Unless i am missing something from that article, your definition of pretty much GOAT means 2nd to the 96 Bulls who had the highest peak ever during the Finals?
That's the last season's Warriors shown in the data. This season's Warriors is a much improved team. Waiting for update.
You can't compare teams to players, 1 player can't win a title even if they're clearly the best player. If a team is the best team (especially of all time) there's no reason they shouldn't win the title. Assuming Curry can come back that is.
Correct. As for the data in the original post, it just can't correct for the historic quality context faced in a given era. Once upon a time, in part of the 1980's, the league had an incredible lakers team with Magic Johnson and Kareem, an incredible Celtics team of all-time greats w' Bird et al., an every-year great Sixers team with Doctor J and coached by Billy C, and several other contenders who were consistent, kept their cores mostly together, and really competed (like the Sonics, the Mark Price et al. Cavs, some of the Rockets teams, the Nellie Bucks and even some of the Nance and Chambers Suns teams). There were a LOT of good games in that era. Competitive games. Then in the 90's, you had some great Pistons teams that stayed together, the Bulls, obviously, the Olajuwon led Rockets, another and different Sonics group, this time led by Payton and Kemp, a good consistent Ewing-led Knicks group, and so on. None of those teams (absent one incredible Bulls year) was as dominant as the current Warriors, but look at the completely sucky spectacle around the Warriors compared to those eras. Statistics just can't account for that, unless you somehow measure how frequently rosters turn over now. There is no era-proof strength of schedule, given league wide suckiness. Free agency, expansion, trigger-happy owners, and the one-and-done phenomenon of preparing players (or not, in fact) has made it harder for many teams to field quality products. Lebron's broken down Cavs team of last year. Imploded Boshless Heat. Clippers that can't stay free of injury or stupidity. The worst Lakers team of *all time*. An OKC team that has fought major injuries and incredible liabilities with depth and coaching. The joke that is our Rockets challenged the Warriors in the WCF last year. LOL. This leaves only the old (but very well-coached and very deep) Spurs as the only viable competition in the entire league. The Spurs beat the Warriors handily once this year, and they may even beat them in the playoffs this year. Anyway, the Warriors *better* be statistically overwhelmingly great in this context. Congrats to them on their success. Good management, player evaluation, chemistry, coaching and dumb luck have all come together marvelously.
So it's dumb "luck" again? How then do you explain last season where they won 67 among what was widely considered the most competitive conference ever? And then what happened? Why didn't teams stay put like your old dr j Sixers or Ewing Knicks? Esp if they feel they can compete with the dubs? Then why bother to scramble to "get better" for 15-16? In this context, they better be statistically great to the tune of achieving the best record in the history of the league? And you feel it's only due to low quality teams they face? So they are like 11-1 against .600 teams, including routine blowouts... oh so it must mean the other teams just suck? Please enlighten us on your assessment.
if you're talking about teams not really. those are individually all known to be great players but unless the teams rack of the championships like the other great teams do then yeah in the end it won't mean much. 73-9 definitely wouldn't mean much if it isn't capped off with a title.
You misread me -- not sure if intentionally. I listed several incredible attributes and could list more (great drafting, player development, player training and conditioning, assembling great personalities, on and on...) But hopefully you know, any kind of remarkable success takes a little luck along the way. You need luck for your good draft choices to pan out. A little luck for a rebuilt back-up point guard to be now incredibly durable and money each time you give him extended minutes. A little luck for Thompson to really exceed what many saw as a ceiling for him as a scorer. And Draymond is truly more effective in the NBA than *anybody* foresaw, or he definitely would have gone higher. I really loved him in college, but he seemed a tad out of shape and kind of limited. I think a lot of other people thought the same thing: that Izzo had squeezed what basketball you could out of him. We were so wrong. But I don't think the Warriors knew they were drafting an all star. Those kinds of things come together with all the other good decisions, etc., and make a historically great franchise (for multiple years, not one season, okay?) As for your "enlighten us on your assessment," I tried to share my thoughts. Not enlighten anyone. Just an opinion. I think you should ... enlighten up, Francis. Warriors fan? If so, relax and enjoy your amazing team. You can't convince everyone that this is the best team ever b/c of a bunch of statistics. It's literally impossible to compare stats in different eras between this team and the old Celtics juggernaut, showtime Lakers, or Jordan's Bulls. I think they had a greater number of truly competent, cohesive teams than we have now. Just my 2 cents.
Comparing apples to oranges here. If the supposed GOAT team doesn't win a ring, why even call them the greatest in the first place? Getting 73 wins is amazing and all, but the 96-97 Bulls team won the championship in the same year.
