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Any of the Lakers teams can beat any of those teams up there.
In order from easiest, lamest, and least impressive to hardest, most spectacular, and most impressive.
Y'all don't have to explain. But I will. Here goes:
2015 Warriors No question. Literally every team was saddled by injuries (while they remained impeccably healthy at a historical level) while dodging all of the contenders that gave them matchup problems. This isn't really close
2009 Lakers One of the easier runs in memory, facing easily the biggest pushover team the NBA Finals has seen in a long time and had a difficult time with (and needed some lucky breaks against) the talent-starved Rockets and unpredictable Nuggets.
2007 Spurs Another easy run; the Spurs coasted during the regular season, but the only formidable opponent in the playoffs was the Suns and they completely dodged the Mavs by incredible fortunate luck. The Cavs were a pushover.
2010 Lakers Admittedly, the Celtics series was rough, but their only other noteworthy opponent was the Suns, they had HCA throughout, and they barely managed to fend off the young and raw Thunder. Nothing too impressive here.
2008 Celtics It's not very often you see teams that lose a double-digit amount of times in the playoffs and still win a championship. Especially when one of those teams is the eighth-seeded Hawks. Still, owned the Lakers in the Finals, so props there.
2012 Heat While they overcame adversity no doubt, this le seemed sort of expected and inevitable. LeBron seemed to play amazing whenever he wanted to, and they absolutely annihilated the Thunder.
2001 Lakers Were a dominating force in the playoffs no doubt, but they faced a far worse Blazers squad than the previous year's iteration, a Kings team that wasn't quite ready, the Spurs, and the one-man 76ers. Still, 16–1 is pretty amazing.
2004 Pistons Though the Lakers were the most hyped team in the league that year, Malone missed the Finals and the Lakers were compromised by Kobe's situation that year. Also, their compe ion in the East was not very good at all.
2002 Lakers This is where it gets more interesting. The Lakers generally faced tough compe ion, but the game 6 rigging and the Nets being complete pushovers knocks this one down a notch.
2013 Heat Faced a good deal of adversity in the playoffs after the huge regular season to win the championship. Obviously, the comeback from down 5 with 0:28 to play in a do-or-die situation in the Finals brings this up a notch.
2003 Spurs Sentimentally, this was my favorite Spurs championship because of the mediocre regular season start and Robinson's last year. By the time the playoffs came, the Spurs were favorites and Dirk got hurt. Still an awesome feat, however. Suns were a particularly tough out, they ended the Lakers' tired three-peat, and the Nets were much improved from the previous year.
2011 Mavericks After roughly a decade as the NBA's poster boys for choking and defeat not too unlike their football counterparts, they re-wrote history by unseating the defending champions, crushing the upstart Thunder, and embarrassing the media darling "Heatles" -- overall very badass.
2006 Heat This one ranks oddly high on this list due to the unexpected factor. All eyes were on the Pistons and the West elites. The Heat were 15 strong and stuck together to the end, beating tough foes both East and West (mainly without HCA) and earned an unlikely ring.
2005 Spurs If you guys don't remember, the Nuggets were a thorn in the Spurs' sides, the Sonics were tough as to beat this particular year, the Suns were just incredible, and the Pistons were defending champions and better (McDyess + improved bench) than a year ago. Epic Finals win.
2000 Lakers Though they had HCA throughout, they faced some of the better compe ion ever faced in the NBA Playoffs (Kings, Suns, loaded Blazers and well-oiled Pacers) and fought to the end and ultimately triumphed, becoming the first dynasty of the twenty-first century.
2014 Spurs Biased or not, this is one of the greatest runs ever after the most imaginably bitter defeat in 2013. An ultimate revenge tour not without adversity, they beat DAL, OKC, and MIA in the same run–oh, and had the best winning margin in playoff history.
Last edited by UNT Eagles 2016; 09-01-2015 at 10:34 PM.
Any of the Lakers teams can beat any of those teams up there.
No... 2000 and maybe 2001 would beat the majority of the above, but even then that's no cinch because the Lakers benefited like crazy from the strict illegal defense violation rules back then (no "hedging in" on Shaq, which forced help defenders either to commit to him or to the deadly clutch three point shooters like Fisher, Shaw, Horry, etc.)
