September 16, 2025 • 25 mins
Jason continues "Top-10 Week" on the channel to break down the top-10 NBA champions of the last 25 years including Steph Curry and Kevin Durant's Golden State Warriors, Kobe Bryant and Shaq's Los Angeles Lakers, LeBron James's Miami Heat, Jayson Tatum's Boston Celtics, Nikola Jokic's Denver Nuggets, and more.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, well, good to hoops tonight here
at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody, Oh Bob, you guys
are having a great start to your week. We are
continuing our top ten week today with our top ten
(00:24):
championship teams of the last twenty five years. You guys
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And the last but not least, if you want to
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our mail bags throughout the rest of the year. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So only there's one rule that
I have here on the list if there's a repeat
or a three peat champ, I can only pick one
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of those teams. However, if you did repeat, it's obviously
going to be something that works in your favor on
a list like this. So the team that missed the
cut for me, the team that landed at eleventh was
the two thousand and eight Boston Celtics. They were a
truly dominant regular season team. They won sixty six regular
season games in two thousand and eight, and they started
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the following season twenty six and two. But they got
cut here because they suffered ten playoff losses, which was
the most out of any team in the last twenty
five years, fueled by the fact that they really struggled
on the road. They were just three and nine on
road playoff games during that playoff run. So they ended
up being the team that just barely missed the cut.
Now I have three tiers on this list. There are
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two teams that are in the third tier. These are
teams that didn't really separate from the pack and the
regular season in any sort of substantial way, like as
a dominant regular season team, but these they were amazing
playoff teams. This starts with number ten, the twenty twenty
three Denver Nuggets. They were one of only two teams
to make this list that failed to win sixty games.
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The other team, though, is in the very top tier
as one of our repeat champions. Those of you guys
who are into predicting, it's a little bit of foreshadowing there.
But they only won fifty three regular season games, mostly
because they let their foot off the gas after a
hot start. They were forty six to nineteen on March sixth,
which was a fifty eight win pace, and they were
only a half game back of the best record in
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the league, Milwaukee Bucks at that point. And they finished
the year kind of poorly, which hurt them in the
regular season standings, but they were a dominant playoff team.
Jamal Murray played the best basketball of his career in
that secondary scoring role off of Nikolay Jokic, and this,
in my opinion to this point, was the absolute apex
of Jokic as a playoff basketball player. He put together
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the best short range scoring season that I had ever seen.
He made two thirds of his hooks and floaters, almost
seventy four percent of his jump shots inside of seventeen feet.
Amy shot forty six percent from three on pretty high
volume in the postseason. Just ripped through the playoffs. They
ripped through Anthony Edwards and Karl Anthony Towns in the
first round, Kevin Durant and Devin Booker in the second round,
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Lebron and Ad they swept him. And then they beat
Jimmy and Bam in five games in the finals. Just
a thorough ass kicking all the way through the playoffs.
A truly impressive championship run from a team that had
somewhat of a mediocre regular season. Also interesting stat here,
the Denver Nuggets in twenty twenty three posted a one
point eighteen point two offensive rating in the playoff run.
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That is tied for the highest offensive rating ever put
up by a champion in a playoff run with the
twenty seventeen Golden State Warriors. Now we're obviously going to
give the nod to the twenty seventeen Warriors. Is the
greatest playoff offense ever just simply because at least champion,
I should say, just simply because of the fact that
they were from nearly a decade prior, when the league
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wasn't scoring as a as efficiently, in playing it as
fast a pace as they are now, but still worth mentioning.
The tied for the best offense in the history of
NBA Champion playoff runs, the twenty twenty three Denver Nuggets,
number nine the twenty sixteen Caps. This was not a
team that you would have ranked very high on this
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list until the final three games of the season. They
won just fifty seven games in a relatively weak Eastern Conference.
Part of that was because Kyrie missed the start of
the year with his knee injury. They fired their coach
in the middle of the season. They dropped two games
they probably shouldn't have dropped to the Toronto Raptors and
the conference finals, and they trailed three to one in
(04:40):
the NBA Finals to the Warriors. But at that point,
Lebron James played the greatest three game stretch of basketball
that anyone has ever played, notching back to back forty
point games. Kyrie Irving pitched in a forty point game
in Game five, and then in an absolutely epic Game seven,
a game, by the way, that we're gonna be rewatching
on playback next week week on Monday. I hope you
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guys will come join us for that. But Lebron in
the fourth quarter, runs a masterful half court offense, picking
on different warriors and switches, and he gets the highlight
of his career with the chase down block of Andre
Gudala leading to Kyrie Irving tying things off with a
game winning step back jump shot over Steph Curry, and
the Cavs are champs. So yeah, not much to point
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two in terms of a truly great champion in the
big picture, But if you defeat the greatest regular season
team ever in the finals, you absolutely have to make
this list. Number eight the twenty twenty Lakers. I think
this is one of the more underrated teams in recent
NBA history. The reason why is just because it was
the COVID season, right the season was cut short. There's
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a group of detractors. Lebron has a very polarizing kind
of presence in the NBA fan base. A lot of
people don't like him. They talk about the bubble, all
that kind of stuff. This was also for me. The
reason why I have them ranked lower is just they
didn't get a chance to play much in the form
of great competition. This was a phase in the NBA
where there weren't that many great teams. So the Lakers
had a relatively easy playoff path, like the Clippers were
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basically frauds. The Warriors were down with injuries, the Celtics
were too young. The Bucks were frauds because Giannis at
that point really didn't know how to be an effective
offensive player in the half court and the playoffs. Yet,
the Nuggets were still a touch too young, and they
hadn't made that Jeremy Grant swap for Aaron Gordon yet.
So the Lakers basically just kicked everyone's ass. But they
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were a truly dominant team. They started the season twenty
four and three. When the COVID shutdown happened, they were
forty nine and fourteen, which is a sixty four win pace.
