Author Topic: Missing Rings in the NBA  (Read 4034 times)

Offline WayOutWest

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Missing Rings in the NBA
« on: January 12, 2009, 04:12:09 PM »
Any bets on the Kings being #1?


http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=796

Missing Rings: 2000s Edition (Part I)
Posted by Neil Paine on January 12, 2009

As a part of their America?s Game documentaries, the NFL Network has a series called The Missing Rings, which highlights franchises who have never won a Super Bowl, and when they came closest to winning the big game. That?s a topic which seems particularly suited to the NBA (only 8 different franchises have won a title in the last 28 years), and it?s one I?d like to tackle here at some point during the season, if not simply because of pro basketball?s uniquely oligarchical balance of power.

However, today I want to do another variation on the ?missing rings? theme: which single-season teams were the best (i.e., most talented, etc.) to never win a championship? The next 2 posts are going to look at the 10 teams this decade that best fit that description. (And don?t worry, Cleveland fans, we?ll finish up the ?Virtual 1980s Cavs? series soon as well?You haven?t been forgotten in the new year!)

Unlike the usual Simple Rating System (which just adjusts regular-season margin of victory for schedule strength), the method I?m employing here is a fairly arduous version of the pythagorean formula, incorporating not only strength of schedule, but also playoff games, home-court advantage, and an adjustment for the spread of competition in the league (using the standard deviation and something called a Box-Cox power transformation). Don?t try this at home, folks!

To make a long story short, the end result of the process for every team is a z-score, the number of standard deviations above/below average they were. The best overall team in this period was the 2000 Lakers, who were a full 2.030 standard deviations better than an average team (2nd were the 2005 Spurs, who checked in with a z-score of 2.004). Both of those teams won championships, however; here are the top 10 teams since 2000 that failed to pull off that feat, starting with?

10. 2007 Phoenix Suns
Remember these guys? With the league?s best offense and an underrated D (13th in the NBA), the Suns were well on their way to breaking that tired old ?run-n-gun teams can?t win championships? mantra in ?07, thanks to the dream D?Antoni lineup of Steve Nash, Raja Bell, Shawn Marion, Boris Diaw, and Amare Stoudemire (with a little Leandro Barbosa, Kurt Thomas, and James Jones thrown in for good measure). They had blazed a path to the Western Conference Finals a year earlier without Stoudemire, and had taken care of the Lakers fairly easily in a 5-game quarterfinal series. But then came the Spurs. The two bitter rivals seesawed back and forth, splitting the first 4 games, but we all know about the infamous confrontation that occured in the waning moments of Game 4. Deprived of Stoudemire and Diaw in Game 5, the Suns collapsed down the stretch to lose 88-85, and finally succumbed in Game 6 after a big 3rd quarter by San Antonio. In the end, the Spurs were a superior team? but not by much, leaving many observers wondering what might have been if not for the Game 5 suspensions to 2 of Phoenix?s best players.

9. 2004 San Antonio Spurs
Lest you think San Antonio got off scot-free, the Spurs had their own hard-luck ending in 2004. After winning the first 2 games of their semifinal series against the Lakers? ?4 Hall of Famers? at home, they dropped the next 2 games in Los Angeles, leading to an epic Game 5 in which they desperately fought to keep their home-court advantage. Trailing 72-71 with 5.4 seconds left, Tim Duncan hit a jaw-dropping fallaway jumper from the top of the key with Shaq in his face, giving S.A. a 1-point lead with just 0.4 seconds on the clock. So game over, right? Um, no. Enter Derek Fisher. Fish?s miraculous J gave L.A. a 3-2 series lead, and the Spurs would fall again two nights later in Tinseltown, ending their season. But if Fisher?s shot doesn?t fall, there?s a pretty decent chance San Antonio makes it back-to-back titles in ?03 and ?04.

