LakeShow
06-11-2009, 12:50 PM
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2009/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=FranchiseRankings-Intro
Originally Published: June 11, 2009
Intro to all-time NBA franchise rankings
Here is Hollinger's system for ranking the franchises from best to worst in history
http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2009/0603/nba_e_hollingerts_576.jpg (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2009/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=FranchiseRankings-Lakers)ESPN.com IllustrationCeltics. Lakers. Bulls. Which NBA franchise is the greatest ever? John Hollinger ranks all 30 squads.
My team is better than your team.
That simple argument is at the heart of sports. Fans can debate about players or strategies or countless other issues, but what tends to get hearts pounding the most is when fans start trading boasts about which side is better.
Almost immediately, the barbs will begin about the various sides' accomplishments. Celtics fans will throw their 17 championships in the face of anyone who dares challenge them; Lakers fans might answer with their 30 conference titles, while Spurs supporters will point out that their past decade is arguably the best of anyone's. And so on down the line, until we get to a few scattered Grizzlies supporters waiting meekly in the corner for a Clippers fan to walk by.
And that's where we step in. With six decades of history to fall back on, we can take a look in the rearview mirror and stack up each team's accomplishments from 1 to 30. Obviously we can't account for every single credit and debit over such a huge time frame, but it turns out that once we install some basic accounting principles, the list pretty much falls into place.
To start with, we set this up to look at things from the perspective of fans, as opposed to coaches or owners or -- God forbid -- statistical analysts.
Therefore, the rules are as follows:
1. Winning matters.
2. Winning in the playoffs matters more.
3. Winning a championship is far and away the best thing that can happen.
4. Watching superstars is amazing, even if the team around them isn't any good.
5. Intangibles matter: Fans want to like and admire the team they're cheering.
With those rules in mind, I set up a simple formula to award "points" for all the positives and rank the teams' accomplishments accordingly:
Regular-season wins are worth one point. This is the source of 82 percent of the points in this system, but it matters much more for non-contending teams.
Playoff wins are worth two points. You might argue that this tends to favor recent playoff teams since the current postseason is so much longer; on the other hand, it's a lot harder to accumulate these in a 30-team league than it was in an eight-team league.
Playoff series wins are worth four points. There's a big difference between 3-4 and 4-3, and having an added category for series wins reflects this fact. During some seasons the league had staggered playoff systems in which teams advanced with a bye, and in those years teams were awarded "phantom" playoff series wins for earning a bye.
Playoff losses don't matter. Nobody cares if they won 4-0 or 4-3. In fact, most fans end up with much fonder memories of a hard-fought 4-3 series then they do of a 4-0 rout.
Championships are worth 30 points. I settled on this while trying to balance out the dilemma of "Would you rather win one championship and stink for the next four years, or be halfway decent five years in a row?" I think nearly every fan would take the former over the latter, and I'm guessing a lot of Heat fans are nodding in agreement right now. Putting such a premium on championships gives us the right balance between being great and merely being competitive.
All-Star selections are worth two points each. Most fans would much rather watch superstar performers than ensemble casts, with the only exception being if it's a championship-caliber ensemble. For instance, ask a Hawks fan whether it was more fun to watch Dominique's teams in the '80s or Mookie Blaylock's in the '90s. The '90s teams were about as successful, but from a fan's perspective there's no comparison.
Relocation is a 100-point penalty. Changing cities is the ultimate failure for a sports franchise, leaving the fans in the former city out in the cold and forcing the team to build a new history with unfamiliar faces in a different locale. In a couple of instances I penalized teams 50 points for "half-relocations" -- Baltimore to Washington for the Bullets, Long Island to New Jersey for the Nets -- when they stayed in the same general region but likely had to cultivate a new base of ticket holders.
Intangibles matter too, and I created a separate category for special circumstances. For instance, the Blazers of the early part of this decade were perfectly respectable in terms of wins and losses, but few were eager to admit rooting for that team because of all the scoundrels littering the roster. This is the one part that's completely subjective, but for several teams I subtracted or added 50 to 150 points based on playing styles, player behavior, superstars and other major factors.