They had really separated from the rest of the West.
At that point. They were five and a half games
up on the second seeded Clippers, and they just ran
over every one. In the playoffs. They beat the Dame
CJ Blazers in five, they beat the hard in Westbrook
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Rockets in five, they beat that same Nuggets team that
eliminated the Clippers in five games, and they beat the
Jimmy Butler led Heat in six in the finals. Again, like,
I don't think you put a much higher on this
list because of the weird circumstances and the lack of
great teams in the league that really tested them. But
in a vacuum, I think this was an awesome team.
Lebron James. This is the last year that he was
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the best player in the world. Honestly, It's the one
year in Lebron's career I can think of where I
thought he legitimately got robbed of MVP. He was just
a flat out better basketball player than Yannis and was
having a better season, but the voters just couldn't understand
how the weak Eastern Conference was influencing the metrics that
Giannis was putting up. It was the best season of
Anthony Davis's career. He turned into a monster three level score.
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I thought he was a top five player in that season.
And they had a deep roster of big, physical, ass
kicking defenders like Danny Green, like Alex Caruso, like Contavious Colwell,
Pope just one of the great defenses of this era.
A truly great Lakers team that was wrongfully maligned by
Lebron haters retroactively, because that's just what Lebron haters do.
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Number seven the twenty twenty four Boston Celtics. They won
sixty four games. That was seven games more than anyone
else in the NBA that year, fourteen games better than
the two seed in the Eastern Conference that year, the
New York Knicks. Similarly to the twenty twenty Lakers, they
didn't really face a great team in the playoffs. They
beat the Heat without Jimmy Butler, they beat the Calves
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without Jared Allen, and the Cavs backcourt was pretty banged
up in that series. They swept the Pacers that was
a hobbled version of Tyree Saliburton. But then I thought
they played a very good Dallas Mavericks team in the
finals and handled them in five games, jumping up three
to zero in that series. The reason why I'm giving
them the nod over the Lakers here is I thought
that the twenty twenty four MAVs were touch better than
the twenty twenty Nuggets. So I just looked at them
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as having beat a better team than any of the
teams that the Lakers had played, and that Celtics team
only suffered three losses in the whole playoff run. But
this was one of the better offenses of the last
twenty five years. They posted a one to sixteen point
eight offensive rating in the playoff run. Remember I was
talking about the greatest championship offenses, like best offensive ratings
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put up by a team that went on to win
an NBA champion championship in a playoff run. Number one
and two we have the twenty twenty three Nuggets and
the twenty seventeen Warriors tied. We'll get to the Warriors later.
Number three is this Boston Celtics team, the twenty twenty
four Boston Celtics, and number four and five are a
couple of lebron led units. The twenty twenty Lakers an
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underrated offense just because they had struggled a little bit
in the half court in the regular season, but they
were a very good offense in the postseason. They put
up a one to fifteen point six in the regular
in that in that playoff run, and then the twenty
sixteen Calves in fifth place at one fourteen point six,
But the Celtics, the twenty twenty four Celtics came in
at third on the greatest Championship playoff run offenses with
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a one sixteen point eight offensive rating. They were a
perfect built five man driving kick unit that could take
multiple shapes. They had two bigs who could shoot above
the break threes effectively, so they were able to kind
of run two big looks, single big looks, a bunch
of different kind of elements that they could bring to
the table. Porzingis was a legitimate switch beater, which we
saw heavily featured in Game one of the Finals, although
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he missed most of that playoff run. They had two
dominant two way guards and Derek White and Drew Holliday,
and two dominant two way forwards in Jason Tatum and
Jaylen Brown. Tatum in many ways was the perfect star
for that unit because as much of an equal opportunity
drive and kick offense as it was, they really needed
Tatum to function more as an advantage creator. And because
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Tatum was struggling so much as a scorer, he was
kind of primarily focusing on just kind of getting the
offense going, and it really helped that team get going
on the offensive end of the floor. Number six the
twenty twenty five Oklahoma City Thunder. This was one of
the better regular season teams on this list. They won
sixty eight games, just last season, but not in the
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manner that you would think. I was actually really surprised
to pull this up this morning. They were thirty nine
and thirteen against the West, which is obviously really good,
and it was the best record in the conference. But
the Lakers last year had the second best record against
the West at thirty six and six team, so thirty
nine and thirteen was the best record against the West.
Lakers were second at thirty six and sixteen, just three
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games ahead there. So the reason why the thunder were
able to get up to sixty eight wins was through
a complete and utter domination of the Eastern Conference. They
went twenty nine to one versus the Eastern Conference last year,
their one loss being a game in Cleveland, a game
that was really close. They were down two with just
two minutes left in that game. But that was their
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one loss all season long against Eastern Conference competition. It
was an uneven playoff run. They had the one bad
Western Conference team in the first round in Memphis, or
they swept. They got pushed to the brink by Jokic's Nuggets.
They handled a very good Minnesota Timberwolves team, but then
they got pushed to the brink again by the Indiana
Pacers led by Tyrus Haliburton. Really, the only thing holding
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the Thunder back on this list is I thought they
were pushed to the brink of elimination by two different
teams who I did not consider to be top tier
championship contenders last year. Not too much of a surprise there.
They were a super young team. Super young teams tend
to underperform relative to their talent level in the postseason.