8. 2006 Detroit Pistons
Without Larry Brown in ?06, the Pistons were expected to take a step backwards under new coach Flip Saunders, who lacked a single galvanizing catchphrase like, say, ?play the right way? to inspire his troops. Except instead of regressing, the Pistons ran roughshod over the league during the regular season, starting 42-9 en route to a 64-18 record and the top seed in the East. With four All-Stars in their starting lineup, Detroit took out the Bucks rather easily in Round 1, but they faced a major challenge from LeBron James? up-and-coming Cleveland Cavaliers in the semis, eventually outlasting the Cavs in a hard-fought 7-game series. Facing the Heat in the conference finals, the Pistons looked tired from the ordeal of the Cleveland series, and the locker-room chemistry that carried them under Brown suddenly evaporated at the most critical stage of the season. Although Detroit valiantly forced a sixth game with a 91-78 win at the Palace in Game 5, the Heat eliminated them in Game 6, ending what had been a terrific season up until mid-May.

7. 2005 Phoenix Suns
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the ?05 Suns (and not the ?06 version which pushed Dallas to 6 games in a tightly-contested Western Conference Finals) were the best Phoenix team during the Mike D?Antoni era. Fresh off his first MVP award, Steve Nash led a talented 62-20 Suns team into the playoffs alongside Stoudemire, Marion, Barbosa, Joe Johnson, and Quentin Richardson, and Phoenix beat the Grizzlies and Mavs by a combined margin of 8 games to 2 in the first two rounds of the playoffs. Unfortunately for the Suns, the Spurs team they faced in the West Finals was a buzz saw ? as we mentioned earlier, they were the 2nd-best team in the league between 1999-2000 and 2007-08. Despite holding home-court advantage over San Antonio, the Spurs beat the Suns at their own run-and-gun game in the first 2 matchups, and ground out a win at home in Game 3 as well. Though the Suns extended the series with a road victory in Game 4, San Antonio closed out Phoenix in 5 two nights later. Unlike 2007, there were no defining moments in the defeat, no egregious suspensions or blown calls to point to? The Spurs were just better than everybody else, and they proved it by defeating the defending-champion Pistons in the Finals three weeks later.

6. 2000 Portland Trail Blazers
This list is chock full of tragic stories, but perhaps none is more Shakespearean in nature than the infamous collapse of the 2000 Portland Trail Blazers (well, except for the 2002 Kings, but we?ll talk about them in the next installment). Portland was consistently a good team throughout the 1990s (they went to the Finals twice in the early 90s), but they lost in the first round 6 consecutive years from 1993-1998. In 1999, they finally broke through again, advancing to the WCF before being swept by a great Spurs team. In the summer of 1999, they fleeced the Hawks into taking Isaiah Rider off of their hands in exchange for understated team leader Steve Smith, and Portland suddenly had the makings of a championship-caliber squad. Staying in the Lakers? rearview mirror all season long, the rivals collided in one of the most hotly-contested Western Conference Final series ever. L.A. got the better of Portland early, winning 3 of the first 4 games, but the Blazers battled back to win Game 5 on the road and Game 6 at the Rose Garden. That set up a dramatic Game 7 showdown for all the marbles? And the Blazers jumped out to a surprisingly easy 71-58 lead after 3 quarters. That gap would eventually widen to 75-60 with 10 minutes to play, and it looked like Portland would start the 2000s the same way they kicked off the 90s, with a Finals berth. But then they started to miss shots. And more shots. And suddenly they had bricked 13 consecutive FGAs down the stretch, allowing L.A. to tie the game at 77 with 2:44 to go. With 1:34 remaining, Kobe Bryant made 2 free throws to put the Lakers up 81-79, and it was a lead they would never relinquish. Here?s a YouTube video of the meltdown/comeback, which truly has to be seen to be believed. The Blazers were never the same after this game, quickly devolving into full ?Jail Blazer? mode (before Kevin Pritchard rebuilt them into the solid team you see today), while the Lakers used it as a springboard to 3 consecutive titles. All because Portland couldn?t hold on to a 15-point lead with 10 minutes left to play.
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Offline westkoast

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Re: Missing Rings in the NBA
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2009, 04:46:05 PM »
The Lakers have to be on there for that loss to Detroit right?  Kings are on there for sure.
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Offline WayOutWest

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Re: Missing Rings in the NBA
« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2009, 05:14:19 PM »
The Lakers have to be on there for that loss to Detroit right?  Kings are on there for sure.

