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Except the Celitics had a load of rings prior to those years, but if you take them as stand alone teams in those years, you might be right. However, the significance of the SA trio to the city of SA, to small markets, to what a team can do with seemingly less than teams with far worse records, that trio is hard to beat. You have to also not just consider the championship years. That trio has been winning a long, long time.
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Top 10 'Big 3s' of all time
With so many superstars teaming up over the past five seasons, you might be tempted to think the NBA's current "Big 3" era (touched off by the Celtics' acquisitions of Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett in the summer of 2007) represents a brand-new trend for the league.
However, while Boston's trio and Miami's subsequent LeBron James-Dwyane Wade-Chris Bosh triad are historically great, many of the biggest 3s date back to long before the Pierce-Garnett-Allen combo was even a twinkle in Danny Ainge's eye.
Using a combination of Basketball-Reference's Win Shares and John Hollinger's Estimated Wins Added, prorated to 82 scheduled games in years like 2012, we can attempt to measure the greatest single-season Big 3s since 1965 (the first year we have statistics split out by each team a player played for).
The obvious approach would seem to be simple addition, summing the metrics for a team's three highest-ranked players, but that runs the risk of overrating a trio on the basis of its top player. It actually makes more sense to use an average called the harmonic mean to give less relative weight to a team's best player and more to its third-best player.
After doing that, you get the following list of the best three-man combinations in a season:
10. 1968-69 Los Angeles Lakers
Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor
In July 1968, Chamberlain was traded from Philadelphia to L.A., forming what was perhaps the NBA's very first modern-style Big 3 with West and Baylor. The result was a 55-win Lakers team that boasted three inner-circle Hall of Famers with PERs north of 20 -- although, oddly enough, the Wilt-infused '68-69 Lakers actually represented an offensive decline from the 1967-68 version, a team whose No. 3 player was Archie Clark.
Even so, L.A.'s 1968-69 team would meet expectations, eventually coming within a Game 7 Finals loss of being only the second team to topple the Celtics in a playoff series since 1958.
9. 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson, Bobby Dandridge
After an impressive rookie season in which he finished third in MVP voting, Abdul-Jabbar tore up the league as its clear-cut best player in 1970-71. Meanwhile, the Bucks had also pried Robertson away from Cincinnati before the '70-71 season, and the duo of NBA legends was supported by underrated wing Dandridge, one of the best complementary players in league history.
They put together the best regular-season schedule-adjusted points-per-game margin ever, then went 12-2 in the playoffs, so it's not hard to make a case that the '70-71 Bucks' top three players were the driving forces behind the greatest team in NBA history.
8. 1986-87 Boston Celtics
Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish
While the Celtics as a team enjoyed their most successful season in 1985-86, the following year, their fabled Big 3 reached new individual heights. Bird and Parish were still in the middle of their Hall of Fame primes, and '86-87 was actually the best statistical campaign of McHale's career by far. The only thing that ultimately derailed Boston was a Lakers team that came into the Finals with an 11-1 record and received a clutch "junior sky hook" in Game 4.
7. 1995-96 Chicago Bulls
Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Toni Kukoc
When we think of the 1990s Bulls, a breathtaking duo comes to mind: Jordan and Pippen. However, Chicago's record-shattering 1995-96 roster also received the very best season in the career of Kukoc, who won Sixth Man of the Year honors after posting a 20.4 PER with 10.1 Win Shares. Together, the Bulls' superstars carried the team to a staggering 72 regular-season victories and the club's fourth NBA championship, in the process building a case for NBA's best-ever team that only the 1970-71 Bucks and 1985-86 Celtics can realistically challenge.
6. 1996-97 Utah Jazz
Karl Malone, John Stockton, Jeff Hornacek
With the formula emphasizing production from each trio's third member, you might be surprised to see the Jazz here. Everyone knows the prodigious output Utah got from Malone and Stockton every season, but Hornacek also provided serious punch in 1996-97, posting double digits in Win Shares and Estimated Wins Added to help augment what was probably the best season of Malone's long and distinguished career.
5. 2011-12 Oklahoma City Thunder
Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden
One of two current Big 3s in this top-10 list, the Thunder's trio joined the ranks of the NBA's best ever largely on the basis of Harden's ascendancy. Despite coming off the bench, Harden put up the 82-game equivalent of 11.6 Win Shares and 12.8 Estimated Wins Added in 2011-12, combining with the already-outstanding production of Durant and Westbrook to form a three-headed monster no team outside of South Beach had an answer for. And the scariest part? They're probably going to be even better in 2012-13.
4. 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers
Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Gail Goodrich
Although their Chamberlain-West-Baylor triad could never wrest an NBA crown away from Boston, the 1971-72 edition of the Lakers made the transition from Baylor's abrupt retirement by putting together the greatest winning streak in league history, as well as one of its most dominant teams.
As an aside, Gail Goodrich's name probably seems out of place next to two Hall of Fame legends, but he notched 12.3 Win Shares and 14.4 Estimated Wins Added in 1971-72, and had one of the most insanely effective fluke seasons in NBA history. Neither before nor since were Goodrich's numbers even in the same area code as his monster '71-72 output, but he was an instrumental part of their championship run.