The story of this team was defense. Though there have
been some elite defenses in recent NBA history, like the
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twenty twenty Lakers we talked about earlier, twenty twenty one
Bucks our team that was a great defense. Recently, the
twenty twenty two Celtics didn't win the title, but they
were a dominant defense. I think this is the best
defense in recent NBA history. They confronted their size issues
both on the perimeter and on the interior. With the
addition of Hartenstein and Caruso, they had elite rim protection
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and chet Holmgren, and they had like a half dozen
truly great perimeter defenders, and they were all completely bought
into Mark Dagenault's attacking, turnover forcing style. They forced opposing
stars into embarrassing performances. Guys like Desmond Bayne and Jeron
Jackson completely fell apart. Julius Raynell completely fell apart. They
played Nikole Yokichu, I think is the best offensive player
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ever into three games that were pretty far below his
capability on the offensive offensive end of the floor, which
again is a credit to one of the great defenses
in NBA history. But while they're offense sputtered at times,
it was great every time they needed it to be great.
The twenty twenty five Oklahoma City Thunder come in at
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and Virginia number five, the last team that did not
repeat on this list, but a team that beat one
of the teams that's ahead of them on this list,
which is why they ended up being at the top
of this tier. The twenty fourteen Spurs, the rise of
Kawhi Leonard is a playoff star that was a super
efficient score off the ball as well as a dominant
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perimeter defender, and the revenge that the Spurs got on
the Ray Allen shot from twenty thirteen. This Spurs team
was every bit as good as the Lebron James Dwayne
Wade Miami Heat. They just lost in heartbreaking fashion in
that twenty thirteen season in Game six on that Ray
Allen shot. They won sixty two games in twenty fourteen.
That was three games up on the Oklahoma City Thunder
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for the best record in the league. They were one
of the most fascinating team constructs for the last twenty
five years. Not a single player on the twenty fourteen
Spurs averaged eighteen points per game in either the regular
season or the playoffs, but they were monstrous defensively anchored
by Tim Duncan at the rim and Danny Green and
Kawhi Leonard on the perimeter. They played a truly beautiful
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brand of offensive basketball. They averaged three hundred and thirteen
passes in that finals run. Just for perspective, their final
two opponents, the Thunder two hundred and forty passes per
game and the Heat two hundred and seventy eight passes
per game, just a totally different less ball movement. Every
once in a while, you guys have seen that highlight
reel from that twenty fourteen Spurs team that makes its
way around social media and the beautiful game Spurs and
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all the extra passes. They were a team that was
truly committed to the idea of finding the best possible shot,
regardless of who was going to take it, and it
manifested in a really, really fun basketball team. And while
they were victims of a wild shot in twenty thirteen,
they left absolutely no doubt in the twenty fourteen playoff run.
They struggled a bit in the first round with a
feisty Dallas Mavericks team led by Monte Ellis and Durknoviski,
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and there was a game winner by Vince Carter in
Game three out of the left corner. That is a
shot that is like burned into my memory because I
vividly remember it was right at the end of my
last year playing college hoops, and I was sitting up
in the dorms with a bunch of dudes who were
on the team, and we were all just talking shit,
and they were going around the room asking what everybody
thought was going to happen, and I was just like,
I think Vince Carter's going to hit a three to
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win it, and I ended up guessing it right. So
I just have that shot like burned into my brain.
But they struggled a little bit with that MAVs team
in the first round, but after that they kind of
ran through everyone. They beat the Blazers in five, beat
the Thunder and six, and then they absolutely smashed the
Miami Heat and revenge with some pretty impressive blowouts in
that series. Really, in my opinion, the crowning achievement of
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the Greg Popovich era and the best of these non
repeat champs in my opinion of the last twenty five years,
because they're the one team on that list that successfully
beat one of the teams that's ahead on this list
number four. As we head into our last tier, these
are actually, you know, what I should say, these are
the This is kind of a middle tier for me.
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So these are four repeat champions. But both number four
and number three had some struggles along the way and
their playoff runs. The top two teams did not. So
I guess I'm going back on what I said, and
we're going to break this into four tiers here. So
this second to last year is started by number four,
the two thousand and nine Los Angeles Lakers. They really
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separated in the Western Conference. They won sixty five games,
eleven more than the second seeded Denver Nuggets. This was
the year that Kobe Bryant's leadership and competitiveness really started
to rub off on Pau Gasol. After never having made
an All NBA team, in two thousand and nine, Paul
Gasol made third team, and it was the start of
a three year stretch where he was selected to All
NBA teams each of those three years. Pow had a
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substantial leap year over year in his playoff performance compared
to two thousand and eight, went from sixteen point nine
points per game to eighteen point three, from fifty three
percent from the field to fifty eight, from nine point
three rebounds per game to ten point eight. From two
point four stocks per game to two point eight, just
became a much more physically imposing monster of a front
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court player. This was also the apex of Kobe Bryant
as a basketball player, as we covered in our Top
ten Peaks video yesterday, the confluence of his mental and
physical gifts as well as his apex in skill development.
And I thought he was the best player in the
league at this point, kind of that quintessential best scorer
in the league archetype, but also maybe the best defensive
guard in the league at the same time. That pathway
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that I've been talking about for Anthony Edwards if he
ever wants to become the best player in the league.
Good group of role players lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza,
Derek Fisher Andrew bid him alongside Pau Gasol. They beat
the Jazz in five. They struggled a bit with the
feisty Rockets team, this really weird Rockets team. They had
lost Tracy McGrady earlier in the year. Yao Ming was
like playing really well that season and at the start
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of the series played really well but got some He
ended up going down with an injury. But they got
some big time play out of Aaron Brooks and met
a World Peace, who actually went on to join the
Lakers the following season, So that series got dragged out
a little bit. But after that, they beat a very
good Nuggets team that was the two seed, led by
Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billips, and then they beat a
very good Orlando Magic team in the finals. Dwight Howard
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had absolutely mauled the Cleveland Cavaliers front line of Andre
excuse me of a Zydronas Elgauskas and Anderson vera Jao,
but bid them and Gasol basically put him in a
box in the finals. And that really is what makes
them such a special team. They had this monster frontline
mixed with Kobe at the peak of his powers, with
some really good period of role players, just a really
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impressive championship run, and unlike any of the other teams
to this point, they followed it up with another championship
in the following season, number three, the twenty thirteen Miami Heat.