In this case it's a bit different: they've already won a title. This is only a sequel in which they came out to legitimize their first title and prove doubters wrong. Everyone can already see they are unbeatable unless major injuries happen. We play the game to find out, sure, nothing is a given. But from the way they've already consistently dominated against the other top teams, their place as a historically great is already unquestioned. Winning a title is the expected closure, so they will go out and grab it / fight for it. But as of today, they have already accomplished the unprecedented in a fashion that was demoralizing even for the veteran 67 win Spurs. Even then, ppl are still calling them lucky and stuff. Doubters will undoubtedly keep them motivated to win in the regular season. Note that a few of the 9 losses in the reg season were due to being uninterested and bored amidst the long grind of 82.... They'd thank the doubters, I guess, for keeping them interested in other games. In fact, this had been publicly acknowledged by as several players. So my point is that they are already clearly the best team by a wide margin and already had achieved the ultimate objective even before this year's peak form. The meaning of 73-9 cannot be compared to your run of mill 62-20 teams. It seems the meaning of repeating will have the added value of shutting up doubters. Ok, so lakers and Celtics alternated champions for a while. Did the years where they conceded become meaningless? Warriors will likely stay dominant for a few more years, and they already have a 73 in the books that no one else can touch for a while. Not meaningless. The rhetoric is good for keeping themselves focused though, and of cos, to prevent annoying nay-sayers.
This post sound much more sensible than the last one. But I was curious about the "sucky spectacle" and the "dumb" luck part, hence I asked for enlightening/ clarification. Because only a year ago the very same talent pool produced the "most competitive" conference ever. How did they all of a sudden become "sucky spectacle"? Or did the dubs literally break their backs and force them to scramble their roster in hopes that they can match up with the dubs in the future? I believe that was the general sentiment among teams which in other years would have felt good enough to stick with their core. Personally not a warrior fan per se, but nonetheless very curious about the phenomenon of the doubting / and varying dose of jealousy among many pundits. The crazy thing is, u can say random luck has to do with a few wins, but also the demon of being uninterested also helped the lose a few. They were that dominant that they could have been realistically about 75-7. This level of dominance be labeled with "dumb" luck is a little bit of a stretch to me. If dumb luck can be factor for an achievement of such heights, how come no other team had such dumb luck before? Especially when dumb luck sounds easy. On draymond green, he developed with the team. Don't forget they have Jerry west personally working out the dubs players in his private home! They draft well with intention. Some grow to blossom more than others, but how does that come to equate to dumb luck? There are principles at play in every choices, and then you hope for the best outcome. If you mean dumb luck by the unknowns of the future, then everything under the sun is due to dumb luck. However, these guys don't rely on random dumbness. They rely on insights and execute with intention. They are actively monitor and influence the development process in every step. It's getting long, I'll save ranting at other times.
I came across this after the recent bobcats intrigues around here. For Cho, whose media guide bio proudly proclaims he helped design "advanced and comprehensive" player-evaluation systems as a Sonics intern, that meant an "enormous" amount of background work to construct a team culture focused on improvement. He described the makeup of a Hornets player as following: "Guys that have a really strong work ethic. Guys that are ultracompetitive. Players that love to win and hate to lose. Guys that are great teammates. And high-character guys." http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/15318392/rich-cho-trek-losing-bobcats-playoff-hornets Now contrast this set of principles vs that of Morey's... It spells like "stark" and "I wish" for me.
except when you are only looking at the score, this data tells nothing, because it's based purely on scores, if you put an NBA team to NCAA, their data would be looking God like as well, This year besides, GS, how many great team we have, just think like that, you will know
Jordan can't do it himself, how many rings did he win by himself? Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, and a great supporting cast might be able to do it.
What context? If you believe that basketball is, like pretty much every single other example known to man, one in which human athletic performance advances over time, and with greater participation - why would you believe this? There's 7.4 billlion people on the planet now compared to maybe 4-5 during the 1980's. Those 7.4 billion people have access and more importantly, an even vaster financial incentive, to basketball and high level baskteball instruction that ever before. The talent pool of NBA quality players has probably doubled or tripled, whereas the 4 expansion teams have made the league probably 10-15% bigger. Against all of that, Chris Bosh' injury problems don't compare.
Sure, the individual to team comparison may have been a bit unfitting, but if the Warriors lose in 7 to San Antonio this season still most certainly means something. Don't let your hate for a team completely warp your perception of them. They went 73-9 ffs. Curry hit 402 3's. A team wins a title every year, these records being broken doesn't.
