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Ghazi

06-10-2011, 06:56 PM

ALLAS -- These guys???

Really????

That's the general reaction to the possibility of Dallas winning a title, and at first glance one understands why -- the Mavs had only one All-Star this year, and one struggles to come up with a plausible second representative. But with the Mavericks now just one win from the most unexpected championship run since Detroit in 2004, it's time to revisit our assumptions about what a champion looks like and why this team wouldn't qualify.

I'll point out first that it's a bit early to start planning parade routes -- with Miami getting two games at home to turn the tide, the odds say this is almost exactly a 50-50 proposition. History backs that assertion up, as four of the seven teams to lead 3-2 in a 2-3-2 series have clinched the title on the road, and three (including last year's Celtics) dropped the final two games and lost.

The Mavericks are a flawed team, certainly, and one that is trying to slip through a crack of dominance when the league finds itself without a superteam -- that's how a 57-win team, one that lost its last nine games against Western Conference playoff teams before bludgeoning the Hornets' backups on the final day of the season -- ends up in a position like this.

But they aren't terribly unique, believe it or not.

We have this idea of what a championship team looks like, and it follows one of two models. Either it consists of two superstars in their prime -- think Shaq and Kobe, or Jordan and Pippen -- surrounded by a bunch of role players … or it consists of three stars in their primes (think Garnett-Pierce-Allen or Duncan-Ginobili-Parker) surrounded by a bunch of role players.

The fact a few recent champions followed that model, however, ignores the reality that a great many teams have not.

In fact, the Mavs' current model, which I would loosely describe as "one veteran superstar surrounded by a bunch of fairly good players," has been followed by a number of championship teams. Most of them, like Dallas, were champions that slipped through the cracks when the league lacked a dominant team. Nonetheless, this is far from unprecedented:

• Portland, in 1977, had Bill Walton and a bunch of decent to good players around him. The next-best player, Maurice Lucas, made one All-NBA team.

• Houston, in 1994, had Hakeem Olajuwon and a bunch of decent-to-good players. The next-best player career-wise was Sam Cassell, but he was a rookie who came off the bench. The No. 2 star on that team, Otis Thorpe, made one All-Star team. Amazingly, he was the only Rocket besides Olajuwon with a PER above the league average.

• San Antonio, in 2003, had Tim Duncan and a whole lot of defense. David Robinson was in his final season, Manu Ginobili was a rookie and young Tony Parker, the only other player to average more than 12 points a game, was erratic enough that he ceded the fourth quarter of the clinching game to Speedy Claxton.

• Everyone thinks of the Lakers teams in the 1980s as laden with superstars, but take a closer look at their repeat champions in 1987 and 1988. Magic Johnson was the only player on either squad with a PER above 20. Byron Scott, who played in zeroAll-Star Games, led the 1988 team in scoring. They were deep and talented, but they did not follow the approved storyline.

Seen in that light, Dallas' run doesn't seem quite as remarkable. Nowitzki is unquestionably a superstar, but the second-best player in terms of PER is the rather less imposing Tyson Chandler; in terms of minutes, it's Jason Kidd, who had a PER below the league average and one of the lowest per-minute scoring rates in all of basketball.

But you can win without multiple superstars, if you have a bunch of good players. This has been proven time and again, and the Mavs are further evidence. It's harder, because there are more key players that need to stay healthy, but Dallas this year had eight players with a PER above 14; six of them have played heavy minutes in these Finals. With Dirk going off and no weak link, it's proven a surprisingly potent mix.

It's easy to forget how many other teams have had success with the "bunch of good players" model, for three reasons. First, the monopoly on championships that Jordan-Pippen, Shaq-Kobe and Shaq-Wade had, accounting for 10 titles. Second, during the late 1980s, we still were thinking the Lakers were a Magic-Kareem production when they really weren't. And finally, a lot of teams with a bunch of good players came reaaaaaaaaaally close but didn't win it all.

I noted above how many teams won with just one superstar, but what's even more amazing is how many teams were in the hunt with zero.

Take a look back at the teams that won or nearly won it all with no superstars:

• Portland in 2000 was one quarter away from winning the Western Conference. A banked 3-pointer and a couple of friendly calls prevented an utterly starless Blazers-Pacers Finals; the only player on either side with a PER above 18 that season was Portland's Arvydas Sabonis.

• Detroit in 2004 won the championship without a single superstar and nearly won it again in 2005. Moreover, the second-best team in 2004 was probably Indiana, which was the top seed in the East before Jermaine O'Neal and Jamaal Tinsley were hurt in the conference finals. That team, too, was on the road to being a no-stars champion.

• Boston's "Big Three" won a title in 2008, but by 2010 it was operating more on the Detroit model of a really good starting lineup and a couple of strong bench players -- no Celtic had a PER above 20 in either the regular season or the playoffs. Boston was one good half away from pulling it off, and might have done it were it not for an untimely knee injury to Kendrick Perkins in Game 6.

• Sacramento in 2002 was undone in the conference finals by bad luck, bad refs and a few missed free throws. The Kings almost certainly would have obliterated New Jersey and become a champion with one not-quite-Dirk star in Chris Webber, one kinda big star in Peja Stojakovic and a whole bunch of really good players.

• And, most notably, the Pistons of 1989 and 1990 were repeat champions with this model and nearly had three if you count the 1988 near-miss. This is a stealth example, as Isiah Thomas was considered a superstar and in 1988 had the spectacular third quarter in Game 6 on a bad ankle. But by the time the Pistons were winning titles, he had faded considerably from the output of his prime.

In fact, Thomas' 17.1 PER in 1988-89 is the worst ever to lead a championship team; his 17.3 a year later is the second worst. The Pistons won because they played great defense and, in 1989, had an amazing seven players with a PER above the league average.

With all that said, I don't want to entirely dismiss the superstar logic. While it's certainly reductionist, there's no question that it is easier to win a title with a model along the lines of Miami's, because there's more margin for error.

But as history proves to anyone willing to look, there are many, many ways to skin this cat, and no single formula has a monopoly on the championship. The Dallas Mavericks may not fit our definition of what a championship team ought to look like. But they look an awful lot like a lot of past champions.