This to me is the best team of this tier
of repeat champs, this kind of middle tier, the rare
combination of a truly special regular season, and they win
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versus another team on this list. They won sixty six
regular season games, that was six more than anyone else
in the league. They won twelve more than the second
seed in the in the Eastern Conference, the New York Knicks,
which was hilarious because that ended up being Gary Washburns
one other MVP vote that robbed Lebron of his unanimous MVP.
At one point, the Miami Heat won twenty excuse me,
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at one point, the Miami Heat won twenty seven consecutive games.
It's the second longest win streak in NBA history and
the longest win streak of the last twenty five excuse me,
of the last fifty years. Should have won unanimus MVP
that year, but a disgruntled Boston writer Gary Washburn, ended
up voting against him for Carmelo Anthony, something that's completely indefensible.
Probably the second best version of Lebron behind the twenty
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eighteen version. Wade was a second tier star at that point,
but still very good. They had started to figure out
they're spacing with Bosh at the five at this point
in time, and this was before they let Mike Miller go,
so they had a super deep core of shooting and
role playing talent off the ball. They ran through the
first two rounds of the playoffs, struggled a bit with
the second tier contender in the Indiana Pacers. That Pacers
team caused minor issues for the Heat in all of
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those years, just because of Roy Hibbert's rim protection and
obviously the kind of somewhat flawed build of d Wade
and Lebron as basket attackers off of each other. But
they blew mount in Game seven, made it to the finals,
and then we had our epic showdown between the Spurs
and the Heat, where a heroic fourth quarter from Lebron
brought them to within striking distance in Game six for
Ray Allen to tie the game send it to Ot,
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and then a Lebron masterpiece in Game seven to close
the deal. And as we mentioned earlier, a PETE champion here,
having won in twenty twelve in rather dominant fashion. Not
as good a regular season team in twenty twelve, but
a more dominant playoff run in that particular year. Now
we're entering into our last tier. These two teams are
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the two teams that dog walked the league in the playoffs,
Basically complete in total domination. Easy to rank them here
because number two, our two thousand and one Los Angeles
Lakers team, was not as good in the regular season.
They really coasted through the regular season and had a
couple injuries in their backcourt, so they only won fifty
six regular season games. It was still the second best
record in the league for whatever that is worth, but
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not really any separation there. But they quite literally annihilated
everyone in the playoffs. They swept the Blazers, they swept
the Kings, they swept the top seeded Spurs, and then
after losing a crazy game Dallan Iverson in Game one
of the finals, they swept them over the final four
games to hoist the trophy. This was the peak of
the Kobe Shack partnership. Shack was at the absolute peak
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of his powers, and as we discussed yesterday's that was
one of the most dominant basketball players to ever touch
the floor, right. He had multiple forty twenty games in
the playoffs that year, and this was the first year
that Kobe reached that like true level of superstardom. He
averaged twenty nine points, seven rebounds, and six assists in
that playoff run. He had two forty five point games
in that playoff run, one against Sacramento, won against San Antonio.
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Derek Fisher was red hot from three in that entire
playoff run. Big defensive contributions off the bench from guys
like Hortus Grant and Robert Horry. Just a complete and
total ass kicking of the rest of the league as
they went on to hoist the trophy. When they hit
the Jets, you just got to lose to the two
thousand and one Los Angeles Lakers. But number one easy.
Number one here, in my opinion, the greatest basketball team
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ever assembled, the twenty seventeen Golden State Warriors. They won
sixty seven regular season games and won fifteen consecutive playoff games,
the longest playoff win streak in NBA history, before finally
losing to Cleveland. A very good Cavs team, a team
that when we're doing our best teams to not win
the championship list tomorrow, they will probably be very high
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on that list, right But that team ended up being
the only team to pull a playoff game off of
that twenty seventeen Warriors team. To put it very simply,
they put together far and away the best five man
lineup to ever play basketball. There's always this focus on
Stephan KD as the partnership there, like as if it
was just Stefan KD versus the rest of the league.
And don't get me wrong, Stephan KD were the second
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and third best players in the league at that point, respectively.
Really a problematic duo under any circumstances, but it was
the five man unit in total that made them so devastating.
Klay Thompson was the second best shooter in the league
at that point and one of the best perimeter defenders
in the NBA. Draymond Green was arguably the best defensive
player of this entire era of basketball and the perfect
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offensive fit in the Warriors system. And then Andre Goudala,
who was the quintessential Warriors role player. Like if you're
ranking the best like like big forward defenders of this era,
andre Goudala is right up there. It's like him and
Kawhi and Lebron in some order your mix and those guys.
And Andre Godala was just one of the very best
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at that job of guarding the opposing forwards in the league.
But he was also an extremely gifted read and react
player in the Golden State system, they tied the twenty
twenty three Nuggets for the best offensive rating ever posted
by an NBA champion in a playoff run, and when
you factor in the difference and eras, I think they
get the nod as the best offense ever. But they
also did it with a transcendently great defense. The Nuggets
posted a one to ten point two defensive rating, which
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is good for that era, but the twenty seventeen Warriors
posted a one h five point three defensive rating another
level above that. This is the greatest basketball team ever,
let alone the best champion of the last twenty five years.
