost to a Bulls team that was worse than the 89-90 Bulls team. Food for thought in this debate.

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I think Big Z > Mutombo.

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I think you're wayyyy off on this, Bobbo.

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Been a Jazz fan since I was 11 or 12. continually have arguments with people when I insist the 97 or 98 Jazz would have beaten any other team in the NBA in 4/5 games if Jordan was still playing baseball. People forget they won 64 and then 62 games in back to back years, and crushed Olajuwon and Kobe/Shaq in the playoffs along the way.

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I think Big Z > Mutombo. I remember Matt Harpring (HE PLAYS FOOTBALL) was the 2nd best scorer on that sixers team. Yaouch! (And I love Harp, he plays on the jazz, gotta love him, but... He's a decent 6th man, but 2nd scoring option gets a big WTF)

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Your memory is really crappy. Harpring wasn't on that Sixers team, and the Celtics didn't make the ECF that year. The 41-14 Sixers team prior to the Ratliff/Kukoc/Muhammed for Mutombo trade was amongst the best teams listed. The one after trading for Mutombo (15-12 reg season, 12-11 playoffs) was probably the worst.

I think the Mutombo 76ers would have a 7 game series with 06-07 Cavs, winning or losing depending on who had home court advantage.

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I think it's clear that Philly'01 is the worst of the bunch. As to the best, I'm partial to the Jazz and Blazers, but I abstained from voting cause I never saw some of the older teams.

I think there's an omission on the list - the Pacers team that took the Bulls to game 7 in ECF in their last championship year.

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99-00 Portland Trailblazers- Lost a heartbreaking game 7 to eventual champ Lakers


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[img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

This continues to be my worst loss as a fan. The Giants losing the WS in 2002 is up there but doesn't hurt as badly somehow.

I'm not sure I'll get over it even if the Blazers win a title in my lifetime. It's probably not perfectly rational, but I really think the Blazers could have started a dynasty there and instead LA did that.

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I feel your pain. On the other side, this was the great win that eluded the team for all the dark times of the Vlade/van exel years. One of the most exciting games ever.


disclaimer: i hate the lakers now (and this is after growing up listening to Chick describe West, Hairston, Goodrich, etc and then going to all the early games of the magic era for 5 bucks in the colonade) I used to make my schedule around when these guys were playing. Now I think they are a bunch of overpaid whiney gangster punks and I could care less. sigh.

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OK, after a night of rumination and meditation I have decided.

I think there are a ton of candidates for "best" team. However I'm going with the homer pick and the 1993 Suns. They were the best team in the league that year. I'm more recently invested in the 2007 Suns, but the same can't be said of them - they were probably as good as the Spurs but we're denied ever knowing how they would have fared against the 67-win Mavericks. At the most it was a three-way tie for best team last year.

Other really good choices are those Jazz teams and that Heat team from the same season. And of course the young and developing 1990 Bulls team that pushed the reigning and eventual champion Pistons to the limit.

For worst team, I have to go with the 1995 Rockets. It was an MJ-less season (well, he was back by then as #45 but not on top of his game as witnessed by the Magic's pozzing of the Bulls in the playoffs). Not only were they a six seed they just weren't that good. The Dream carried a mediocre roster past a 3-1 deficit against the Suns, beyond a Spurs team featuring the squeezably soft David Robinson, and to victory over a Magic team partially because Nick Anderson forgot how to shoot free throws. It's still amazing to me that the Rockets won one title, much less two in a row.

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I think Big Z > Mutombo. I remember Matt Harpring (HE PLAYS FOOTBALL) was the 2nd best scorer on that sixers team. Yaouch! (And I love Harp, he plays on the jazz, gotta love him, but... He's a decent 6th man, but 2nd scoring option gets a big WTF)

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LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! Try to at least get the players right next time before you decide which team is better.

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can anyone make assani a mod?

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Is this directed at me Bobbo?

