IV. The Most Memorable NBA Championship Teams
79) This is Part IV in a Five Part Series - looking at the NBA Champs from 1991 through 2023, spanning the 33 teams that finished as the very best in the League
This is the much anticipated PART IV of a Five part series on the most memorable NBA Champions from 1991-2023. For anyone that read Part I and has done the math, these TOP 9 championship squads have one franchise that jumps out above the rest. I wonder why?
PLATINUM STANDARD “TOP 9” (counting down from 9 to 1)
#9 - *1991 Chicago Bulls: The Birth of an Iconic dynasty! First the Bulls knocked-off the Bad Boy Pistons, and took out Magic and the Lakers. Even though I didn’t witness this, you still need to give a tip of the cap to the start of the Bulls dynasty. The ground-work was laid for a few years here. This is especially so during the 1989-90 season, when Phil Jackson became the head coach.
*I couldn’t leave this first championship team off my list, despite the fact that my NBA fandom didn’t start until the 1991-92 season. This is just too important! History often forgets that this was the only Finals that people were not too sure if Michael Jordan and the Bulls would win! After this one, the air of inevitability with them was shockingly normal. Given their incredible playoff run this year (finishing 15-2 throughout the postseason); Maybe I’m ranking this 1991 Championship Bulls team too low.
#8 - 2017 Golden State Warriors: One of the greatest offensive teams ever assembled! A 16-1 Playoff run that nearly went 16-0. They beat an incredibly talented Cavs team, a team that would have had a great chance to repeat as champions any other year, except for this one!
#7 - 2001 LA Lakers; The real coronation of an epic duo! Also, a historically incredible playoff run. 15-1. This was textbook Shaq and Kobe at their finest! It was hard to rank them above the 2017 Warriors, but what clinched it for me is that the tandem of Shaq and Kobe earned 3, while KD and Steph only earned 2. Also,only Allen Iverson playing out of his mind in Game 1 of the NBA Finals messed up this incredible run. And Iverson had the most memorable play of that whole playoffs, too.
#6 - 1992 Chicago Bulls: The Jordan Rules! I put the Jordan Rules as the tag-line, because it was in the middle of this (1991-92) season when Sam Smith’s infamous tell-all about the 1990-91 Bulls came out, shining MJ and others in a negative light.
I might be a bit too nostalgic about this championship. But to me, the mystique of MJ really came alive for me in these Finals, with the MJ 3-point barrage!
#5 - 1997 Chicago Bulls: The MJ Flu Game! And a 69 win season that followed the historic 72 win season, “The Flu Game” is how I best remember this team.
I also have a hard time forgetting how punitive David Stern started to become with doling out his suspensions in this season, when it was PJ Brown who body slammed Charlie Ward!
How the Knicks suffered the most suspensions in that series against the Heat, robbing everyone of another Bulls v. Knicks Eastern Conference Finals match-up, is one of (numerous) less than flattering things that has to be *included on Commissioner David Stern’s Resume.
*Another mark that needs to be on Stern’s Resume is discussed in PART II of this digest/series. Look up Championship team #28, in PART II - the 2007 San Antonio Spurs, and read about the “Hip-check Playoff Series” that sent the Spurs to the western conference finals (and ultimately the finals) over the depleted Phoenix Suns.
The Bulls went on to dismantle the Heat in 5 unforgettable games in the ECF, and moved on to a Finals against the Jazz that had some pretty exciting finishes.
#4 - 1996 Chicago Bulls: MJ’s first full season back leads the Bulls to a (then) record 72-10 regular season! This was the rebirth of the dynasty. Some might say, this title should be ranked higher, but the league did just go through more expansion with the addition of the Toronto Raptors and the Vancouver (now Memphis) Grizzlies. That, and this was actually Michael Jordan’s worst Finals performance out of all 6.
In fact I’m seeing new videos emerge on the internet that say Rodman should have been Finals MVP over Jordan. The one I just hyperlinked is super-long, but I need to find more info on this. Either way, as iconic as this season was, I just couldn’t rank this championship ahead of this next one.
#3 - 1993 Chicago Bulls: 1st Bulls 3-peat! The two most notable series was the Bulls take down of the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference, the 60 Win Knicks led by Coach Pat Riley and their All NBA Center, Patrick Ewing. Then they secured their finals, their victory over the top seed overall 62 wins Suns lead by that year’s MVP, Sir Charles Barkley.
Some have argued that this was the last great year of the ultimate peak NBA (which some say spanned from 1984-1993 others say it was 1987-1993). This was a hard road for the Bulls. That Suns team was really good. That was also the Knicks most talented team they ever had since the 1973 Championship squad. Both the 93 Knicks and the 93 Suns, are on my list of “Almost NBA Champions”.
I still rank the 1993 Bulls below their 1998 championship team, because nobody predicted MJ would hang it up after this season. A lot happened this season, including the bad PR that certainly was taking a toll on MJ. It still is incredible that his third title somehow feels underrated in retrospect (especially compared to other people’s all-time champion Bulls lists), when in all honesty, this might have been the hardest one.
#2 - 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers: LeBron and the Cavs comeback from a 3-1 deficit against the regular season record setting 73-09 Golden State Warriors! I know I featured the Kyrie 3 over Curry in my PART I of the most memorable champions. But, LeBron’s series saving block might actually be more memorable.
I also realize Draymond got suspended for Game 5 for attempting to punch LeBron in the nuts, but still - Draymond deserved to be sidelined.
Even with my (biased) take, you still can’t take anything away from LeBron’s masterful 3 game stretch at the end of that Finals. Plus Kyrie’s incredible run.
Also, what deserves mentioning is the fact that Kevin Durant still might have come to the Warriors even if the Dubs did end up winning the title in 2016. Imagine how weird that would have been. I mean, KD kind of killed Basketball as we knew it for the next two seasons, with that weak move. Imagine if he joined the team that already won back to back titles, man oh man! https://www.nbcsports.com/nba/news/rumor-kevin-durant-could-sign-with-warriors
All these “what-ifs”, puts this 2016 NBA Championship right near the top for me. Not only that, but LeBron’s 3rd championship motivated Michael Jordan to finally release his greatly anticipated 10 part documentary series. https://www.si.com/nba/2020/04/18/michael-jordan-released-footage-2016-cavaliers-champions
#1 - 1998 Chicago Bulls: The Last title of the Last 3 peat! & “The Shot-Part II”! A whole documentary series was made out of this last title run by the Bulls. If you really are analyzing this squad that closely, the 1993 team was actually more talented and had a tougher run at the 3-peat. But for simple gravitas for how that 1998 team was covered, and it being MJ’s last game as a Bull, the 1998 Team is ranked ahead of not only all the Bulls Championships I ever witnessed, but all the Championships I ever witnessed!
Every time I tried to put some of MJs 6 championships in a lower tier, I just kept on getting flash-backs of how significant all these titles were.
Aside from my ranking the championship teams 1-9 here is how I officially ranked the Bulls Championship Squads
1st - 1998; 2nd - 1993; 3rd - 1996; 4th - 1997; 5th - 1992; 6th - *1991
How would you rank these Bulls titles? (Put responses in the comments section, below).
Nice list! My most memorable- 2004 Pistons (they seemed to come out of nowhere and I loved their style of play). 2011 Mavericks, 2012 Heat, 1993 Bulls (earliest memory of watching games live and replaying moments on the court with cousins), 2022 Warriors (winning another title without Durant was huge).