That was fun, all right. That's all we got for
today is always the sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us,
in supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow with the
top ten non champions in NBA history or in the
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last twenty five years. I should say, we'll see you
guys then
The volume. All right, well, good to hoops tonight here
at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody, Oh Bob, you guys
are having a great start to your week. We are
continuing our top ten week today with our top ten
(00:24):
championship teams of the last twenty five years. You guys
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And the last but not least, if you want to
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let's talk some basketball. So only there's one rule that
I have here on the list if there's a repeat
or a three peat champ, I can only pick one
(01:06):
of those teams. However, if you did repeat, it's obviously
going to be something that works in your favor on
a list like this. So the team that missed the
cut for me, the team that landed at eleventh was
the two thousand and eight Boston Celtics. They were a
truly dominant regular season team. They won sixty six regular
season games in two thousand and eight, and they started
(01:27):
the following season twenty six and two. But they got
cut here because they suffered ten playoff losses, which was
the most out of any team in the last twenty
five years, fueled by the fact that they really struggled
on the road. They were just three and nine on
road playoff games during that playoff run. So they ended
up being the team that just barely missed the cut.
Now I have three tiers on this list. There are
(01:48):
two teams that are in the third tier. These are
teams that didn't really separate from the pack and the
regular season in any sort of substantial way, like as
a dominant regular season team, but these they were amazing
playoff teams. This starts with number ten, the twenty twenty
three Denver Nuggets. They were one of only two teams
to make this list that failed to win sixty games.
(02:11):
The other team, though, is in the very top tier
as one of our repeat champions. Those of you guys
who are into predicting, it's a little bit of foreshadowing there.
But they only won fifty three regular season games, mostly
because they let their foot off the gas after a
hot start. They were forty six to nineteen on March sixth,
which was a fifty eight win pace, and they were
only a half game back of the best record in
(02:33):
the league, Milwaukee Bucks at that point. And they finished
the year kind of poorly, which hurt them in the
regular season standings, but they were a dominant playoff team.
Jamal Murray played the best basketball of his career in
that secondary scoring role off of Nikolay Jokic, and this,
in my opinion to this point, was the absolute apex
of Jokic as a playoff basketball player. He put together
(02:53):
the best short range scoring season that I had ever seen.
He made two thirds of his hooks and floaters, almost
seventy four percent of his jump shots inside of seventeen feet.
Amy shot forty six percent from three on pretty high
volume in the postseason. Just ripped through the playoffs. They
ripped through Anthony Edwards and Karl Anthony Towns in the
first round, Kevin Durant and Devin Booker in the second round,
(03:14):
Lebron and Ad they swept him. And then they beat
Jimmy and Bam in five games in the finals. Just
a thorough ass kicking all the way through the playoffs.
A truly impressive championship run from a team that had
somewhat of a mediocre regular season. Also interesting stat here,
the Denver Nuggets in twenty twenty three posted a one
point eighteen point two offensive rating in the playoff run.
(03:37):
That is tied for the highest offensive rating ever put
up by a champion in a playoff run with the
twenty seventeen Golden State Warriors. Now we're obviously going to
give the nod to the twenty seventeen Warriors. Is the
greatest playoff offense ever just simply because at least champion,
I should say, just simply because of the fact that
they were from nearly a decade prior, when the league
(03:59):
wasn't scoring as a as efficiently, in playing it as
fast a pace as they are now, but still worth mentioning.
The tied for the best offense in the history of
NBA Champion playoff runs, the twenty twenty three Denver Nuggets,
number nine the twenty sixteen Caps. This was not a
team that you would have ranked very high on this
(04:19):
list until the final three games of the season. They
won just fifty seven games in a relatively weak Eastern Conference.
Part of that was because Kyrie missed the start of
the year with his knee injury. They fired their coach
in the middle of the season. They dropped two games
they probably shouldn't have dropped to the Toronto Raptors and
the conference finals, and they trailed three to one in
(04:40):
the NBA Finals to the Warriors. But at that point,
Lebron James played the greatest three game stretch of basketball
that anyone has ever played, notching back to back forty
point games. Kyrie Irving pitched in a forty point game
in Game five, and then in an absolutely epic Game seven,
a game, by the way, that we're gonna be rewatching
on playback next week week on Monday. I hope you
(05:00):
guys will come join us for that. But Lebron in
the fourth quarter, runs a masterful half court offense, picking
on different warriors and switches, and he gets the highlight
of his career with the chase down block of Andre
Gudala leading to Kyrie Irving tying things off with a
game winning step back jump shot over Steph Curry, and
the Cavs are champs. So yeah, not much to point
(05:23):
two in terms of a truly great champion in the
big picture, But if you defeat the greatest regular season
team ever in the finals, you absolutely have to make
this list. Number eight the twenty twenty Lakers. I think
this is one of the more underrated teams in recent
NBA history. The reason why is just because it was
the COVID season, right the season was cut short. There's
(05:44):
a group of detractors. Lebron has a very polarizing kind
of presence in the NBA fan base. A lot of
people don't like him. They talk about the bubble, all
that kind of stuff. This was also for me. The
reason why I have them ranked lower is just they
didn't get a chance to play much in the form
of great competition. This was a phase in the NBA
where there weren't that many great teams. So the Lakers
had a relatively easy playoff path, like the Clippers were
(06:07):
basically frauds. The Warriors were down with injuries, the Celtics
were too young. The Bucks were frauds because Giannis at
that point really didn't know how to be an effective
offensive player in the half court and the playoffs. Yet,
the Nuggets were still a touch too young, and they
hadn't made that Jeremy Grant swap for Aaron Gordon yet.
So the Lakers basically just kicked everyone's ass. But they
(06:27):
were a truly dominant team. They started the season twenty
four and three. When the COVID shutdown happened, they were
forty nine and fourteen, which is a sixty four win pace.
They had really separated from the rest of the West.
At that point. They were five and a half games
up on the second seeded Clippers, and they just ran
over every one. In the playoffs. They beat the Dame
CJ Blazers in five, they beat the hard in Westbrook
(06:49):
Rockets in five, they beat that same Nuggets team that
eliminated the Clippers in five games, and they beat the
Jimmy Butler led Heat in six in the finals. Again, like,
I don't think you put a much higher on this
list because of the weird circumstances and the lack of
great teams in the league that really tested them. But
in a vacuum, I think this was an awesome team.
