-Wilt Chamberlain on the NBA at 50 celebration
At the NBA's 35th Anniversary gathering in 1980 the 1966-67
Philadelphia 76ers were chosen as the greatest team of all time. In the
NBA "Tournament of Champions" these Sixers were handily eliminated in the
opening round: by the 1980 Lakers. Yes, that's right, without either team
playing another game after the 35th anniversary of the NBA, The 1979-80
Lakers improved significantly and became better than the 1966-67 Philadelphia
76ers. -Fan voting in the NBA at 50 tournament of
champions.
The NBA's explosion in popularity in the 1980's through to the 1990's has created a situation where any fan opinion poll will be tilted in favor of the fan favorites from the last 20 years: that is why the 1980 Lakers -who might actually be the worst team of the five 1980's Laker champions- advanced all the way to the semifinals of the NBA at 50 Tournament of Champions.
The modern NBA fan would side with his favorite player. Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson are the two most popular players in the modern era. So lo and behold, the only teams that Jordan's Bulls and Johnson's Lakers lost to in the "NBA at 50 Tournament of Champions" poll were other teams led by Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. Certainly this is a product of these two players spending more time on recent nationally televised NBA games than anybody else. The NBA fans have showed their lack of credibility in recent All-Star baloting: In 2002 Grant Hill was voted to start in the All Star game even though he had not played a game in the entire season. Vince Carter was voted to start in the 2003 All-Star game even though he only played in 5 games before the All-Star break. Shaquille O'neal lost his starting spot on the West All-Star team to unpolished rookie Yao Ming in 2003.
Media members chose the "Top 10 Teams in NBA History" A notable absence from this list was the 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks won 66 games (the ONLY 65+ win NBA champion to be excluded from the "TOP 10") and then rolled through the playoffs with a 12-2 record which stood as the best playoff record for 12 years (until 1983). At the time of the NBA @ 50 voting the Bucks record of 78-18 ranked at #5 for best combined regular season and playoff record. The Bucks also rank strong on many of the major statistical categories vs. these "top 10 teams". The stats include #1 in combined regular season & playoff point differential, #1 in playoff point differential (& they did not have a first round series with an 8 seed to beat up on) #1 in field goal percentage, #3 in regular season point differential (one of only 3 teams whose differential is over 12ppg) #3 in scoring, #4(tied) in Assists & #4 in rebounds. So why were the Bucks left out? They play in a small market, so they were forgotten by the big market media that voted on the top 10 teams. Of the 10 teams with the highest combined regular season and playoff records in NBA history the 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks (#5) and the 1949-50 Minneapolis Lakers (#10) were the only small market teams and -not coincidentally- the only teams left off the "10 Greatest teams in NBA History" list.
More recently NBA live was released for Sony Playstation II, and the player skill categories were scored to reflect the myth that on average, current players are always better than players of the past: "At their all-time best" John Stockton scored the SAME rating as Bill Russel (both scored 89). No sane person would think that the Celtics of the 1960's would be the same team with Stockton instead of Russel. But the game's player ratings could try to make you think so. This is an important observation since Jordan has the highest rating on the game (Jordan scored 95, Wilt Chamberlain was second at 93).
There is a big myth that if Jordan had not retired the Bulls would have won 8 titles in a row. The truth is that Jordan was not retired in the 1995 Playoffs and the Bulls lost. The Orlando Magic eliminated the Bulls in the second round by winning twice in Chicago. Home court advantage would have been the only difference in that series and the Magic still win in 6. Besides, the Magic were swept by the defending champion Houston Rockets in that season's NBA Finals.
Michael Jordan tried to rationalize his team's shortcomings by stating: "None of those teams repeated"- In reference to teams such as the 1966-67 Sixers, 1971-72 Lakers & 1985-86 Celtics who won 68, 69 & 67 games, respectively against stronger competition- and they all did it without losing back-to-back games in those playoffs. Repeating is irrelevant to single season greatness unless a team won the title the year before their great season, such as the 1962 & 1965 Celtics and 1992 Bulls did. Bill Russel can easily trump Jordan by stating: "We are the only team who has ever won 8 championships in a row." Of course, the flaw in the repeat logic is that it makes the 1993-94 Houston Rockets-who were crowned by the media as one of the worst NBA champions- better than 6 of the 10 media chosen greatest teams in NBA History.
If Mr. Jordan wants to talk about repeats & dynasties his Bulls still come up short: a dynasty is primarily defined by the number of titles and frequency of those titles over the life of the dynasty. The Celtics 8 titles in a row in the late 50's-early 60's sets the NBA standard for sustained excellence.
Comparing the Dynasties:
| Dynasty | titles | titles in a row | titles/years |
| 60's Celtics | 11 | 8 | 11/13 |
| 90's Bulls | 6 | 3 | 6/8 |
What is interesting is that no matter how you
slice the title numbers, the Celtics are the greater dynasty. Excluding
the Jordan "retirement" year the Bulls won 6 titles in 7 years. But the
Celtics never won fewer than 8 titles during
any 9 consecutive year stretch of their dynasty. Bulls fans like to point
out that the Bulls won far more regular season games. This is not true, from 1957 to 1966 the Celtics had a higher winning percentage than any other team during any 10 season stretch in NBA history. Furthermore there were about 18 more teams and 216 more NBA roster spots to water down the competition during the Bulls' run. Some
people say the additional teams makes the Bulls run tougher, but they just
refuse to face the fact that even with 29 teams there realistically is only 3 or
4 that have a legitimate shot at winning it all when the season starts.
Did you know that there would be at least 37 current starters on NBA teams who would not make an NBA roster if the current league dropped to 9
teams (the number of teams during the middle of the 60's Celtic dynasty)?
It is also interesting to note that the two years the Celtics were not champions
they lost to the eventual NBA Champion. In contrast the Bulls 2 losses
came against also-rans.