I think the Fab 4 Lakers will probably be on the list and the Kings will probably be number 1.  The only other team that can challenge the Kings are the Mavs.  They were ripped off in the Finals and they might even make the list twice with their loss the the Warriors.  The Kings might also be on the list twice with their loss to Dallas when Webber went down with an injury.
"History shouldn't be a mystery"
"Our story is real history"
"Not his story"

"My people's culture was strong, it was pure"
"And if not for that white greed"
"It would've endured"

"Laker hate causes blindness"

Offline rickortreat

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Re: Missing Rings in the NBA
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2009, 05:46:52 PM »
It's nonsense. All those teams had flaws and deserved to loose. They were close, but not good enough.  A realistic Sixers fan knows that all those years before the Sixers won in '83 that they were very good, but Boston or LA was better.  And they know that it was Moses Malone that made the difference.

All those fans of those teams can cry in their beer, but they lost and they deserved to loose. Sorry, but that's they way it is in sports, especially ones decided by 7 games.

In football you might steal a game here or there, but no team wins the Super Bowl without being the best team, and there's a little luck involved too, but the best teams seem to have luck on their side.  Sort of like the Eagles even qualifying for the playoffs.

Offline WayOutWest

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Re: Missing Rings in the NBA
« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2009, 05:50:44 PM »
It's nonsense. All those teams had flaws and deserved to loose. They were close, but not good enough.  A realistic Sixers fan knows that all those years before the Sixers won in '83 that they were very good, but Boston or LA was better.  And they know that it was Moses Malone that made the difference.

All those fans of those teams can cry in their beer, but they lost and they deserved to loose. Sorry, but that's they way it is in sports, especially ones decided by 7 games.

In football you might steal a game here or there, but no team wins the Super Bowl without being the best team, and there's a little luck involved too, but the best teams seem to have luck on their side.  Sort of like the Eagles even qualifying for the playoffs.

For the most part that's true but injuries have a way of making you wonder "what if".

The other thing I think is legit is if there was some very unfair treatment from the refs.  I have NEVER seen a guy get as many calls as Wade did in the finals vs the Mavs.  Even MJ didn't get that level of ref love.

The one thing that would make me angry is to know, or even think, that a game was fixed.  Some of the accusations made by that Donahey (sic?) ref really makes me wonder.  Not that they wanted the Lakers to win the series but that they wanted to extend the series.
"History shouldn't be a mystery"
"Our story is real history"
"Not his story"

"My people's culture was strong, it was pure"
"And if not for that white greed"
"It would've endured"

"Laker hate causes blindness"

Offline rickortreat

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Re: Missing Rings in the NBA
« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2009, 06:41:11 PM »
Refs definitely influence the outcome of games, especially in Basketball where a call or non-call can change a win to a loss. Until Donahey, I always believed that the refs, though human and subject to human error called the games as best they could.

I think the Donahey episode makes it that much harder for a ref to throw a game one way or another, the integrity of the game and the league depends on official impartiality. No Stern collusion, IMO, that's just an excuse for the team that lost. No, it couldn't have really been their play, it was rigged! 

If the NBA was rigged they would never let a small market team like San Antonio win!  The teams that win more often have better owners and better management.  It's not an accident that the Lakers and Celtics are back on top, those franchises are committed to winning, and they do it better than the other teams.  The draft should equalize things, along with the cap, but it doesn't. Some teams are better at picking talent than others, and at keeping salaries in line. That's how a team like San Antonio wins.  Great talent, great coaching and supportive management. It is that way in all team sports. No team can guarantee they will win it all, too much unforseen can happen, but they can put up a team that can compete and maybe get enough in the way of breaks to take it all.

Offline WayOutWest

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Re: Missing Rings in the NBA
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2009, 06:46:51 PM »
Missing Rings: 2000s Edition (Part II)
Posted by Neil Paine on January 14, 2009

Today we?re going to continue our series on the best teams of the 2000s to not win a championship. Sometimes these teams ran into bad luck or bad calls, while some just had the misfortune of coming along at the same time as an even better team, but the common thread they all share is that they were truly championship-caliber squads that just happened to fall short in the playoffs. But before we reveal the decade?s Top 10 in the next post, here are some honorable mention ?missing rings? teams, ones which barely missed the countdown?