Lebron James. This is the last year that he was
(07:09):
the best player in the world. Honestly, It's the one
year in Lebron's career I can think of where I
thought he legitimately got robbed of MVP. He was just
a flat out better basketball player than Yannis and was
having a better season, but the voters just couldn't understand
how the weak Eastern Conference was influencing the metrics that
Giannis was putting up. It was the best season of
Anthony Davis's career. He turned into a monster three level score.
(07:31):
I thought he was a top five player in that season.
And they had a deep roster of big, physical, ass
kicking defenders like Danny Green, like Alex Caruso, like Contavious Colwell,
Pope just one of the great defenses of this era.
A truly great Lakers team that was wrongfully maligned by
Lebron haters retroactively, because that's just what Lebron haters do.
(07:51):
Number seven the twenty twenty four Boston Celtics. They won
sixty four games. That was seven games more than anyone
else in the NBA that year, fourteen games better than
the two seed in the Eastern Conference that year, the
New York Knicks. Similarly to the twenty twenty Lakers, they
didn't really face a great team in the playoffs. They
beat the Heat without Jimmy Butler, they beat the Calves
(08:12):
without Jared Allen, and the Cavs backcourt was pretty banged
up in that series. They swept the Pacers that was
a hobbled version of Tyree Saliburton. But then I thought
they played a very good Dallas Mavericks team in the
finals and handled them in five games, jumping up three
to zero in that series. The reason why I'm giving
them the nod over the Lakers here is I thought
that the twenty twenty four MAVs were touch better than
the twenty twenty Nuggets. So I just looked at them
(08:35):
as having beat a better team than any of the
teams that the Lakers had played, and that Celtics team
only suffered three losses in the whole playoff run. But
this was one of the better offenses of the last
twenty five years. They posted a one to sixteen point
eight offensive rating in the playoff run. Remember I was
talking about the greatest championship offenses, like best offensive ratings
(08:56):
put up by a team that went on to win
an NBA champion championship in a playoff run. Number one
and two we have the twenty twenty three Nuggets and
the twenty seventeen Warriors tied. We'll get to the Warriors later.
Number three is this Boston Celtics team, the twenty twenty
four Boston Celtics, and number four and five are a
couple of lebron led units. The twenty twenty Lakers an
(09:18):
underrated offense just because they had struggled a little bit
in the half court in the regular season, but they
were a very good offense in the postseason. They put
up a one to fifteen point six in the regular
in that in that playoff run, and then the twenty
sixteen Calves in fifth place at one fourteen point six,
But the Celtics, the twenty twenty four Celtics came in
at third on the greatest Championship playoff run offenses with
(09:41):
a one sixteen point eight offensive rating. They were a
perfect built five man driving kick unit that could take
multiple shapes. They had two bigs who could shoot above
the break threes effectively, so they were able to kind
of run two big looks, single big looks, a bunch
of different kind of elements that they could bring to
the table. Porzingis was a legitimate switch beater, which we
saw heavily featured in Game one of the Finals, although
(10:03):
he missed most of that playoff run. They had two
dominant two way guards and Derek White and Drew Holliday,
and two dominant two way forwards in Jason Tatum and
Jaylen Brown. Tatum in many ways was the perfect star
for that unit because as much of an equal opportunity
drive and kick offense as it was, they really needed
Tatum to function more as an advantage creator. And because
(10:24):
Tatum was struggling so much as a scorer, he was
kind of primarily focusing on just kind of getting the
offense going, and it really helped that team get going
on the offensive end of the floor. Number six the
twenty twenty five Oklahoma City Thunder. This was one of
the better regular season teams on this list. They won
sixty eight games, just last season, but not in the
(10:44):
manner that you would think. I was actually really surprised
to pull this up this morning. They were thirty nine
and thirteen against the West, which is obviously really good,
and it was the best record in the conference. But
the Lakers last year had the second best record against
the West at thirty six and six team, so thirty
nine and thirteen was the best record against the West.
Lakers were second at thirty six and sixteen, just three
(11:06):
games ahead there. So the reason why the thunder were
able to get up to sixty eight wins was through
a complete and utter domination of the Eastern Conference. They
went twenty nine to one versus the Eastern Conference last year,
their one loss being a game in Cleveland, a game
that was really close. They were down two with just
two minutes left in that game. But that was their
(11:27):
one loss all season long against Eastern Conference competition. It
was an uneven playoff run. They had the one bad
Western Conference team in the first round in Memphis, or
they swept. They got pushed to the brink by Jokic's Nuggets.
They handled a very good Minnesota Timberwolves team, but then
they got pushed to the brink again by the Indiana
Pacers led by Tyrus Haliburton. Really, the only thing holding
(11:48):
the Thunder back on this list is I thought they
were pushed to the brink of elimination by two different
teams who I did not consider to be top tier
championship contenders last year. Not too much of a surprise there.
They were a super young team. Super young teams tend
to underperform relative to their talent level in the postseason.
The story of this team was defense. Though there have
been some elite defenses in recent NBA history, like the
(12:10):
twenty twenty Lakers we talked about earlier, twenty twenty one
Bucks our team that was a great defense. Recently, the
twenty twenty two Celtics didn't win the title, but they
were a dominant defense. I think this is the best
defense in recent NBA history. They confronted their size issues
both on the perimeter and on the interior. With the
addition of Hartenstein and Caruso, they had elite rim protection
(12:31):
and chet Holmgren, and they had like a half dozen
truly great perimeter defenders, and they were all completely bought
into Mark Dagenault's attacking, turnover forcing style. They forced opposing
stars into embarrassing performances. Guys like Desmond Bayne and Jeron
Jackson completely fell apart. Julius Raynell completely fell apart. They
played Nikole Yokichu, I think is the best offensive player
(12:52):
ever into three games that were pretty far below his
capability on the offensive offensive end of the floor, which
again is a credit to one of the great defenses
in NBA history. But while they're offense sputtered at times,
it was great every time they needed it to be great.
