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Analysis | Rockets are the NBA franchise most deserving of a championship – The Washington Post
clockThis article was published more than 4 years ago
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver reportedly plans to decide in a few weeks when and how the league will resume the season, which was suspended indefinitely March 11 because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Monumental Sports & Entertainment CEO Ted Leonsis, managing partner of the Washington Wizards, is optimistic the league will try to finish some or all of the regular season and then go into the playoffs.
At the time of the shutdown, the Milwaukee Bucks were the favorite to win the NBA title. Led by Giannis Antetokounmpo, the reigning MVP, the Bucks were 53-12 and projected to waltz through the Eastern Conference in dominant fashion, per Basketball Reference’s playoff probabilities report. Milwaukee is given a 69 percent chance to win the conference and a 51 percent chance of hanging the next championship banner. In the Western Conference, Basketball Reference had the Los Angeles Lakers as the favorite to be the last team standing (44 percent chance to win the conference; 19 percent chance to win the Finals).
Yet if we are looking at which team is most deserving to win a championship, by virtue of above-average seasons and consistently good rosters, then neither of those teams fits the bill. Bill James, widely considered the godfather of baseball analytics, presented one method to determine which baseball team was most deserving to win the World Series. He postulated “you deserve to win if you consistently put out a competitive team, which has a chance to win” and went about constructing a simple point system to rank franchises based on merit. It’s so simple, we already applied it to the NFL and can easily adapt it to the NBA as well.
All teams get zero points at the start of the 2004-05 season, the first year the league expanded to 30 teams with new divisional alignments separating the league into six divisions of five teams each. A team gets one point if it fails to win the NBA title in that year, another point if it made the playoffs, two more points if it finishes with 50 or more wins and three more points if it wins 60 or more. The points accrue each year the team fails to win a championship. If a team wins the title, its point total resets to zero. Win two titles in any five-year span, and the point total is reduced to minus-10. As you would expect, this system will send the Golden State Warriors to the bottom of the list. Their run of three titles in five years is not what we are looking for. We are looking for teams that field a competitive, playoff-bound club every year but fall short.
Disagree with some of the teams on this list? Let us know in the comments.
1. Houston Rockets
71 points; last won NBA title in 1995
Odds to win 2020 championship: 20-1 (as of March 9 per the Westgate SuperBook)
Houston has averaged 48 wins over the past 16 seasons, topping the 50-win mark nine times, and posted a 65-win campaign in 2017-18. The Rockets have made the playoffs 11 times in that span. However, they have not advanced past the conference finals since 2012, despite having James Harden, a perennial MVP candidate and winner of the award in 2017-18, on the roster.
Harden has led the league in scoring three straight seasons and is often among the NBA’s most efficient scorers, using his bulk to muscle his way to the rim or create space behind the three-point line. His cumulative game score, an all-in-one metric designed to give a sense of how good a player is in all facets of the game, while with the Rockets (22.9) is the highest in that time period. Three of the players in the top five (LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry) have eight championship rings among them. Harden’s playoff game score (20.3) is the seventh best since 2013 and slightly higher than Curry’s, illustrating he doesn’t take his foot off the gas during the postseason.
T-2. Denver Nuggets
55 points; never won NBA title (44-year drought)
Odds to win 2020 championship: 25-1
Much of Denver’s inclusion on this list is thanks to George Karl, who turned the franchise around starting in 2004-05. Karl went 32-8 as interim coach that year and followed that up with nine straight playoff appearances. Yet the Nuggets only made it out of the first round once: in 2009, when they fell in the Western Conference finals to the Lakers in six games. After Karl was let go following the Nuggets’ early exit from the 2013 postseason, the franchise wouldn’t make its next playoff appearance until 2019, a second-round loss in seven games at the hands of the Portland Trail Blazers.
Still, six seasons with at least 50 wins, plus a 43-22 record in 2019-20 before the season was halted, give Denver a résumé that is worthy of inclusion on this list. Not convinced? Also consider that, from 2004-05 to 2019-20, Denver outscored opponents by 1.9 points per game more than an average team, after taking into account strength of schedule, giving the Nuggets the seventh-best adjusted scoring margin over that span.
T-2. Oklahoma City Thunder
55 points; last won NBA title in 1979 (as the Seattle SuperSonics)
Odds to win 2020 championship: 100-1
The Thunder is one of seven teams to win 700 games or more from 2004-05 to 2019-20 and play in at least 100 playoff games in that span. Five of the teams on that list — the Spurs, Mavericks, Heat, Celtics and Warriors — won at least one title.
Durant, the No. 2 draft pick in 2007, and Russell Westbrook, the No. 4 pick in 2008, were the catalysts for five straight playoff appearances, including an NBA Finals appearance in 2012 for a team that also included Harden. Durant, the 2013-14 MVP, joined the Warriors in 2016, but Westbrook, the 2016-17 MVP after averaging a triple-double, has carried the franchise to three more postseason berths in Durant’s absence.
4. Portland Trail Blazers
50 points; last won NBA title in 1977
Odds to win 2020 championship: 100-1
The franchise whiffed by taking Greg Oden over Durant in the 2007 draft but rebounded nicely, winning 50 or more games five times since then with nine playoff berths, including six in a row entering this season. Give credit to Damian Lillard, the No. 6 draft pick in 2012, for that respectable run. The point guard was the 2012-13 rookie of the year and has since been selected to four all-NBA teams.
And since Lillard’s arrival, the Trail Blazers have the seventh-highest offensive rating (110.1 points per 100 possessions) and the seventh-highest opponent-adjusted scoring margin (plus-1.7 points per game).
T-5. Los Angeles Clippers
49 points; never won NBA title (50-year drought)
Odds to win 2020 championship: 3-1
The Clippers’ problem isn’t winning games or getting to the playoffs. They have won 50 or more games five times making seven playoff appearances in the past eight years. They were 44-20, the second-best record in the West, before this season was paused. Unfortunately, they’ve never made it past the second round.
That should change during the next postseason. Kawhi Leonard and Paul George lead a squad that is outscoring opponents by almost seven points per game after adjusting for opponent, third-best in the league, with offensive and defensive ratings in the top five. Only the 2013-14 and 2014-15 Clippers were better in all three categories in franchise history.
T-5. Utah Jazz
49 points; never won NBA title (46-year drought)
Odds to win 2020 championship: 40-1
Karl Malone and John Stockton said goodbye to the Jazz in 2003, forcing the franchise to rebuild without them. It took a few years to get back to the 50-win plateau, but from 2006-07 to 2009-10 the Jazz was a playoff team, and it has added four more appearances since, including three straight heading into the 2019-20 campaign.
The high point was in 2007-08. That year, Utah went 54-28 (including a 19-game home winning streak) and outscored opponents by almost seven points per game after adjusting for strength of schedule.
1. Denver Nuggets, 55 points
T-2. Utah Jazz, 49 points
T-2. Los Angeles Clippers, 49 points
4. Phoenix Suns, 45 points
5. Orlando Magic, 43 points
6. Memphis Grizzlies, 39 points
7. Indiana Pacers, 30 points
8. New Orleans Pelicans, 26 points
9. Brooklyn Nets, 22 points
10. Charlotte Hornets, 19 points
11. Minnesota Timberwolves, 16 points
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