1. Not my fault your favorite player was arguably the dirtiest player in the league during that era.

2. lol @ pleading for someone to become a mod--not that it would matter anyway.

3. Chill broham

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I voted 1993 Suns as the best of this bunch even though they were the second best team in the league that year no matter how many times tuq goes on and on about it. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] I thought that team was super-dynamic and plus sir-Charles was more of a beast than people remember, they also had a ton of weapons around him...they were a damn good team.

I voted the Sixers as the worst. They may have won some awards that year but as I watched the playoffs that year I couldn't help but to say the same thing after every one of those games, "damn AI is carrying this team." If AI wasn't Superman that year, that team wouldn't have accomplished much of what they did whereas a few of these other teams it seemed had more than one way to beat you. [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] AI though.

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Tuq,

I voted for the Rockets too, and I was surprised they got so few votes. You didn't even mention that the Jazz came really close to bouncing them in the first round. If I remember correctly that series came down to the final minutes of Game 5.

1995 was a weak year in the NBA, when a lot of teams could've easily won it all: San Antonio, Phoenix, Utah, Orlando, Indiana, New York, and Chicago. The Rockets are overrated by history because they were on the positive side of variance and won the title (edit: and teams that were just as good as them in the 90's but never won are underrated). The Rockets are the worst team on Assani's list and the only other team that's even debatable is the 00-01 76ers.

As you noted, a lot of people forget that Michael Jordan played in those playoffs, and saying that he wasn't on top of his game is just hindsight IMO. He was scoring 40+ on a regular basis and at the time many, many people just assumed the Bulls would win the title in the absence of any historically great teams in the NBA that year. I am of the opinion that Jordan was just as good as ever in those playoffs but the reason the Bulls lost is that they didn't have Horace Grant or Dennis Rodman, but that goes against the conventional wisdom that Jordan won 6 titles by himself so I'll leave that debate for another thread.

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I know that Rockets team wasn't great, but they would stomp the Philly team.

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I know that Rockets team wasn't great, but they would stomp the Philly team.

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Yup. The Sixers match up terribly w/ the Rockets. Dream dominates this series...agreed that these are the two worst teams though.

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The 96-97 Jazz lost to a Bulls team that was worse than the 89-90 Bulls team. Food for thought in this debate.

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I don't know much about the '90 Bulls team, but this doesn't sound right. The '95-'96 Bulls were arguably the best team ever. '96-'97 is just one year later, and the team went 69-13 I believe.

Also the '99 Heat are a much better candidate here than '97. They were the top seed in the East and were the clear favorites to go to the Finals. Poor them, they run into the 8th-seeded New York Knicks in the first round, and lose 3 games to 2 on a shot that bounced off the rim, bounced off the backboard, and went in with 0.8 remaining. Hilarious.

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I don't know much about the '90 Bulls team, but this doesn't sound right. The '95-'96 Bulls were arguably the best team ever. '96-'97 is just one year later, and the team went 69-13 I believe.

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I didn't really get ClarkNasty's comment either. The 89-90 team was very good (55-27) and ran into what was at the time their buzzsaw--The Bad Boys but that team wasn't anything like the 96-97 team. That Jazz team was actually pretty good and it is unfortunate that their peak (unfortunate for Sloan, Malone and Stockton) was during the Bulls reign.

I think the second version (second 3-peat) of the Bulls was better than the first. Anyway, that 96-97 team lost the last couple games and was coasting or they would have won 70 games twice in a row. Ron Harper, MJ, Pippen, Rodman, and Longley w/ a bench of Kukoc, Wennington, Kerr, and Buechler was better than any other previous Chi teams. The addition of Rodman was a defining piece to making them one of the greatest teams in history--in 96-97 he averaged over 16 boards a game. The year before Rodman, Pippen and MJ were all defensive 1st team. This team was a monster whereas the teams that played the Lakers, Blazers, Suns were damn good but I don't think anyone thought they were unbeatable.

I think Utah taking that Bulls team to 6 games was proof of how good they were.