How Many NBA Champions Were Lucky?

Next stop Vegas!

In 1984 the NBA removed the bye in the first round for top seeds. Since then, every title team has had to endure four round of pain to hoist a championship trophy — although, teams pre 2003 did enjoy the luxury of best of five first rounds.

I had an fun question: how often has a title team faced elimination? As the saying goes: any team can beat any other team on a given night (For example the powerhouse 72 win 1996 Chicago Bulls lost to both the Denver Nuggets and Toronto Raptors) If a title team faced elimination then you can call them a bit lucky. Let’s break it down.

And for those of you keeping score, here’s title teams that managed to avoid any season-ending games on their quest for greatness.

The final tally? Of the 29 playoffs played since the removal of the first round bye – 15 title teams have faced elimination, while 14 have avoided it completely. What’s more, 10 of our title teams faced multiple games where they could have gone home! The NBA is a lopsided league. Teams that win the title very rarely come as surprises. However, given the length of the playoffs, it is important to remember a little luck can come into play. More than half of all of our title winners in the last three decades could have gone home. A third of them courted disaster multiple times. When we reward title teams, we should accept they were top caliber teams that outplayed strong opponents. We should also remember, that many of them also had a little luck.

-Dre