It's hard to justify any of those teams that the 2009-2010 Laker iterations would definitely beat.
'03 Spurs could beat any of the Laker teams. Then again they did beat the 3 peat Lakers team with both Shaq and Kobe in their primes.
03 team a bunch of clowns still havnt reach their prime yet
05 team all of them hit their prime at the same time
ps. if only the spurs kept jax after 03, 03/04 ring was possible...
We were exhausted from dominating for three straight years. You've never defended so you cant relate.
What do you mean we benefitted? The rule applied to everyone.
'03 was the first time since '99 the Lakers had to play a prime Tim that had a few talented players on the roster. The '03 team to me exposes how overrated the 3 peat lakers really were. The '00 Lakers dominated the weakest era of basketball since the 60's.
Not according to Lebron and DPG. You s need to make up your mind. Kobe is the only player in history to repeat during two different eras. Jim couldn't do it once.
He's also has lead his team to 3 lottery appearances something Tim has never done.
Sweeping the defending champs in the 2nd round ain't something that many teams have done tbh.
I don't really rank championship runs. Injuries are part of the game, and everybody play through the exact same schedule.
The GSW could be seen as "fortunate", but they can also be shown as deep such that they can avoid/offset injuries. Not to mention that they were so dominant their starters really didn't have to put up monster minutes during the regular season.
They did show that they are not historically great during the post season, like the 2008 Celtics, but they really did a lot of things right. The team was well balanced, and took advantage of the rule changes the league imposed.
I also find it humourous that the team with the easiest run came exactly a year after the team with the toughest run in the same conference. How is that possible? What exactly change in a year. A LOT of coincidences must have occurred in that single year to have such a drastic change.
In my view..the Spurs never had a championship run....
I mean how could you if you never repeated....sure they won championships but it was never a run
How about Timmy being out in 2000 and Portland throwing game 7.
I don't quibble with his rankings but just the reasons people gave for their arguments. But whatever. Golden State finished with some historical advanced metrics to the point that some stat heads ranked them ahead of plenty of the acknowledged all-time great teams. so that brings up questions I would love the some of the the advanced metrics crowd to answer and they should be able to provide some good ones...
Not saying I think these things but I would just love to see some consistency and clarity in these ty debates for once.
1. So Goldenstate loses points as a great team because of injury? Even though they were historic in the regular season which is a considerably larger sample size and still won the chip? Wasnt the Western conference this year one of the best in recent memory. Injuries or not they crushed the regular season won the West and although Cavs were depleted beat the best player in the world in the Finals. PERIOD.
2. Spurs get points for exacting revenge and God bless them but didnt plenty of teams on this list exact revenge? None failed in as crushing fashion as the spurs did in 2013 but the point remains.
3. Didnt plenty of teams get lucky because of injury? Spurs benefited from OKC injuries previous years same as Warriors did. Devaluing a le run due to injury seems biased.
4. I also see plenty of elevation of some teams and dismissing of others to strengthen the argument or the case for some of these teams in these type of debates. Lot's of bias.
Personally I dont care and this is just based off my eyes but since 2000 ...
Best PLAYOFF runs (no order):
2011 Mavs
2001 Lakers
2014 Spurs
5 Best teams since 2000 (factoring regular season no order):
2008 Celts
2015 GSW
2012 Heat
2014 Spurs
2000 Lakers
As far as who is truly great in my own order:
1. 2001 Lakers
2. 2008 Celts
3. 2000 Lakers
4. 2012 Heat
5. 2014 Spurs
Jim wouldn't have made a difference. It he played in 01 and 02... we rang.
The regular season was a pretty injured one. The Spurs starting 5 played a total of 20mins before the allstar break. The MVP Durant played 29 games. The 2nd seed Rockets had Howard played like 40 games. Griffin missed some time. Blazers were just an injured mess. The Pacers were the number 1 seed in the east the year before and lost PG in the USA camp. The Bulls were, mainly Noah also injury prone. The Warriors lost Lee at the start and he never played a role until what 5 or 6 of the finals. There is no doubt that it got worse in the playoffs, but the west was pretty injured in the regular season as well.
