Missing Rings: 2000s Edition (Part III)
Posted by Neil Paine on January 16, 2009
Okay, you've been waiting for it and here it is, our list of the 5 best teams since 1999-2000 (based on regular-season and playoff pythagorean win %, adjusted for home/road performance, strength of schedule, and league competitive balance) that failed to win a title...
The Spurs make a ton of appearances on this list; in addition to their 3 titles this decade, they've also had a number of near-misses, which I suppose is one of the consequences of being a contender every single year (since 2000, their average season has consisted of 58 wins and a 6.81 SRS). In '06, they came particularly close to greatness, falling in overtime of Game 7 against Dallas in the Western Conference Semifinals. People forget that San Antonio actually led the Mavs 104-101 with 32 seconds left in that game, but Manu Ginobili's foul on Dirk Nowitzki with 21 seconds left led to a 3-point play which forced OT, where Dallas outscored the Spurs 15-7. It was an unfortunate end to a banner season for San Antonio, who set a new franchise record with 63 wins and led the NBA in defensive efficiency and SRS. In an alternate universe where Ginobili heeds Gregg Popovich's exhortations to not foul, there's a good chance the Spurs -- whose defense was far better equipped to stop Dwyane Wade than Dallas' -- win 3 straight titles from 2005-2007.
It was as evenly-matched a series as you'll ever find in the NBA, and the long-suffering Kings had clawed their way to a 3-2 advantage by gutting out a 92-91 victory in Game 5. The 2-time defending champion Lakers were on the ropes, especially considering the fact that they'd have already been eliminated if not for Robert Horry's miracle buzzer-beater in Game 4 (or Samaki Walker's 3-pointer to end of the 1st half, which counted despite clearly being released after the buzzer sounded). Then came Game 6, one of the most controversial games in sports history (even before Tim Donaghy's allegations). I don't want to get into the merits of some of those calls against Sacramento (though our friend Roland Beech has a very good breakdown here), but I will say that this was the high-water mark for the Kings, and obviously the absolute best chance their early-2000s team had to win a championship. They were the NBA's best team by SRS that season and essentially equal to L.A. by the method I'm using to rank teams here; East champ New Jersey would not have stood any more of a chance against the Kings in the NBA Finals than they ultimately did against the Lakers (who swept them 4-0). So for better or for worse, the WCF was the de facto Finals that year, and it's a terrible shame that such a great matchup and an intense rivalry had to end under such controversy. Both teams -- and, more importantly, we the fans -- deserved better.
When considering home/road splits and playoff performance, the Mavs slightly edge out the Spurs in '06 despite a lower SRS. That's because Dallas also had to close out a tough Phoenix team (one which made our honorable mention list) in the Conference Finals, and they were only outscored by 1 PPG on average in the Finals. This team seemingly had a title firmly in its grasp, up 2-0 on the Heat and leading by 13 with 6:34 to go in Game 3... but then Dwyane Wade took over the series, rallying Miami all the way back to a 98-96 win (a possible game-tying FT missed by Dirk Nowitzki with 3.4 seconds left didn't help Dallas' cause, either). Wade would go on to torment the Mavs for the rest of the series, averaging 34.7 PPG en route to MVP honors; Avery Johnson threw everything he had -- Adrian Griffin, Marquis Daniels, Devin Harris, Josh Howard, and a variety of zone looks -- at Wade, but ultimately no one could stop him when he made up his mind to attack the basket. The Heat were a team that peaked at the right time, and the Wade-Shaq tandem was tailor-made to exploit the Mavs' defensive weaknesses, but it's worth remembering that Dallas had a fantastic season and were close to winning this series (despite Wade's heroics) if not for a few late-game miscues.
Oddly enough, the Mavs' '06 Finals team wasn't even their best of the 2000s -- that honor belongs instead to the 2003 team, which boasted the league's top SRS by a wide margin and had one of the best offenses in NBA history (who else misses the Steve Nash/Dirk Nowitzki pairing?). They tied San Antonio for the league's best record with 60 wins, and ran through a brutal playoff gauntlet which included Portland (6th in SRS), Sacramento (2nd in SRS, albeit with Chris Webber suffering an untimely injury in Game 2), and finally San Antonio (3rd in SRS). If not for some clutch long-range shooting from Steve Kerr late in Game 6, the Mavs could very well have advanced to the Finals, where they would likely have been favored over the Nets. Most people will look back and see the 2006 Dallas team that squandered a 2-0 Finals lead over Miami as the Mavericks' best Nowitzki-era team, but the numbers show that the 2002-03 version was in fact Dallas' top squad of the decade.
Not the team you were expecting, right? Well, look at the numbers: At 58-24, San Antonio sported the league's best record. They led the league in pythagorean wins with 62.7. They were 6th in offense, and were #1 in defense. Their 7.92 SRS was by far the best in the league (Sacramento's 6.07 and Utah's 5.00 ranked a distant 2nd and 3rd, respectively). The 2001 Spurs were simply dominant for most of the season, and they did it in the most competitively-balanced league of the decade. Under the formula outlined here, they were 1.920 standard deviations above an average team, which was one of the best marks of any team, champion or otherwise, during the 2000s.
Unfortunately, the Spurs' '01 campaign has a pretty glaring flaw -- they were outclassed in every sense of the word by the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. L.A. had battled injuries all year long (Derek Fisher missed 62 games, Ron Harper missed 35, and Kobe Bryant sat out 14), plus -- let's be real about it -- they also coasted big-time during the regular-season, assuming they could "turn it on" come May. And boy, did they ever. They only lost once during the playoffs, and they toasted the Spurs by an average margin of 22.3 PPG in a devastating 4-game sweep.
