NBA Fact or Fiction: Can the Thunder win it all without playoff scars?

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Each week during the 2023-24 NBA season, we will take a deeper dive into some of the league’s biggest storylines in an attempt to determine whether the trends are based more in fact or fiction moving forward.

[Last week: Is Nuggets-Celtics the NBA Finals we deserve?]

This week’s topic: The Thunder don’t need playoff scars

There was once a recipe to the NBA title, one the Chicago Bulls followed from the 1980s into a dynasty.

They drafted Michael Jordan in 1984, made their first playoff appearance with him a year later, lost a pair of first-round series to the three-time champion Boston Celtics, reached the second round in 1988, where they lost the first of three straight series to the two-time champion Detroit Pistons, including back-to-back conference finals, and broke through in 1991, defeating the five-time champion Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals.

It was a slow build. They used to call them playoff scars, and most every champion developed them. It may be the player empowerment era, but title-winners still follow this recipe, unless they acquire LeBron James.

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The Minneapolis Lakers won the 1948 NBL and 1949 BAA championships before winning four of five titles to launch the NBA into the 1950s. The league’s next six first-time champions — the 1951 Rochester Royals, 1955 Syracuse Nationals, 1956 Philadelphia Warriors, 1957 Boston Celtics, 1958 St. Louis Hawks and 1967 Philadelphia 76ers — each lost to a championship team before beating another to become one.

(We are defining “first-time champions” here as a core’s first title together. Bill Russell’s Celtics won for the first time in 1957. The 1970s, 1980s and 2008 Celtics were different iterations, each with their own first.)

Likewise, the New York Knicks lost to the eventual champion three straight years before winning in 1970, following Russell’s retirement from the Celtics. All but five of the NBA’s 33 first-time champions have lost to another champion within four years of winning their own — the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers, the 1981 Celtics, the 2004 Pistons, the 2008 Celtics and the 2020 Lakers….

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Publish date : 2024-03-15 13:56:54

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