The twenty twenty five Oklahoma City Thunder come in at
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and Virginia number five, the last team that did not
repeat on this list, but a team that beat one
of the teams that's ahead of them on this list,
which is why they ended up being at the top
of this tier. The twenty fourteen Spurs, the rise of
Kawhi Leonard is a playoff star that was a super
efficient score off the ball as well as a dominant
(15:03):
perimeter defender, and the revenge that the Spurs got on
the Ray Allen shot from twenty thirteen. This Spurs team
was every bit as good as the Lebron James Dwayne
Wade Miami Heat. They just lost in heartbreaking fashion in
that twenty thirteen season in Game six on that Ray
Allen shot. They won sixty two games in twenty fourteen.
That was three games up on the Oklahoma City Thunder
(15:25):
for the best record in the league. They were one
of the most fascinating team constructs for the last twenty
five years. Not a single player on the twenty fourteen
Spurs averaged eighteen points per game in either the regular
season or the playoffs, but they were monstrous defensively anchored
by Tim Duncan at the rim and Danny Green and
Kawhi Leonard on the perimeter. They played a truly beautiful
(15:46):
brand of offensive basketball. They averaged three hundred and thirteen
passes in that finals run. Just for perspective, their final
two opponents, the Thunder two hundred and forty passes per
game and the Heat two hundred and seventy eight passes
per game, just a totally different less ball movement. Every
once in a while, you guys have seen that highlight
reel from that twenty fourteen Spurs team that makes its
way around social media and the beautiful game Spurs and
(16:09):
all the extra passes. They were a team that was
truly committed to the idea of finding the best possible shot,
regardless of who was going to take it, and it
manifested in a really, really fun basketball team. And while
they were victims of a wild shot in twenty thirteen,
they left absolutely no doubt in the twenty fourteen playoff run.
They struggled a bit in the first round with a
feisty Dallas Mavericks team led by Monte Ellis and Durknoviski,
(16:32):
and there was a game winner by Vince Carter in
Game three out of the left corner. That is a
shot that is like burned into my memory because I
vividly remember it was right at the end of my
last year playing college hoops, and I was sitting up
in the dorms with a bunch of dudes who were
on the team, and we were all just talking shit,
and they were going around the room asking what everybody
thought was going to happen, and I was just like,
I think Vince Carter's going to hit a three to
(16:54):
win it, and I ended up guessing it right. So
I just have that shot like burned into my brain.
But they struggled a little bit with that MAVs team
in the first round, but after that they kind of
ran through everyone. They beat the Blazers in five, beat
the Thunder and six, and then they absolutely smashed the
Miami Heat and revenge with some pretty impressive blowouts in
that series. Really, in my opinion, the crowning achievement of
(17:15):
the Greg Popovich era and the best of these non
repeat champs in my opinion of the last twenty five years,
because they're the one team on that list that successfully
beat one of the teams that's ahead on this list
number four. As we head into our last tier, these
are actually, you know, what I should say, these are
the This is kind of a middle tier for me.
(17:36):
So these are four repeat champions. But both number four
and number three had some struggles along the way and
their playoff runs. The top two teams did not. So
I guess I'm going back on what I said, and
we're going to break this into four tiers here. So
this second to last year is started by number four,
the two thousand and nine Los Angeles Lakers. They really
(17:57):
separated in the Western Conference. They won sixty five games,
eleven more than the second seeded Denver Nuggets. This was
the year that Kobe Bryant's leadership and competitiveness really started
to rub off on Pau Gasol. After never having made
an All NBA team, in two thousand and nine, Paul
Gasol made third team, and it was the start of
a three year stretch where he was selected to All
NBA teams each of those three years. Pow had a
(18:18):
substantial leap year over year in his playoff performance compared
to two thousand and eight, went from sixteen point nine
points per game to eighteen point three, from fifty three
percent from the field to fifty eight, from nine point
three rebounds per game to ten point eight. From two
point four stocks per game to two point eight, just
became a much more physically imposing monster of a front
(18:39):
court player. This was also the apex of Kobe Bryant
as a basketball player, as we covered in our Top
ten Peaks video yesterday, the confluence of his mental and
physical gifts as well as his apex in skill development.
And I thought he was the best player in the
league at this point, kind of that quintessential best scorer
in the league archetype, but also maybe the best defensive
guard in the league at the same time. That pathway
(19:00):
that I've been talking about for Anthony Edwards if he
ever wants to become the best player in the league.
Good group of role players lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza,
Derek Fisher Andrew bid him alongside Pau Gasol. They beat
the Jazz in five. They struggled a bit with the
feisty Rockets team, this really weird Rockets team. They had
lost Tracy McGrady earlier in the year. Yao Ming was
like playing really well that season and at the start
(19:21):
of the series played really well but got some He
ended up going down with an injury. But they got
some big time play out of Aaron Brooks and met
a World Peace, who actually went on to join the
Lakers the following season, So that series got dragged out
a little bit. But after that, they beat a very
good Nuggets team that was the two seed, led by
Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billips, and then they beat a
very good Orlando Magic team in the finals. Dwight Howard
(19:43):
had absolutely mauled the Cleveland Cavaliers front line of Andre
excuse me of a Zydronas Elgauskas and Anderson vera Jao,
but bid them and Gasol basically put him in a
box in the finals. And that really is what makes
them such a special team. They had this monster frontline
mixed with Kobe at the peak of his powers, with
some really good period of role players, just a really
(20:03):
impressive championship run, and unlike any of the other teams
to this point, they followed it up with another championship
in the following season, number three, the twenty thirteen Miami Heat.