2001 and 2003 Sacramento Kings. Not the best of the great early-decade Kings teams, but still a formidable roster. You wouldn?t know it from their fast pace, but Sacto owned the league?s 7th-best defense in ?01, and the 2nd-best D in ?03.

2000 and 2002 San Antonio Spurs. You can practically pick every Spurs team this decade, and they either won a title or they?re on this ?missing rings? list. The title defense team in 2K had 58 pythagorean wins and were 3rd in SRS, but they were ousted by the Suns in a 4-game 1st-round upset. In ?02, Manu Ginobili hadn?t arrived on the scene yet and they were breaking in a 19-year-old starting PG named Tony Parker, but they still managed to finish 3rd in SRS and advance to the 2nd round of the playoffs.

2008 Los Angeles Lakers. File this under the ?ran into a better team? category? L.A. was the league?s 2nd-best team last year, but unfortunately for them, the best team happened to be one of the decade?s strongest squads.

2004 Minnesota T-Wolves. Prior to ?08, this was KG?s best supporting cast by far, but the Lakers kicked them to the curb in a tough 6-game WCF series.

2006 Phoenix Suns and 2007 Dallas Mavericks. Without Amare Stoudemire, the ?06 Suns weren?t expected to go anywhere, but led by MVP Steve Nash (and one of Tim Thomas? vintage contract-year playoff performances), they went all the way to the WCF. Meanwhile, Dallas had won 67 games and were expected to make it back to the Finals with their own MVP, Dirk Nowitzki? Instead, they were unceremoniously bounced in the 1st round by 8th-seeded Golden State.

2004 Indiana Pacers. Before Ron Artest threw the NBA?s most infamous punch since Kermit Washington, the Pacers were an up-and-coming team that won 61 games and came within a few key plays of giving Detroit all they could handle in the East Finals.

2005 Miami Heat. Did you know that the Heat actually had a better overall season in 2004-05, from November to June, than they did in ?06? The ?06 version won 52 games, was 7th in offense, 9th in defense, and 6th in SRS; by contrast, the 2005 Heat won 59 games, had the league?s 5th-best offense, the 6th-best D, and were 4th in SRS.

In the next post, we?ll finally get to #1-5 in the missing rings countdown.
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Offline WayOutWest

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Re: Missing Rings in the NBA
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2009, 06:47:46 PM »
Missing Rings: 2000s Edition (Part III)
Posted by Neil Paine on January 16, 2009

Okay, you?ve been waiting for it and here it is, our list of the 5 best teams since 1999-2000 (based on regular-season and playoff pythagorean win %, adjusted for home/road performance, strength of schedule, and league competitive balance) that failed to win a title?

5. 2006 San Antonio Spurs
The Spurs make a ton of appearances on this list; in addition to their 3 titles this decade, they?ve also had a number of near-misses, which I suppose is one of the consequences of being a contender every single year (since 2000, their average season has consisted of 58 wins and a 6.81 SRS). In ?06, they came particularly close to greatness, falling in overtime of Game 7 against Dallas in the Western Conference Semifinals. People forget that San Antonio actually led the Mavs 104-101 with 32 seconds left in that game, but Manu Ginobili?s foul on Dirk Nowitzki with 21 seconds left led to a 3-point play which forced OT, where Dallas outscored the Spurs 15-7. It was an unfortunate end to a banner season for San Antonio, who set a new franchise record with 63 wins and led the NBA in defensive efficiency and SRS. In an alternate universe where Ginobili heeds Gregg Popovich?s exhortations to not foul, there?s a good chance the Spurs ? whose defense was far better equipped to stop Dwyane Wade than Dallas? ? win 3 straight titles from 2005-2007.

