I. The Most Memorable NBA Championship Teams
76) This is Part I 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
We are in the thick of this 2024 NBA Finals with the Boston Celtics taking a commanding 2-0 lead over the Dallas Mavericks. While Boston was legit on a glide path to the Finals, the way they answered the bell in this final round, it is unlikely any team in the East would have stopped them on their path (no matter how healthy these teams could have been). Yet, the West is a completely different story.
If Denver not only didn’t blow that 20 point lead to Minnesota in Game 7, if the Nuggets hadn’t blown the final game of the regular season against rookie sensation Victor Wembanyama of the Spurs, they might have dodged the Wolves all together, and been a much more worthy finals matchup against the Celtics.
Either way, those are the breaks!
Now, here are the greatest NBA Finals Runs that lead to a Championship that I have ever witnessed. There are 32 NBA Finals Runs I was watching dating back to 1992*.
*Even though I didn’t witness the 1991 Champion Bulls, I had to include them on my list.
Some championships are worth more than others. For example, now that the 2023 Champion Denver Nuggets have been eliminated from this year’s 2024 playoffs, their title no longer has the same cache’. If the Nuggets were still playing for a title this year, I would have ranked them historically higher.
If the Nuggets come back and win the title in 2025, it might move up their championship on the historical list. But, right now their title ranks as #27, behind a host of other historically great teams, but in a pack with the 2021 Champion Milwaukee Bucks and the 2019 Champion Toronto Raptors. They are still well ahead of the teams from the 1999 “Lockout-Season” Spurs Title, to the Lakers 2020 “Bubble Title”. (Sorry, Bron-Stans).
The rankings I have aren’t exactly scientific, but they aren’t completely subjective either. Here are how the rankings broke down (by team and year).
PLATINUM STANDARD: TOP 9 - Bulls *1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997 & 1998; Lakers 2001; Cavs 2016; Warriors 2017.
(And here is a memorable play from one of those championships)
GOLD STANDARD: 10-12 (Spurs 2003; Celtics 2008, Lakers 2010)
SILVER STANDARD: 13-20 (Rockets 1994 & 1995; Lakers 2000 & 2002; Mavs 2011; Heat 2012 & 2013, Spurs 2014)
BRONZE STANDARD: 21-27 ( Pistons 2004, Spurs 2005, Lakers 2009, Warriors 2015, Raptors 2019, Bucks 2021, Nuggets 2023)
LOWER TIER: 28-33 (Spurs 1999 & 2007; Heat 2006; Warriors 2018 & 2022; Lakers 2020)
For the record, some of the clips I curated don’t necessarily capture that exact finals, or don’t give an all encompassing story of what happened during those playoffs, but rather are a snap-shot of that postseason. For example the “MJ 3 point barrage” is famously remembered as the time in Game 1 of the 1992 Finals that Michael Jordan and the Bulls destroyed the Blazers. The “MJ Flu game” is the most memorable playoff and finals game of the Bulls 1997 postseason run to Title #5.