Let's see:::
- Durant was out, and Ibaka too for much of the year, and OKC missed the playoffs... OKC went from the 2nd best team in the West and an elite contender to a 9th seed. Drastic much already?
- Lebron went to a team that was already worse to start, and then they lost their two best players around Lebron. This was the FINALS matchup.
- The Warriors faced the one-trick-pony ROCKETS in the WCF... who were already banged-up and had one of the sorriest benches ever. C'mon!
- The Pelicans with a raw young superstar surrounded by scrubs were a MUCH easier first-round opponent than the Mavericks, who had a savvy coach, experienced stars and a well-coordinated system.
They lose points because of their less than stellar showing in the playoffs. It wasn't horrible, it just wasn't that great, especially considering the quality of the opposition. NOP wasn't that great, I still believe Grizzlies would won the series if Conley was healthy, Rockets are pretenders, and the Cavs should have been steamrolled in the finals.
And their numbers weren't really historically great. They had a ORTG-DRTG of 8.2 in the playoffs, and 10.1 in the regular season. The 86 Celtics, which to mean, is one of the, if not THE best team of all time, had a playoff difference of 10.4, and regular season of 9.2. The Celtics actually picked up their game in the playoffs, and when they had to go through very tough compe ion in the East. The Warriors did the reverse.
I know, exacting revenge isn't a criteria. I don't know why it is to begin with.
Agreed.
Ditto
I can't put the 08 Celtics that high. They really disappointed in the playoffs, ditto GSW. I'd put the 05 Spurs above both of them.
And even including regular season, you can't put 00 Lakers above the 01 Lakers. We all knew the 01 Lakers were just cruising in the regular season, and everybody knew they would turn it on.
Also, the 05 Spurs are just getting massively underrated. It has the combined excellence on defense with the crazy unpredictability on offense to really stand out.
The 14 Spurs will also smoke the 12 Heat, and I'd put them above the 00 Lakers. Kobe wasn't that great in 00, and Shaq wasn't in his absolute peak peak prime (that would be 01).
You are also missing the 04 Pistons, which I thought was one of the greatest defensive teams of all time (followed by the 99 and 05 Spurs, and 08 Celtics).
So OKC and Lebron made the league from one of the toughest in 15 years to one of the easiest?
You really have got to be kidding me. Either you are massively underrating the warriors, massively overrating the Spurs, or both.
2003 stands out…MY SA calling it a rebuilding year…Speedy Claxton, Stephen Jackson, Malik Rose, Kevin Willis…Team really came together…
2000 Nobody gave the Lakers a chance of getting past the stacked Portland Trail Blazers…
My list, old friend ...and I can do whatever the I want on it. Put your own list out and stand/argue behind it this is all subjective but glad we agree on plenty above.
As for 2000 vs . 20001 yes the 2001 team is greater ...I think I put that on the bottom list ...but it was so frustrating watching them play on "cruise control". I dont hate Shaq but my disappointment in his lacksadasical at ude started there. I never cared about him doing movies etc. I just thought his excuses for getting out of shape was laughable and would eventually lead to his decline.that started the off season between 2000 and 2001. and thwhy it bugged me he was in his best Laker shape in his 2000 MVP year strong but still quick. That being said by the finals and playoffs he was a BEAST whenever he was avoiding foul trouble despite not giving a about the regular season.
But I enjoyed the 2000 team more at least until the playoffs. They hardly took any nights off and that is a criteria for an all time GOAT team for me. That is part of why the Celts also rate high on my post 2000 list. The Pistons of 2004 would of been the next team up ... so many here underrate that team. Werent all-time great but played soooo hard and unselfishly minus some dumb Billups heat checks. So we agree there as well.
But of course many wont give them due credit to on the 2004 Lakers ....
Last edited by Killakobe81; 09-02-2015 at 04:55 PM.
The 2011 Mavs had the hardest run to a le since the 1995 Rockets.
Ranking champions is for pussies. You won or you didnt. You got the same trophy as every other winner.
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