4. 2002 Sacramento Kings
It was as evenly-matched a series as you?ll ever find in the NBA, and the long-suffering Kings had clawed their way to a 3-2 advantage by gutting out a 92-91 victory in Game 5. The 2-time defending champion Lakers were on the ropes, especially considering the fact that they?d have already been eliminated if not for Robert Horry?s miracle buzzer-beater in Game 4 (or Samaki Walker?s 3-pointer to end of the 1st half, which counted despite clearly being released after the buzzer sounded). Then came Game 6, one of the most controversial games in sports history (even before Tim Donaghy?s allegations). I don?t want to get into the merits of some of those calls against Sacramento (though our friend Roland Beech has a very good breakdown here), but I will say that this was the high-water mark for the Kings, and obviously the absolute best chance their early-2000s team had to win a championship. They were the NBA?s best team by SRS that season and essentially equal to L.A. by the method I?m using to rank teams here; East champ New Jersey would not have stood any more of a chance against the Kings in the NBA Finals than they ultimately did against the Lakers (who swept them 4-0). So for better or for worse, the WCF was the de facto Finals that year, and it?s a terrible shame that such a great matchup and an intense rivalry had to end under such controversy. Both teams ? and, more importantly, we the fans ? deserved better.

3. 2006 Dallas Mavericks
When considering home/road splits and playoff performance, the Mavs slightly edge out the Spurs in ?06 despite a lower SRS. That?s because Dallas also had to close out a tough Phoenix team (one which made our honorable mention list) in the Conference Finals, and they were only outscored by 1 PPG on average in the Finals. This team seemingly had a title firmly in its grasp, up 2-0 on the Heat and leading by 13 with 6:34 to go in Game 3? but then Dwyane Wade took over the series, rallying Miami all the way back to a 98-96 win (a possible game-tying FT missed by Dirk Nowitzki with 3.4 seconds left didn?t help Dallas? cause, either). Wade would go on to torment the Mavs for the rest of the series, averaging 34.7 PPG en route to MVP honors; Avery Johnson threw everything he had ? Adrian Griffin, Marquis Daniels, Devin Harris, Josh Howard, and a variety of zone looks ? at Wade, but ultimately no one could stop him when he made up his mind to attack the basket. The Heat were a team that peaked at the right time, and the Wade-Shaq tandem was tailor-made to exploit the Mavs? defensive weaknesses, but it?s worth remembering that Dallas had a fantastic season and were close to winning this series (despite Wade?s heroics) if not for a few late-game miscues.

2. 2003 Dallas Mavericks
Oddly enough, the Mavs? ?06 Finals team wasn?t even their best of the 2000s ? that honor belongs instead to the 2003 team, which boasted the league?s top SRS by a wide margin and had one of the best offenses in NBA history (who else misses the Steve Nash/Dirk Nowitzki pairing?). They tied San Antonio for the league?s best record with 60 wins, and ran through a brutal playoff gauntlet which included Portland (6th in SRS), Sacramento (2nd in SRS, albeit with Chris Webber suffering an untimely injury in Game 2), and finally San Antonio (3rd in SRS). If not for some clutch long-range shooting from Steve Kerr late in Game 6, the Mavs could very well have advanced to the Finals, where they would likely have been favored over the Nets. Most people will look back and see the 2006 Dallas team that squandered a 2-0 Finals lead over Miami as the Mavericks? best Nowitzki-era team, but the numbers show that the 2002-03 version was in fact Dallas? top squad of the decade.

1. 2001 San Antonio Spurs
Not the team you were expecting, right? Well, look at the numbers: At 58-24, San Antonio sported the league?s best record. They led the league in pythagorean wins with 62.7. They were 6th in offense, and were #1 in defense. Their 7.92 SRS was by far the best in the league (Sacramento?s 6.07 and Utah?s 5.00 ranked a distant 2nd and 3rd, respectively). The 2001 Spurs were simply dominant for most of the season, and they did it in the most competitively-balanced league of the decade. Under the formula outlined here, they were 1.920 standard deviations above an average team, which was one of the best marks of any team, champion or otherwise, during the 2000s.

Unfortunately, the Spurs? ?01 campaign has a pretty glaring flaw ? they were outclassed in every sense of the word by the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. L.A. had battled injuries all year long (Derek Fisher missed 62 games, Ron Harper missed 35, and Kobe Bryant sat out 14), plus ? let?s be real about it ? they also coasted big-time during the regular-season, assuming they could ?turn it on? come May. And boy, did they ever. They only lost once during the playoffs, and they toasted the Spurs by an average margin of 22.3 PPG in a devastating 4-game sweep.

