Comments on: The 25 Biggest Playoff Series Upsets, 1991-2009

By: Roy Johnson

Roy Johnson — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:52:29 +0000

The fact that the Orlando/Cleveland series from last year is number 6 proves that this so called math stat system is flawed.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:35:24 +0000

RE: Charlie Ward

That's an utterly laughable premise and burden of proof is entirely on you there.

Did Charlie Ward improve greatly towards the end of the decade? Absolutely. Was he an underrated, solid NBA PG? Again, absolutely. But anyone claiming he was the best player on those teams is nuts. And any formula supporting that is a completely broken model.

Proving why Charlie Ward was not the best player on the Knicks in the late 90s is as unnecessary as defining 'the.'

By: Andres

Andres — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:23:35 +0000

The Knicks did some serious damage in 1999, though I think it should be noted that it was the lockout season, so only 40 or so games were played. The Knicks started off really poorly after trading for Sprewell and Camby, but they came on strong at the end of the season. Had it been a full 82 game season, I think they would have finished with better stats and those upsets wouldn't have been so glaring.

By: Fai

Fai — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:29:23 +0000

Warriors over the Mavs should've been first. There was NO way we were supposed to win that. Everyone already written us off and expected the mavs to either sweep us or at least take it to 5. That is by far the greatest upset in NBA Playoff History.

By: Greg Smith

Greg Smith — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:33:49 +0000

I'm very surprised the Rockets' 1995 Finals sweep of the Magic didn't make the list.

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:17:34 +0000

Sure, why not? Ward led the 98 Knicks in Win Shares as well:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/NYK/1998.html

Feel free to prove that he wasn't, though.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:01:50 +0000

Once again, we see how foolish some of these formulas are. Are we to believe that Charlie Ward was the best player, most valuable player, most critical player on the 98 and 99 Knicks?

By: Jason J

Jason J — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:41:48 +0000

My feeling on Charles / Karl has always been that I'd take Charles from '87 - '93, and Malone the rest of the way. Once Barkley slowed down to where he couldn't defend 3s anymore and Karl started really putting a lot of attention into good team defense, the gap opened up pretty significantly.

By: Romain

Romain — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:02:23 +0000

The Sonics also had a great run in 1993, they beat a really good Houston team in the 2nd round and it took an amazing Barkley to take them out in 7 in the WCF: 43 pts - 15 rbs - 10 asts in game 5 and 44 pts - 24 rbs in game 7 for Sir Charles !!!

This reminds me of how good Barkley was at his peak. People consider Karl Malone as a better PF mostly because he had an amazing longevity (13 straight years as a top 5 scorer, I'm not sure anyone else did that... maybe Jabbar?), but in terms of peak value I'm not sure he beats Barkley

By: Jason J

Jason J — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:29:22 +0000

Man, those 90's Sonics teams tremendously underperformed in the playoffs. You forget because they made it the one year, but they really had the best regular season team in the west from 1994-96 and fell crushingly early twice. I chose to blame Earvin Johnson, Derrick McKey, and the Sasquatch.

Jazz show up here a couple of times, too. Does that support the theory that Stockton and Malone couldn't raise their game in the post season or that their teammates were too reliant on them?