The Golden State Warriors spent most of this season chasing history, battling with the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls for the title of greatest NBA team of all time. With a Game 7 finals loss to the Cavaliers, it’s clear that they came up short. But how far down the rankings did they fall?
A month ago, we took a slightly premature look at Golden State’s all-time ranking using Elo ratings, a simple measure of relative team strength based on head-to-head results (we use it here a lot). We generated a single value for each season in NBA history by blending each team’s peak, average and final Elo rating (since these ratings are based only on game-by-game results, they don’t take into account whether a team actually won or lost the title). When that article was published — with the Western Conference finals tied at one game apiece — the Warriors’ playoff record was 9-3, and their blended Elo of 1813 was just a hair behind the 1815 rating held by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls. A title, even with a couple more losses along the way, would have all but guaranteed them the top spot.
And then they blew it. Golden State went 6-6 during the rest of the playoffs, getting outscored by 32 points in the process. Their updated rating of 1798 puts them in third, below both the 1995-96 and 1996-97 Bulls:
| SEASON ELO | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEASON | TEAM | TITLE | PEAK | AVG | END | BLEND | |
| 1 | 1995-96 | Chicago Bulls | 1853 | 1770 | 1823 | 1815 | |
| 2 | 1996-97 | Chicago Bulls | 1811 | 1792 | 1802 | 1802 | |
| 3 | 2015-16 | Golden State Warriors | 1839 | 1800 | 1756 | 1798 | |
| 4 | 2014-15 | Golden State Warriors | 1822 | 1745 | 1822 | 1796 | |
| 5 | 1985-86 | Boston Celtics | 1816 | 1735 | 1801 | 1784 | |
| 6 | 2015-16 | San Antonio Spurs | 1800 | 1768 | 1759 | 1776 | |
| 7 | 2008-09 | Los Angeles Lakers | 1790 | 1726 | 1790 | 1769 | |
| 8 | 1991-92 | Chicago Bulls | 1782 | 1759 | 1762 | 1768 | |
| 9 | 1997-98 | Chicago Bulls | 1788 | 1719 | 1785 | 1764 | |
| 10 | 1990-91 | Chicago Bulls | 1785 | 1693 | 1785 | 1755 | |
| 11 | 1988-89 | Detroit Pistons | 1788 | 1675 | 1788 | 1750 | |
| 12 | 1982-83 | Philadelphia 76ers | 1777 | 1731 | 1739 | 1749 | |
| 13 | 2012-13 | Miami Heat | 1774 | 1715 | 1754 | 1748 | |
| 14 | 2013-14 | San Antonio Spurs | 1764 | 1696 | 1764 | 1742 | |
| 15 | 2008-09 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 1765 | 1708 | 1742 | 1738 | |
| 16 | 1984-85 | Los Angeles Lakers | 1764 | 1680 | 1764 | 1736 | |
| 17 | 1996-97 | Utah Jazz | 1764 | 1693 | 1748 | 1735 | |
| 18 | 1966-67 | Philadelphia 76ers | 1755 | 1715 | 1733 | 1734 | |
| 19 | 1997-98 | Utah Jazz | 1766 | 1695 | 1737 | 1733 | |
| 20 | 1971-72 | Los Angeles Lakers | 1753 | 1717 | 1726 | 1732 | |
| 21 | 2009-10 | Orlando Magic | 1782 | 1669 | 1744 | 1732 | |
| 22 | 2000-01 | Los Angeles Lakers | 1779 | 1634 | 1779 | 1731 | |
| 23 | 2002-03 | San Antonio Spurs | 1757 | 1674 | 1757 | 1730 | |
| 24 | 1986-87 | Los Angeles Lakers | 1750 | 1699 | 1740 | 1730 | |
| 25 | 2015-16 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 1759 | 1670 | 1759 | 1729 | |
| 26 | 2004-05 | San Antonio Spurs | 1771 | 1719 | 1696 | 1729 | |
| 27 | 1998-99 | San Antonio Spurs | 1756 | 1674 | 1756 | 1728 | |
| 28 | 2003-04 | San Antonio Spurs | 1764 | 1696 | 1719 | 1726 | |
| 29 | 2015-16 | Oklahoma City Thunder | 1767 | 1666 | 1744 | 1726 | |
| 30 | 2011-12 | San Antonio Spurs | 1771 | 1671 | 1733 | 1725 | |
Again, these ratings are championship-agnostic, so the Warriors and Spurs are ranked much higher than you’d expect. (This wasn’t really much of an issue until this season. Through 2015, the 12 highest-ranked teams ever all won titles.) There’s also some recency bias here — fewer teams, shorter seasons and shorter playoffs in earlier NBA decades made it harder to accumulate a really high rating — but it’s still clear that the 2015-16 season was something special. Only four teams really threatened for the title at various parts of the season, and all four ended up ranked in the Top 30 all-time. The Warriors may not have ended up as the greatest team ever, but no “second-best” team was ever stronger than the Spurs, no third-best stronger than the Cavaliers, and no fourth-best stronger than the Thunder. Not even close:
For now, these same four teams have the best odds of winning the 2016-17 title, by a wide margin. The Bulls may stay unsurpassed, but it’s hard to imagine we’ll see a season as great as the one we just witnessed any time soon.
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