This to me is the best team of this tier
of repeat champs, this kind of middle tier, the rare
combination of a truly special regular season, and they win
(20:25):
versus another team on this list. They won sixty six
regular season games, that was six more than anyone else
in the league. They won twelve more than the second
seed in the in the Eastern Conference, the New York Knicks,
which was hilarious because that ended up being Gary Washburns
one other MVP vote that robbed Lebron of his unanimous MVP.
At one point, the Miami Heat won twenty excuse me,
(20:49):
at one point, the Miami Heat won twenty seven consecutive games.
It's the second longest win streak in NBA history and
the longest win streak of the last twenty five excuse me,
of the last fifty years. Should have won unanimus MVP
that year, but a disgruntled Boston writer Gary Washburn, ended
up voting against him for Carmelo Anthony, something that's completely indefensible.
Probably the second best version of Lebron behind the twenty
(21:10):
eighteen version. Wade was a second tier star at that point,
but still very good. They had started to figure out
they're spacing with Bosh at the five at this point
in time, and this was before they let Mike Miller go,
so they had a super deep core of shooting and
role playing talent off the ball. They ran through the
first two rounds of the playoffs, struggled a bit with
the second tier contender in the Indiana Pacers. That Pacers
team caused minor issues for the Heat in all of
(21:32):
those years, just because of Roy Hibbert's rim protection and
obviously the kind of somewhat flawed build of d Wade
and Lebron as basket attackers off of each other. But
they blew mount in Game seven, made it to the finals,
and then we had our epic showdown between the Spurs
and the Heat, where a heroic fourth quarter from Lebron
brought them to within striking distance in Game six for
Ray Allen to tie the game send it to Ot,
(21:54):
and then a Lebron masterpiece in Game seven to close
the deal. And as we mentioned earlier, a PETE champion here,
having won in twenty twelve in rather dominant fashion. Not
as good a regular season team in twenty twelve, but
a more dominant playoff run in that particular year. Now
we're entering into our last tier. These two teams are
(22:14):
the two teams that dog walked the league in the playoffs,
Basically complete in total domination. Easy to rank them here
because number two, our two thousand and one Los Angeles
Lakers team, was not as good in the regular season.
They really coasted through the regular season and had a
couple injuries in their backcourt, so they only won fifty
six regular season games. It was still the second best
record in the league for whatever that is worth, but
(22:37):
not really any separation there. But they quite literally annihilated
everyone in the playoffs. They swept the Blazers, they swept
the Kings, they swept the top seeded Spurs, and then
after losing a crazy game Dallan Iverson in Game one
of the finals, they swept them over the final four
games to hoist the trophy. This was the peak of
the Kobe Shack partnership. Shack was at the absolute peak
(22:57):
of his powers, and as we discussed yesterday's that was
one of the most dominant basketball players to ever touch
the floor, right. He had multiple forty twenty games in
the playoffs that year, and this was the first year
that Kobe reached that like true level of superstardom. He
averaged twenty nine points, seven rebounds, and six assists in
that playoff run. He had two forty five point games
in that playoff run, one against Sacramento, won against San Antonio.
(23:19):
Derek Fisher was red hot from three in that entire
playoff run. Big defensive contributions off the bench from guys
like Hortus Grant and Robert Horry. Just a complete and
total ass kicking of the rest of the league as
they went on to hoist the trophy. When they hit
the Jets, you just got to lose to the two
thousand and one Los Angeles Lakers. But number one easy.
Number one here, in my opinion, the greatest basketball team
(23:40):
ever assembled, the twenty seventeen Golden State Warriors. They won
sixty seven regular season games and won fifteen consecutive playoff games,
the longest playoff win streak in NBA history, before finally
losing to Cleveland. A very good Cavs team, a team
that when we're doing our best teams to not win
the championship list tomorrow, they will probably be very high
(24:00):
on that list, right But that team ended up being
the only team to pull a playoff game off of
that twenty seventeen Warriors team. To put it very simply,
they put together far and away the best five man
lineup to ever play basketball. There's always this focus on
Stephan KD as the partnership there, like as if it
was just Stefan KD versus the rest of the league.
And don't get me wrong, Stephan KD were the second
(24:21):
and third best players in the league at that point, respectively.
Really a problematic duo under any circumstances, but it was
the five man unit in total that made them so devastating.
Klay Thompson was the second best shooter in the league
at that point and one of the best perimeter defenders
in the NBA. Draymond Green was arguably the best defensive
player of this entire era of basketball and the perfect
(24:42):
offensive fit in the Warriors system. And then Andre Goudala,
who was the quintessential Warriors role player. Like if you're
ranking the best like like big forward defenders of this era,
andre Goudala is right up there. It's like him and
Kawhi and Lebron in some order your mix and those guys.
And Andre Godala was just one of the very best
(25:03):
at that job of guarding the opposing forwards in the league.
But he was also an extremely gifted read and react
player in the Golden State system, they tied the twenty
twenty three Nuggets for the best offensive rating ever posted
by an NBA champion in a playoff run, and when
you factor in the difference and eras, I think they
get the nod as the best offense ever. But they
also did it with a transcendently great defense. The Nuggets
posted a one to ten point two defensive rating, which
(25:26):
is good for that era, but the twenty seventeen Warriors
posted a one h five point three defensive rating another
level above that. This is the greatest basketball team ever,
let alone the best champion of the last twenty five years.
That was fun, all right. That's all we got for
today is always the sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us,
in supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow with the
top ten non champions in NBA history or in the
(25:49):
last twenty five years. I should say, we'll see you
guys then
Host
Jason Timpf
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