Still, the Spurs were clearly the 2nd-best team in the NBA in 2001, and though their regular-season numbers won't show it, the 2001 Lakers (playoff version) were just about as dominating a force as any team in league history. The way they exited the playoffs was admittedly embarrassing, but that's no reason to forget the '01 Spurs' legitimately great full-season performance.
January 16th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Odd to omit that the Mavs lost Dirk to an injury in Game 3 of that 2003 series with the Spurs...
Also, as a Mavs fan, I'm obligated to mention that the style in which the referees chose to officiate Wade during the 2006 Finals was at the very least questionable.
http://www.82games.com/game5refs.htm
http://www.streethop.com/sports/48308-tracy-mcgrady-said-2006-nba-finals-rigged.html
January 16th, 2009 at 11:58 am
The 2001 Spurs were probably just another good regular season team. Derek Anderson was hurt in the playoffs but I doubt he would've helped them avoid being blown off the floor in the West Finals against LA. The 2002 Kings were probably the best team not to win one.
January 16th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
That's a terrific point about the Nowitzki injury, which obviously changed the entire complexion of that series. And they were still right there at the end, if not for Kerr and Stephen Jackson making some ridiculously clutch shots. But I wanted to focus on the quality of that team over the entire season -- I don't think a lot of people appreciate just how good that team was, especially on offense. Nash and Nowitzki were a beautiful pairing to watch.
Regarding the refs, just like in the 2002 Kings-Lakers series, I don't really want to get into debating the calls too much. There's not a lot of use in making value judgments on calls that happened years ago, since none of us were ever NBA referees and we have a lot of benefits (hindsight, replays, etc.) that they didn't have at the time. Even with the Donaghy accusations, I think we have no choice but to believe the calls were made in good faith, lest the sanctity of the game become compromised forever. Were there bad calls in those series? Absolutely. But was it part of a conspiracy to rig games? I don't want to go down that road, because it leads to a place where we can't trust any of the games we watch, any of the numbers on this site, or any of the championship banners that hang in arenas around the league.
January 16th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Yeah, sorry, I hate to be so negative. Thanks for the list, though, and taking the time to put it together.
January 16th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
No problem. I empathize with the frustration Kings and Mavs fans must feel over those particular series -- to be that close, and to have the outcome swing on a circumstance beyond the team's control is tough to swallow. So it's perfectly understandable to still be upset about what happened.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Ugh. Any cite of Game 6 of the Lakers-Kings series in 2002 (especially if the mention is coupled with the legitimately bad call on Walker's halftime three in Game 4 that should not have counted) should also mention the horrifically one-sided officiating in Sacramento's favor in Games 2 and 5.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
If the Spurs hadn't won 3 times in 00's this list would depress me. But instead makes me happy that my team not only won 3 times but was probably (I said probably for you laker fans) the best team of the decade.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
I remember reading Dr. Jack Ramsay on ESPN's website previewing the 2001 Lakers-Spurs WCF, saying that there was no way the Lakers would cruise through that series and it would go seven games, with the Lakers winning...hard to remember now that the Spurs were so good that season because they got run over by the best postseason in history.
January 20th, 2009 at 4:59 am
The 2003 Mavs had an awesome record largely due to a 14-0 start to the season. Having to go through 7 games against Portland, and 7 games against a depleted Kings team (lost Webber through injury in Game 2) showed their mettle. Yes, they took the Spurs to 6, winning Game 1 ugly (each team shot 50 free throws and the Spurs aren't gonna win a free throw shooting contest), but those Spurs won every series in 6 that year with the Mavs series being arguably the least competitive. No. I think the 2006 Mavs team was much tougher.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Every Mavs fan ALWAYS mentions the officitaing crew in the Finals in regards to Wade. However, NO MAVS FAN mentions that same treatment Dirk got in the WCF against the Spurs that year.
Duncan fouled out because Dirk stepped on his shoe. Dirk gets the late game call on Ginobili, but seconds later, the refs swallow the whistles on a Duncan shot to win the game.
Face it Mavs fans, if you want to blame the refs for giving the Heat the title, you have to accept that the refs put you in the Finals in the first place.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:36 pm
The 2001 Spurs were incredibly good, and certainly were not just built for the regular season. If the Lakers had been in the East, the Spurs would have rolled to the finals easily, and a lot of people thought they would beat the Lakers until they played the games. Don't forget -- the Spurs swept the Lakers in '99 (pre-Phil, but they had Shaq and Kobe in place), and Duncan was injured for the 2000 playoffs, so the Lakers won that title without ever having to face off against the Spurs.
Of course, then they played the games, and we all know what happened there.
While 2001 was unfathomably painful -- Spurs fans expected our team to beat the Lakers now that Duncan was back and healthy, and the sweep was just plain brutal -- the toughest beats were definitely '04 and '06. A break here or there -- the 0.4 second shot, the foul on Dirk -- and we probably would have won the title (though the Pistons and Heat might have had something to say about that). Then again, in '03 we had Horry's in-and-out shot for the Lakers and Dirk's injury, in '05 we had the blown defense on the Horry shot at the buzzer against the Pistons, and in '07 we had the Suns suspensions -- though I think we win the Phoenix series even without those, personally.
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:54 am
Very nice Los Angeles Lakers information. I hope to be in Los Angeles for a game this spring.