ABA playoff results count half. The NBA likes to pretend the ABA never happened when it presents historical results, but by the early 1970s the two leagues were of similar quality, and the best player in basketball (Julius Erving) was in the ABA. Still, I had to count the results at half because the league was so small at times. It's pretty easy to make a deep playoff run in a six-team league.
Once I summed up the total for each team, I divided by the number of seasons the team had played in the NBA; otherwise this system would be horribly unfair to expansion teams.
The result is a number of points per season for each team, and conveniently the average is almost exactly 50: 50.17, to be exact. In the following pages (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2009/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=FranchiseRankings-Lakers) we'll get into where every team ranks and why.
Originally Published: June 11, 2009
No. 1: Los Angeles Lakers
http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2009/0611/nba_g_magic11_576.jpgAndrew D. Bernstein./ NBAE/ Getty ImagesThe Lakers are the greatest franchise ever because of their incredible collection of trademark stars.
1. LOS ANGELES LAKERS: 78.71 POINTS PER SEASON (1947-2009)
http://espn.go.com/i/teamlogos/nba/med/lal.gif Wins: 2,970
Playoff wins: 393
Series wins: 101
Titles: 14
All-Stars: 125
Best player: Magic Johnson
Best coach: Phil Jackson
Best team: 1971-72 (69-13, won NBA title)
Intangibles: +150. Endless stream of superstars -- on the court and in the seats.
Magic. Kareem. The Logo. Kobe. Shaq. When it comes to superstars, the Lakers are so far out in front of everybody else it's not even funny -- their all-time starting five would crush any other team's; in fact, it might be better than that of the rest of the league's put together. So star-studded is their legacy that I left Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor and George Mikan off my five-man team that opened this paragraph, also neglecting the likes of James Worthy, Bob McAdoo and Gail Goodrich. And those big names won, too. Although the Celtics have more championships, the Lakers have more of everything else -- wins, playoff wins, playoff series wins and conference titles. About the only thing that hurts L.A. in the all-time rankings is the penalty for relocating from Minnesota to Los Angeles in the 1950s.
The story begins with the Mikan years up north, where he led Minneapolis to five championships in six seasons in the formative years of the NBA. As the league's first dominant big man, he established something of a tradition.
FRANCHISE HISTORY
Los Angeles Lakers (1960-Present)
Minneapolis Lakers (1948-60)
Since then, the Lakers have almost always had at least one monstrous big man -- Mikan, Wilt, Kareem, Shaq, Pau Gasol -- and one electrifying perimeter star to go with him (Magic, Jerry West, Baylor, Kobe). About the only thing the Lakers haven't been able to do is best the Celtics head-to-head. In 11 meetings against Boston in the Finals, L.A. has prevailed just twice -- both coming with Magic and Kareem's teams under Pat Riley in the 1980s. In that regard, Baylor's Minneapolis team got the ball rolling in 1958-59 in the team's last season before heading west, and in the '60s, Chamberlain and West were foiled by the Celtics five times.
Ultimately, those Lakers broke through with a 69-13 season in 1971-72 that featured a 33-game winning streak -- still a record for North American pro team sports -- to win the team's first title in L.A.
After a brief lull in the late '70s, they would get five more rings when Magic arrived to join forces with Kareem. Although there was one more painful loss to Boston interposed -- a seven-game defeat in 1984 -- L.A. avenged it by becoming the first team in nearly two decades to repeat as champs, winning in 1987 and 1988. A hamstring injury to Magic Johnson in the Finals the next year derailed the Lakers' quest for a three-peat, but they would get one a decade and a half later after Phil Jackson came to Tinseltown to guide Shaq and Kobe.
That team provided plenty of last-second excitement -- most notably the alley-oop from Kobe to Shaq that cemented a Game 7 conference finals comeback win over Portland in 2000 -- and produced one of the most dominant playoff runs in history with a 15-1 romp through the field in 2001.
Amazingly, the franchise has missed the playoffs only five times in its 61 years -- for some perspective, the Bobcats have needed just five years to match L.A.'s total. The Lakers are now playing in their sixth Finals in the past decade, and should they win, they'll be only two titles behind the hated Celtics.
