A Walk Through the Annals of NBA History

A few weeks back I got the idea to look at NBA teams in a historical context. Being a science major and professional researcher guy, I figured I was as qualified as anyone. Basing my study around 4 variables (NBA championships, all-time winning percentage, Hall of Famers, and years in the NBA) I figured I’d be able to cobble together some results that would support a few theories that I’ve assumed true since I started truly caring about the NBA.

Hypothesis 1: the 5 most historically successful teams in NBA history are the Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls and Philadelphia 76ers.

Hypothesis 2: the next tier of historically successful teams is some mix of the Houston Rockets, Phoenix Suns, Seattle Supersonics, Detroit Pistons, and Portland Trailblazers.

With these as my baseline assumptions, I set about devising what I felt would be the best way to define historical greatness.

Study Design

The blue portion of that delicious pie represents how many NBA championships a team has won in its history. Since this is the ultimate goal of every franchise, it was given significant weight (50%) in calculating the total score of a team’s score.

The red portion of the chart shows the percentage (37.5) given to a team’s winning percentage throughout their history. In order for a team to be considered consistently great, they must be a consistently winning team and over time their winning percentage will show that.

Last is the orange slice, which depicts how many Hall of Famers have played for a franchise. This can be a little misleading, however. For instance, Dominique Wilkins is a HOFer based on his Atlanta Hawks exploits, but he did play that one season for the Spurs so he counts for them as well. Because of the nature of this variable, HOFers is only given 12.5% of a team’s total score. In the end it all evens out because Robert Parrish played on pretty much every team since the beginning of basketball.

After adding these different variables together, the team’s total score was multiplied by the percentage of league history that that team has been a part of. Two examples: the Sacramento Kings have played in every NBA season (this will be number 58) and therefore have their total score multiplied by 1, whereas the Minnesota Timberwolves have only played 18 seasons (31% of all seasons) and have their total score multiplied by .31 to determine their cumulative score.

Data

NBA historical data (contains years in NBA, titles, winning percentage, and HOFers)

Historical Greatness of NBA Teams (final data after relative score multiplier)

All data can be found on these two Google spreadsheets.

Results

Obviously, the Celtics and Lakers easily topped the list of most NBA championships. Here’s the top 10 accompanied by the number of titles the franchise has won:

1. Boston Celtics (16)
2. Los Angeles Lakers (13)
3. Chicago Bulls (6)
4. San Antonio Spurs (4)
5. Detroit Pistons (3)
6. Golden State Warriors (2)
7. Philadelphia 76ers (2)
8. New York Knicks (2)
9. Houston Rockets (2)
seven teams tied with 1 championship

Due to this huge advantage in titles won, Boston and the Lakers will have solidified the top 2 spots in our historical rankings. However, there were still some interesting findings. I was surprised to discover that Golden State had as many championships as the Knicks. And once again, my eyes were opened to the true greatness of Tim Duncan.

The next variable I looked at, all-time winning percentage, bore testament once again to the two premier franchises in the NBA. Here are the top 10 historical winning percentages:

1. Los Angeles Lakers (.618)
2. San Antonio Spurs (.595)
3. Boston Celtics (.587)
4. Phoenix Suns (.556)
5. Utah Jazz (.538)
6. Milwaukee Bucks (.532)
7. Seattle Supersonics (.531)
8. Philadelphia 76ers (.528)
9. Portland Trailblazers (.528)
10. Chicago Bulls (.512)

Here is where I felt a little bit educated, as I “picked” 8 out of the 10 most winning franchises in the league’s history. However, I was definitely taken aback by how consistently good the Suns have been, while never getting over the hump. And it was also a tad surprising that the Bucks and Jazz have been so good for so long.

The amount of HOFers to have played for a franchise was easily the most surprising discovery. Well, except the top 2 of course:

1. Boston Celtics (25)
2. Los Angeles Lakers (17)
3. Detroit Pistons (14)
4. Golden State Warriors (11)
5. Philadelphia 76ers (10)
6. New York Knicks (10)
7. Atlanta Hawks (10)
8. Sacramento Kings (9)
9. Milwaukee Bucks (8)
10. Houston Rockets (7)

Once again the Celtics and Lakers are tops, but as we move down the list there are some eye-openers. I would have never guessed the Hawks to have fielded so many Hall of Fame caliber players or for the Kings to have so many either. But as stated before, a guy only had to play one game to get counted as a HOFer for a franchise; ergo, the low weight of this variable.

These scores were added up, giving us a top 10 that looked like this:

1.Boston Celtics
2. Los Angeles Lakers
3. Chicago Bulls
4. Detroit Pistons
5. San Antonio Spurs
6. Golden State Warriors
7. Philadelphia 76ers
8. New York Knicks
9. Houston Rockets
10. Atlanta Hawks

Clearly I underestimated the historical relevance of both the Warriors and Hawks while slightly overstating the importance of the Knicks and 76ers. But when we add in the rating based on percentage of league history that a team has been a part of, the list looks like this:

1. Boston Celtics
2. Los Angeles Lakers
3. Detroit Pistons
4. Chicago Bulls
5. Golden State Warriors
6. Philadelphia 76ers
7. New York Knicks
8. Atlanta Hawks
9. Sacramento Kings
10. Houston Rockets

Being a relatively new franchise hurt the Spurs, as they dropped out of the top 10 when compared over the span of the league. And helped along by their inclusion as an original NBA team, the Kings make a surprising re-entry in to the realm of historical importance.

Conclusion

When people talk about the Celtics and Lakers being the cornerstone franchises of the NBA they are totally correct. In basically every statistical measure they rank at the top and they have been a part of the league since its inception. However, I (and I would assume many others my age) was unaware of how truly great the Warriors and Hawks are. Since I’ve followed the NBA, both of these teams have been mostly irrelevant, but the data shows that they are among the most important teams over the course of time. Unfortunately, this only exacerbates the frustration that fans must feel while watching their team be run in to the ground. Nonetheless, it never hurts to understand just where a team has been. In some ways, it can be the best way of knowing what the future holds.