http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bill-russells-celtics-were-great-tim-duncans-spurs-have-been-better/

(Just got sports wood)

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The longest streak of above-average play belongs to the San Antonio Spurs. Their Elo rating rose above 1500 on Jan. 3, 1998, and hasn't fallen below it since, a period that covers more than 17 years, or 1,644 games1 and counting. That's impressive even compared to the Celtics, who had an above-average Elo rating from March 14, 1956 to Nov. 12, 1969. Insanely great 13.5 years and 1,198 games but not as great as the Spurs.

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Look at average ELO rank and only the Jordan Bulls are better than the Spurs.

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We can also assign an overall score to each dynasty by taking a team's average Elo rating during the streak, subtracting the league-average rating of 1500, and multiplying it by the number of games the streak lasted.2 Overall, this method has the Spurs way out in front 40 percent better than any other dynasty. The 1980s Lakers are in second, while the 1990s Bulls jump ahead of the 1960s Celtics to place third.

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Everyone always talks about the tons of Celtics rings from the 60s. Nate Silver compensated for that in comparing current teams to back then:

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But there's something to keep in mind when you consider the 1960s Celtics and their rings. It's much easier to win a championship in a 10-team league, like the NBA was, on average, when they were playing, than in the 30-team league we have now.Here's an illustration of that. I divided the 30 current NBA franchises into three "leagues" of 10 teams each:

• The Eastern League consists of franchises currently in the NBA's Atlantic and Southeast divisions.
• The Central League consists of franchises currently in the Central and Southwest divisions.
• The Western League includes franchises from the Pacific and Northwest divisions.

Then, for each season since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976-77, I assigned a champion to each "league" based on which of its 10 teams advanced furthest in the actual NBA playoffs. When there were ties for instance, if the last two teams from a "league" were both eliminated in the NBA conference finals I broke them based on which team had the higher year-end Elo rating. Check out what happens:

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• The 1980s Lakers win eight championships in a row and 10 championships in 12 years, pretty much matching the 1960s Celtics.
• Tim Duncan's Spurs win 10 titles (and counting), instead of five.
• Larry Bird wins eight rings including five in a row instead of three.
• LeBron James wins six consecutive championships two with the Cavaliers of the Central League and four with the Heat of the Eastern League and is in contention for a seventh this year.
• The New York Knicks have a mini-dynasty, winning the Eastern League five times in eight seasons from 1993 to 2000.
• The Oklahoma City Thunder, rather than missing their window, win four straight Western League championships from 2011 to 2014.
• Karl Malone and John Stockton are three-time champions instead of perennial bridesmaids.
• The New Jersey Nets three-peat in the Eastern League from 2002 to 2004.

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By that calculation, the Celtics' 11 championships are equivalent to three or four championships in a 30-team league.

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I came to a similar conclusion a couple of years ago in a thread a couple of years ago, but am too lazy to look it up. It was before this last championship and had it 1. Bulls, 2. Spurs , 3. Celtics given the size of the league at the time of the dynasty & pre free agency. It got ridiculed at the time, but I like his approach as well.

Good article. People sometimes minimize the accomplishments of teams/players if they don't win the championship (even if they had a great season). IMO, dynasties are not solely defined by championships. The Spurs and the Patriots have not won every year, but they've been consistently very good.

I like his creativity, I just think he went about it in a really odd way from a statistics standpoint (highest streak of above-average play?). I just think it's not something you can really measure because the league, the make-up of the league (player, coaches, everything, etc.), and really just about everything are so different than the Russell era Celtics. I think the Spurs or Bulls are about as close as you can get. Also, I think Jordan's Bulls get penalized because he retired for two seasons (those two seasons they included in the Bulls dynasty measurement).

Tl;dr In my opinion, really odd way to measure this but I think the Bulls or Spurs are comparable when you adjust for all the changes that have happened (even though there really is no way to do that).

Also, what makes his approach even weirder, is that of the top 7 ELO seasons of all time, MJ's Bulls have 4 of them, with this season's Warriors, the 86 Celtics, and some Kobe Lakers team taking the other 3 spots.

Also, if no one knows how ELO works, this is an explanation:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-we-calculate-nba-elo-ratings/

But the 94-95 Bulls were still at least contenders. They won 55 games and took the Knicks (East Champions) to 7 games. Pippen had an incredible (but vastly overlooked season) with 22p/9r/6a/2.9s and was easily the best wing defender in the league.

I definitely think the 6 Bulls titles should be linked despite not having Jordan for a while.


Spurs lowest rating was 1542 when they started 4-6 in the 09-10 year, which was easily the worst Spurs team since the lottery. After starting 4-6, they won the next 5 and finished with their worst record in the Tim Duncan era - 50-32.

The ELO explanation says both regular season and playoff games are included in the calculation. Do you know if they are equally weighted?

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The ELO explanation says both regular season and playoff games are included in the calculation. Do you know if they are equally weighted?

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I think they are weighted the same because it is zero sum and it is a playoff game for both teams. The biggest reason you gain more points is by beating the spread through an upset or blowout.

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5 trophies help.

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Maybe he has 5 degrees?

In the original article they discuss how expansion of the league has made it more difficult to repeat as champion, as it is tougher to win & repeat as champions in a 30-team league vs. a 10-team league, and by itself, that is debatable. The author uses the example of the expectation that if there were two teams, you would expect to win the championship about 50% of the time, which is true, if the teams were nearly evenly distributed, or talent doesn't move around.

However, if they aren't, and one team starts with a stacked team, one team will not lose, and it doesn't matter if there are only two teams are 120 teams.

It matters how the talent is distributed and able to move around that makes the Duncan era more impressive. Stacked teams could stay together back then, but because of the free agency and the salary cap, the talent is more distributed and is constantly redistributing itself. To me, that is what makes the Duncan teams the most impressive...it isn't necessarily the number of teams, it is the number of teams combined with free agency and the salary cap. Without re-distribution of talent, dynasties are more likely to happen, whether a 10 team league or 120.

And he is absolutely correct about the impact of international players

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In the original article they discuss how expansion of the league has made it more difficult to repeat as champion, as it is tougher to win & repeat as champions in a 30-team league vs. a 10-team league, and by itself, that is debatable. The author uses the example of the expectation that if there were two teams, you would expect to win the championship about 50% of the time, which is true, if the teams were nearly evenly distributed, or talent doesn't move around.

However, if they aren't, and one team starts with a stacked team, one team will not lose, and it doesn't matter if there are only two teams are 120 teams.

It matters how the talent is distributed and able to move around that makes the Duncan era more impressive. Stacked teams could stay together back then, but because of the free agency and the salary cap, the talent is more distributed and is constantly redistributing itself. To me, that is what makes the Duncan teams the most impressive...it isn't necessarily the number of teams, it is the number of teams combined with free agency and the salary cap. Without re-distribution of talent, dynasties are more likely to happen, whether a 10 team league or 120.

And he is absolutely correct about the impact of international players

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Yeah I was also surprised he didn't speak more to the impact of the free agency era. Good points, Iowa.

Ridiculous assertion