Originally Published: June 11, 2009
Intro to all-time NBA franchise rankings
Here is Hollinger's system for ranking the franchises from best to worst in history
http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2009/0603/nba_e_hollingerts_576.jpg (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2009/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=FranchiseRankings-Lakers)ESPN.com IllustrationCeltics. Lakers. Bulls. Which NBA franchise is the greatest ever? John Hollinger ranks all 30 squads.
My team is better than your team.
That simple argument is at the heart of sports. Fans can debate about players or strategies or countless other issues, but what tends to get hearts pounding the most is when fans start trading boasts about which side is better.
Almost immediately, the barbs will begin about the various sides' accomplishments. Celtics fans will throw their 17 championships in the face of anyone who dares challenge them; Lakers fans might answer with their 30 conference titles, while Spurs supporters will point out that their past decade is arguably the best of anyone's. And so on down the line, until we get to a few scattered Grizzlies supporters waiting meekly in the corner for a Clippers fan to walk by.
And that's where we step in. With six decades of history to fall back on, we can take a look in the rearview mirror and stack up each team's accomplishments from 1 to 30. Obviously we can't account for every single credit and debit over such a huge time frame, but it turns out that once we install some basic accounting principles, the list pretty much falls into place.
To start with, we set this up to look at things from the perspective of fans, as opposed to coaches or owners or -- God forbid -- statistical analysts.
Therefore, the rules are as follows:
1. Winning matters.
2. Winning in the playoffs matters more.
3. Winning a championship is far and away the best thing that can happen.
4. Watching superstars is amazing, even if the team around them isn't any good.
5. Intangibles matter: Fans want to like and admire the team they're cheering.
With those rules in mind, I set up a simple formula to award "points" for all the positives and rank the teams' accomplishments accordingly:
Regular-season wins are worth one point. This is the source of 82 percent of the points in this system, but it matters much more for non-contending teams.
Playoff wins are worth two points. You might argue that this tends to favor recent playoff teams since the current postseason is so much longer; on the other hand, it's a lot harder to accumulate these in a 30-team league than it was in an eight-team league.
Playoff series wins are worth four points. There's a big difference between 3-4 and 4-3, and having an added category for series wins reflects this fact. During some seasons the league had staggered playoff systems in which teams advanced with a bye, and in those years teams were awarded "phantom" playoff series wins for earning a bye.
Playoff losses don't matter. Nobody cares if they won 4-0 or 4-3. In fact, most fans end up with much fonder memories of a hard-fought 4-3 series then they do of a 4-0 rout.
Championships are worth 30 points. I settled on this while trying to balance out the dilemma of "Would you rather win one championship and stink for the next four years, or be halfway decent five years in a row?" I think nearly every fan would take the former over the latter, and I'm guessing a lot of Heat fans are nodding in agreement right now. Putting such a premium on championships gives us the right balance between being great and merely being competitive.
All-Star selections are worth two points each. Most fans would much rather watch superstar performers than ensemble casts, with the only exception being if it's a championship-caliber ensemble. For instance, ask a Hawks fan whether it was more fun to watch Dominique's teams in the '80s or Mookie Blaylock's in the '90s. The '90s teams were about as successful, but from a fan's perspective there's no comparison.
Relocation is a 100-point penalty. Changing cities is the ultimate failure for a sports franchise, leaving the fans in the former city out in the cold and forcing the team to build a new history with unfamiliar faces in a different locale. In a couple of instances I penalized teams 50 points for "half-relocations" -- Baltimore to Washington for the Bullets, Long Island to New Jersey for the Nets -- when they stayed in the same general region but likely had to cultivate a new base of ticket holders.
Intangibles matter too, and I created a separate category for special circumstances. For instance, the Blazers of the early part of this decade were perfectly respectable in terms of wins and losses, but few were eager to admit rooting for that team because of all the scoundrels littering the roster. This is the one part that's completely subjective, but for several teams I subtracted or added 50 to 150 points based on playing styles, player behavior, superstars and other major factors.
