The History of Champions

anique_24 · Aug 17, 2009

We all know that the Boston Celtics and L.A. Lakers have a history of winning NBA championships. A whole bunch of NBA championships. The math shows that since the NBA started in 1946, those two franchises have won just over half of all the championships that have been played in the last 63 years. So we get it. These guys win.

But the story of champions runs so much deeper than just these two franchises. There are 28 other teams, after all, and each one of them tells their own story. Well, not each one of them since there are 14 NBA franchises right now that have never actually won a championship series, and 7 of those have never even made it to the NBA Finals. But the bottom line is this: champions are a special breed, and whether that be coaches, players, or teams, the history they leave behind is certainly worth exploring, as we'll see today by running through some stats and factoids about the game of basketball's biggest stage.

Individual Champions

There are only 24 players in NBA history that have won five or more championship rings, and the top eight guys on that list won all of theirs with the Boston Celtics:

Bill Russell (11 rings)
Sam Jones (10)
Tom Heinsohn (8)
K.C. Jones (8)
Tom Sanders (8)
John Havlicek (8)
Jim Loscutoff (7)
Frank Ramsey (7)

With seven rings of his own, Robert Horry is the first guy on this list to have never played a single game for the Boston Celtics. Two of his came early in his career with the Houston Rockets, then he won three more with the Lakers and two more with the Spurs.

The only other player to have won rings with three different teams is John "Spider" Salley, who won two with Detroit and one apiece in Chicago and Los Angeles.

Of course, each Finals series has its Most Valuable Player, and while every Finals since 1969 has awarded a series MVP, only four players have taken home that particular trophy three or more times. Michael Jordan, with six, quite easily has more Finals MVP awards than anybody in history. Second place only boasts half that many:

Michael Jordan (6 Finals MVP awards)
Magic Johnson (3)
Tim Duncan (3)
Shaquille O'Neal (3)

Winning isn't just about the players, though. There are only five coaches in NBA history that have won more than two championships They are:

Phil Jackson (10 championships, 6 with Chicago, 4 with L.A.)
Red Auerbach (9 championships, all with Boston)
Pat Riley (5, 4 with L.A., 1 with Miami)
John Kundla (5, all with Minneapolis Lakers in the '40s and '50s)
Gregg Popovich (4, all with San Antonio)

Team Champions

All these famous individual names play into the bigger picture—teams winning rings. Boston, for example, is well-known for having won every championship between 1959 and 1966. That's 8 in a row. And if it weren't the Philadelphia 76ers in 1967, they would've won 11 in a row. Ten out of eleven isn't too bad though, is it?

That stretch of eight straight championships is pretty easily the most consecutive in league history, with no one else ever having even won four in a row. There were four other teams, however, that managed three-peats at one time or another.

1952-54 Minneapolis Lakers
1991-93 Chicago Bulls
1996-98 Chicago Bulls
2000-02 L.A. Lakers.

Winning three championships in a row might not seem like much compared to the Celtics incredible run in the '50s and '60s, but considering that outside of the Lakers, Celtics, and Bulls only four other teams have won that many titles period, it becomes considerably more impressive. As far as total franchise championships in concerned, here's what the list looks like:

Boston Celtics (17)
L.A. Lakers (15)
Chicago Bulls (6)
San Antonio Spurs (4)
Philadelphia 76ers (3)
Detroit Pistons (3)
Golden State Warriors (3)

Because of their slight edge in the rings department, many people consider the Boston Celtics the greatest NBA team of all time. When one considers the fact that they're 17-3 all time in Finals appearances, it's hard to debate that fact.

The Lakers, however, despite being only .500 in Finals appearances, have made it to the Big Dance ten more times than the Celtics. That means in 30 of the 63 NBA Finals, the Lakers have been in attendance. Whether they win or not, doesn't that give them an argument for greatest of all time?

Surprisingly, the team with the third most Finals appearances is the Philadelphia 76ers with 9. They won only three of those, however. The rest of the list goes as follows:

L.A. Lakers (30 NBA Finals appearances)
Boston Celtics (20)
Philadelphia 76ers (9)
New York Knicks (8)
Detroit Pistons (7)
Chicago Bulls (6)
Golden State Warriors (6)

The Chicago Bulls (6-0) and San Antonio Spurs (4-0) are the only teams to have played in more than one NBA Finals and still remained undefeated on that stage. In a way this makes them the winningest teams in Finals history, if only by measure of winning percentage.

It's hard not to be overwhelmed by some of the statistics, especially when it comes to the Lakers and Celtics, but being a champion extends far beyond the city limits of Los Angeles and Boston (and Minneapolis, I suppose). To think that there's so much more history to come, and that all these young player and young teams are hungry to make their own mark on this list—it's part of what makes the game of basketball so great. Sure, the Lakers and Celtics have won the last two championships, but they can't win every year. Half of the time, somebody else does.

Who will it be this year?
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The History of Champions

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