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In honor of the NBA’s 75th anniversary, I thought it would be fitting to rank every single NBA championship ever won from most difficult to least difficult, and the way I chose to rank them is with the SRS statistic (Simple Rating System), which takes into account a team’s strength of schedule and average point differential per game to give a fairly accurate assessment of how good a team was in the regular season. For instance, the 2020-21 Milwaukee Bucks won games by an average of 5.89 points per game and played a schedule against opponents that were 0.32 points worse than average, giving them an SRS of 5.57, which was 4th in the league last season behind the Jazz, Clippers, and Suns. The main reason I chose SRS specifically was because it is always going to work the same no matter what the era is, so there’s no adjusting necessary.Â
The formula I used to compute how difficult each championship was is relatively simple: I just subtracted the average SRS of each championship team’s playoff competition from the SRS of the championship team. If a championship team’s playoff competition on average had a lower SRS than theirs, they would have a positive number, and the opposite is true for a championship team that faced playoff competition with an average SRS higher than theirs. Because of this, the lower the number, the tougher the championship was. This formula doesn’t just take into account how good a team’s playoff competition was, it puts that against how good the actual championship winning team was. Now, this statistic, like every other one, has its flaws:
There is no SRS stat for the playoffs so I have to use regular season SRS to compare teams. How teams play in the regular season vs the playoffs are very different.
SRS does not account for playoff injuries
A team’s championship difficulty may be inflated because of one anomaly team. For example, the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers faced relatively easy Eastern Conference playoff competition, with the average SRS of the teams they faced in the East being 2.78 points lower than their own. However, because their Finals opponent, the 2016 Warriors, had an SRS that was almost 5 points higher than their own, that significantly increased the difficulty of their championship, which boosted them higher on this list
That being said, here is the list of the most difficult NBA championships ever won, from most difficult to least difficult:
1995 Rockets: -3.67
2001 Lakers: -1.80
1978 Bullets: -1.54
1979 Supersonics: -1.06
1954 Lakers: -0.54
1958 Hawks: -0.53
1994 Rockets: -0.27
2011 Mavericks: -0.20
1973 Knicks: -0.05
1975 Warriors: 0.12
1968 Celtics: 0.12
2006 Heat: 0.14
1974 Celtics: 0.14
1955 Nationals: 0.24
2010 Lakers: 0.55
1969 Celtics: 0.65
2016 Cavaliers: 0.86
1947 Warriors: 1.07
2019 Raptors: 1.24
1976 Celtics: 1.31
1951 Royals: 1.38
2003 Spurs: 1.50
1966 Celtics: 1.69
1982 Lakers: 1.71
1993 Bulls: 1.75
1948 Bullets: 1.81
2002 Lakers: 1.96
2004 Pistons: 2.15
2012 Heat: 2.30
1977 Blazers: 2.32
1961 Celtics: 2.48
2018 Warriors: 2.50
1964 Celtics: 2.51
1980 Lakers: 2.52
2021 Bucks: 2.57
1981 Celtics: 2.75
1989 Pistons: 2.77
1949 Lakers: 2.81
1990 Pistons: 2.96
1988 Lakers: 3.06
1998 Bulls: 3.16
2009 Lakers: 3.20
2014 Spurs: 3.46
1956 Warriors: 3.51
1983 76ers: 3.54
2000 Lakers: 3.71
1967 76ers: 3.71
2005 Spurs: 4.04
1952 Lakers: 4.06
1984 Celtics: 4.22
1985 Lakers: 4.24
2020 Lakers: 4.42
1963 Celtics: 4.43
2007 Spurs: 4.51
1959 Celtics: 4.68
1972 Lakers: 4.69
1999 Spurs: 4.72
1953 Lakers: 4.79
2013 Heat: 4.99
1950 Lakers: 5.05
1960 Celtics: 5.35
1957 Celtics: 5.43
1997 Bulls: 5.50
1970 Knicks: 5.77
1962 Celtics: 6.04
1991 Bulls: 6.32
2008 Celtics: 6.49
1986 Celtics: 6.50
1965 Celtics: 6.68
2015 Warriors: 6.85
1992 Bulls: 7.07
1987 Lakers: 7.36
1996 Bulls: 7.68
2017 Warriors: 7.91
1971 Bucks: 10.80
Is there anything here that jumps out at you, or are you surprised at any team’s particular placement on the list? What in your opinion is the most difficult championship in NBA history? Is using SRS in this way a good or awful method to calculate how difficult each championship was? Let me know your thoughts below!
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