ABA playoff results count half. The NBA likes to pretend the ABA never happened when it presents historical results, but by the early 1970s the two leagues were of similar quality, and the best player in basketball (Julius Erving) was in the ABA. Still, I had to count the results at half because the league was so small at times. It's pretty easy to make a deep playoff run in a six-team league.
Once I summed up the total for each team, I divided by the number of seasons the team had played in the NBA; otherwise this system would be horribly unfair to expansion teams.
The result is a number of points per season for each team, and conveniently the average is almost exactly 50: 50.17, to be exact. In the following pages (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2009/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=FranchiseRankings-Lakers) we'll get into where every team ranks and why.
Originally Published: June 11, 2009
No. 1: Los Angeles Lakers
http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2009/0611/nba_g_magic11_576.jpgAndrew D. Bernstein./ NBAE/ Getty ImagesThe Lakers are the greatest franchise ever because of their incredible collection of trademark stars.
1. LOS ANGELES LAKERS: 78.71 POINTS PER SEASON (1947-2009)
http://espn.go.com/i/teamlogos/nba/med/lal.gif Wins: 2,970
Playoff wins: 393
Series wins: 101
Titles: 14
All-Stars: 125
Best player: Magic Johnson
Best coach: Phil Jackson
Best team: 1971-72 (69-13, won NBA title)
Intangibles: +150. Endless stream of superstars -- on the court and in the seats.
Magic. Kareem. The Logo. Kobe. Shaq. When it comes to superstars, the Lakers are so far out in front of everybody else it's not even funny -- their all-time starting five would crush any other team's; in fact, it might be better than that of the rest of the league's put together. So star-studded is their legacy that I left Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor and George Mikan off my five-man team that opened this paragraph, also neglecting the likes of James Worthy, Bob McAdoo and Gail Goodrich. And those big names won, too. Although the Celtics have more championships, the Lakers have more of everything else -- wins, playoff wins, playoff series wins and conference titles. About the only thing that hurts L.A. in the all-time rankings is the penalty for relocating from Minnesota to Los Angeles in the 1950s.
The story begins with the Mikan years up north, where he led Minneapolis to five championships in six seasons in the formative years of the NBA. As the league's first dominant big man, he established something of a tradition.
FRANCHISE HISTORY
Los Angeles Lakers (1960-Present)
Minneapolis Lakers (1948-60)
Since then, the Lakers have almost always had at least one monstrous big man -- Mikan, Wilt, Kareem, Shaq, Pau Gasol -- and one electrifying perimeter star to go with him (Magic, Jerry West, Baylor, Kobe). About the only thing the Lakers haven't been able to do is best the Celtics head-to-head. In 11 meetings against Boston in the Finals, L.A. has prevailed just twice -- both coming with Magic and Kareem's teams under Pat Riley in the 1980s. In that regard, Baylor's Minneapolis team got the ball rolling in 1958-59 in the team's last season before heading west, and in the '60s, Chamberlain and West were foiled by the Celtics five times.
Ultimately, those Lakers broke through with a 69-13 season in 1971-72 that featured a 33-game winning streak -- still a record for North American pro team sports -- to win the team's first title in L.A.
After a brief lull in the late '70s, they would get five more rings when Magic arrived to join forces with Kareem. Although there was one more painful loss to Boston interposed -- a seven-game defeat in 1984 -- L.A. avenged it by becoming the first team in nearly two decades to repeat as champs, winning in 1987 and 1988. A hamstring injury to Magic Johnson in the Finals the next year derailed the Lakers' quest for a three-peat, but they would get one a decade and a half later after Phil Jackson came to Tinseltown to guide Shaq and Kobe.
That team provided plenty of last-second excitement -- most notably the alley-oop from Kobe to Shaq that cemented a Game 7 conference finals comeback win over Portland in 2000 -- and produced one of the most dominant playoff runs in history with a 15-1 romp through the field in 2001.
Amazingly, the franchise has missed the playoffs only five times in its 61 years -- for some perspective, the Bobcats have needed just five years to match L.A.'s total. The Lakers are now playing in their sixth Finals in the past decade, and should they win, they'll be only two titles behind the hated Celtics.