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Message: [QUOTE="nelsonmuntz, post: 5013041, member: 833"] Nelson's 5 worst NBA Champions of the modern era (79-80 season and on): 1) 2020 Los Angeles Lakers - an aging superstar (Lebron), an oft-injured superstar (AD), and a supporting cast picked out of the discount rack. This team only wins because there was almost a 4 month break due to Covid for Lebron and AD to get fresh before the playoffs. This is one of the more anomalous champions in NBA, in the sense that the championship comes out of nowhere if you look at the Lakers' previous and succeeding seasons. 2) 2022 Golden State Warriors - a solid team whose championship felt more like an encore than a team in its prime. Thompson missing most of the season helped GS because he was fresh at the end of the season, and the 64 win Suns had a historic choke in the second round to clear the path. The Bucks were the best team in the East, but Middleton was out after the first round and the Bucks still took the Celtics to 7 games. This was the last Covid-impacted NBA season, and the league was still just a little off, and everything just kind of broke right for the Warriors. 3) 1994 Houston Rockets - Jordan was on hiatus, so the Rockets had the best player in the NBA this season (and one of the best of all time) in Hakeem Olajuwon. Their next best player was...Kenny Smith? Tomjanovich was starting to incorporate some metrics driven basketball, and the depth was OK, but this team was not championship-caliber, and Olajuwon had even complained about the Rockets' commitment to winning in the previous 2 seasons. This was also one of the craziest playoffs in NBA history. Scottie Pippen refused to go on the court in a playoff game, the Rockets almost lost to the Suns in the second round, and it took a legendary John Starks' meltdown in Game 7 of the NBA Finals for the Rockets to beat the Knicks. gap 4) 2023 Denver Nuggets - A good team with the best player in the NBA that season, but Jokic is not an all-time great and the Nuggets drop off quite a bit after their top 4 players and the depth was weak. A good, not great, team. Big gap 5) Maybe the 2010 Lakers or 2006 Heat, but both of those teams were pretty good. Every other NBA Champion has A) at least 1 all-time great player, B) at least 2 other superstars of the era, C) very good depth, and D) usually has a top coach. Even 2 of my top 3 worst NBA Champions had among the best coaches of all time (Rudy Tomjanovich and Steve Kerr). Of the 3 mediocre-ish NBA Champions of the last 45 years, 2 of them occurred during the pandemic. A team as flawed as the Mavericks does not win titles unless the playoffs turn into total chaos like 1994, and the Celtics in the Finals is not chaos. I am not sure Tatum is an all-time great yet, but the Celtics have FOUR superstars of their era (Tatum, Brown, Porzingis, Holliday) and depth. Mazzula is TBD. [/QUOTE]

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