3. 2004-05 Phoenix Suns
Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion
It's fitting that the second-most prolific regular-season and playoff offense ever would have representatives on the list of all-time great Big 3s. In 2004-05, Nash won MVP honors, Stoudemire made a strong bid for the award as well, and many observers felt Marion was actually Phoenix's best all-around player. Together, they propelled the Suns to their first Western Conference finals since 1993, touching off one of the greatest stretches of sustained offensive output by a single team in the history of the NBA.
2. 2010-11 Miami Heat
LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh
No way do we make it through this Big 3 countdown without mentioning what is by far the highest-profile trio of stars ever assembled. The 2011-12 Heat won the NBA championship, but in many ways the previous season's version was even more dominant in the regular season, winning at a better clip and finishing first in the league in opponent-adjusted margin of victory.
While the 2011-12 Heat boasted James at arguably his highest level of play ever, the 2010-11 team received a greater all-around contribution from its star trio, because Wade and Bosh had much better seasons than in 2011-12.
1. 1991-92 Chicago Bulls
Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant
The most effective Big 3 ever (according to Win Shares and Estimated Wins Added, at least) belongs to the 1991-92 Bulls, who featured Jordan and Pippen at their absolute peaks and benefited from Grant posting one of the most spectacularly underrated high-efficiency seasons ever. Grant never again put up numbers similar to what he did in '91-92, but for one season, he gave Jordan and Pippen everything they could ask for in a third banana. As a result, Chicago's trio ranks atop the list of best NBA Big 3s since 1965.
IMO, the list missed out on these teams or picked wrongly for these teams:
1984-1985 LA Lakers
1985-1986 Boston Celtics
at least one Spurs championship team
If there is anyone that doesn't consider Duncan/Ginobili/Parker as one of the Top 10 Trios Of All Time, then that person is a just a fool.
lol wut
Strong data to backup that viewpoint.
One of my favorite Big Threes, Ray Allen/Glenn Robinson/Sam Cassell, also got ignored tbh....
that'd be great to see.
Thomas Dumars Rodman
Duncan has the nod in W/S per 48 and PER. Bird has the nod in scoring by a good margin, assists and a few other categories (excepting rebounds and blocks).
I've gone down the list of stats and accomplishments myself. I don't think Bird > Duncan is a safe assumption at all.
I think it's as close to being a wash as any two players can get, imo.
It's not a landslide, definitely. I just think that the majority of people who watch the NBA would place Bird above Duncan. (Again, when you're defining down the Top 10 all-time, of course they are all amazing players. I just think that Bird is often put above Duncan in most lists, and Bird is seen as a better player.)
There's a reason I put Bird>Duncan, not Bird>>>>>Duncan. Then again, I'd put Bird>Kobe, and the stats probably would argue that Kobe>Bird.
Bird was the most skilled scorer of his time, tbh...
Didn't win scoring les due to not being a volume scorer, though, but having a couple of 50/40/90 years is good.
How I would rank the top trios.
Playoff play is the main factor
1. Magic-Kareem-Worthy
2. Shaq-Kobe-Fisher
3. Bird-McHale-Parish
4. West-Chamberlain-Goodrich
5. Kobe-Gasol-Odom
6. Duncan-Manu-Parker
7. Russell-Cousy-Heinsohn
8. Russell-Havlicek-Jones
9. Jordan-Pippen-Grant
10. Isiah-Dumars-Rodman
11. Jordan-Pippen-Rodman
Bird > Duncan, not by a lot, but you can't put Duncan in top 5 discussion with MJ, Magic, Bird, Kareem, Hakeem/Shaq. Bird was probably the best scorer up till 89. Even when his back was done and he was a crippled bas , he could score like crazy. Born leader, extremely clutch and one of the fiercest compe ors the game has seen.
Stats don't tell you greatness
How many rings did West/Chamberlain/Goodrich win again?
Imagine if Durant were white...
1. But the year that they did win, they won 69 games an NBA record 33 straight games.
They couldn't be a trio for long though because Wilt and West retired in '73 and '74, meaning all 3 players been together for only 3 years.
Yeah, and that was right after Baylor retired, right?
Imagine if Durant could pass, lead a team, consistently score even when injured and achieve all that with fairly average athleticism as well. If e could do all that, maybe he would be comparable to Bird.
Yes. it's odd that after a great player retired that they did that. But Baylor was old.
The Lakers just did not have time in their favor during that era. They could have had West, Wilt, Baylor, and Goodrich all on their team, and if they were in their prime they probably would have won nearly every ring at the time until they got old.
And they had chances but got blocked by Russell in '69 and and Reed/Frazier in '70.
I blame Wilt. 4-13 FT shooting in game 7 69 Finals. And he shot below 37% from the FT in the 69, 70, 73 NBA Finals series.
LOL at #4 and #5 ahead of Duncan Manu and Parker who have three rings! No way in they are above that group there sorry! Put Duncan and Manu and Parker at #4 and it's about right, period.
How many true trios have 3 championships or more? And of those trios which consisted of the players winning a championship with the team that drafted them?
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