Still, the Spurs were clearly the 2nd-best team in the NBA in 2001, and though their regular-season numbers won?t show it, the 2001 Lakers (playoff version) were just about as dominating a force as any team in league history. The way they exited the playoffs was admittedly embarrassing, but that?s no reason to forget the ?01 Spurs? legitimately great full-season performance.
"History shouldn't be a mystery"
"Our story is real history"
"Not his story"

"My people's culture was strong, it was pure"
"And if not for that white greed"
"It would've endured"

"Laker hate causes blindness"

Offline Wolverine

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Re: Missing Rings in the NBA
« Reply #8 on: January 18, 2009, 08:49:19 PM »
Interesting article.

I haven't followed the league but for the past few years, so I don't really remember much about the 2002 WC Finals.  What's the story there?  I've heard something before about the Kings gettin' the shaft, but what happened exactly?
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Offline Skandery

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Re: Missing Rings in the NBA
« Reply #9 on: January 19, 2009, 12:01:43 AM »
Wolv,

Watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVfZ-CU-bx0


Its 9 minutes so its long.  But breaking it down, its enough to make you vomit in disgust. 
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Offline WayOutWest

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Re: Missing Rings in the NBA
« Reply #10 on: January 19, 2009, 01:00:19 AM »
Wolv,

Watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVfZ-CU-bx0


Its 9 minutes so its long.  But breaking it down, its enough to make you vomit in disgust. 

After the comments by Tim Donaghy I started to have my doubts about the way that game was called.  I guess the evidence is on some other video because that vid is not even close to "evidence".  I would wiped the floor with your arse if you used that video as evidence, there is like 2 or 3 bad calls at most so the real "tragedy" must be in some other clip.

I honestly would love nothing better then to go over that game/quarter with anyone who believes that game was fixed and break it down minute by minute.  Up until the comments by Donaghy I was 1,000% sure I would own anyone who would take me up on that offer, but I honestly have my doubts now.  Unfortunately that video is a bad example of what to debate over cause there is not much there, I actually feel better about that game after watching those clips.  Need the entire game footage.
"History shouldn't be a mystery"
"Our story is real history"
"Not his story"

"My people's culture was strong, it was pure"
"And if not for that white greed"
"It would've endured"

"Laker hate causes blindness"

Offline Skandery

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Re: Missing Rings in the NBA
« Reply #11 on: January 19, 2009, 01:48:58 AM »
Quote
I actually feel better about that game after watching those clips.

 ::)
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Offline WayOutWest

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Re: Missing Rings in the NBA
« Reply #12 on: January 19, 2009, 09:46:33 AM »
Quote
I actually feel better about that game after watching those clips.

 ::)

I kid you not, if that's the best evidence out there then I feel much better.......
"History shouldn't be a mystery"
"Our story is real history"
"Not his story"

"My people's culture was strong, it was pure"
"And if not for that white greed"
"It would've endured"

"Laker hate causes blindness"

Offline Reality

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Re: Missing Rings in the NBA
« Reply #13 on: January 19, 2009, 11:02:01 AM »
I think the Donahey episode makes it that much harder for a ref to throw a game one way or another, the integrity of the game and the league depends on official impartiality.
And what specifically did the league do during and after the Donahy *investigation* that has made things any different?

Offline WayOutWest

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Re: Missing Rings in the NBA
« Reply #14 on: January 19, 2009, 11:06:12 AM »
I think the Donahey episode makes it that much harder for a ref to throw a game one way or another, the integrity of the game and the league depends on official impartiality.
And what specifically did the league do during and after the Donahy *investigation* that has made things any different?

They hired that military guy to watch over the refs.  I hope it's not the same guy who claimed we would find all those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  :D
"History shouldn't be a mystery"
"Our story is real history"
"Not his story"

"My people's culture was strong, it was pure"
"And if not for that white greed"
"It would've endured"

"Laker hate causes blindness"