"Bill Russell’s Celtics Were Great. Tim Duncan’s Spurs Have Been Better."

"Bill Russell’s Celtics Were Great. Tim Duncan’s Spurs Have Been Better."

This is not an opinion piece from a hack sportscaster, but a statistical analysis by Nate Silver.

The 11 titles by the Celtics aren't as impressive as they appear at first glance because they won the first nine of those titles in an eight-team (four times) or nine-team league (five times) in which the playoffs could be laughable.

In 1965-66, the first round of the playoffs featured the 36-44 Hawks against the 38-42 Bullets. In 1960-61, it was the 36-43 Lakers against the 34-45 Pistons.

My favorite year was 1956-57, in which every round was laughable. The St. Louis Hawks won the West with a 34-38 record, and they persevered through their pathetic Division until they made it to the finals, which the Celtics struggled to win 4-3.

In 1958-59, The Detroit Pistons made the playoffs with a record of 28-44. The following year, the Lakers topped that by making it with a sterling 25-50.

Moreover, the top team in each division got a first-round bye in those first nine championship seasons, so a championship could be won by winning only two series in the post-season.

My own thoughts lead to the same conclusion, but from a slightly different direction. The number of playoff rounds is the real key to the decreased likelihood of winning in today's league because it is the playoffs, not the regular season, which determine the champion. Last year's Spurs finished first out of 30 teams and had to win four post-season series to get the rings. Assuming that the better team has about a 70% chance of winning each series on average, the odds of winning two in a row are 49%, while the odds of winning four drop to about half of that, therefore making it approximately twice as hard to win a championship today.

Silver's estimate is quite consistent with that. He suggests that the Spurs' five titles are worth ten in the context of a ten-team league, and that the Lakers in that context would have won ten titles from 1979-80 until 1990-91 rather than the five they actually won.

By the way, his calculations show that Dennis Rodman would have seven rings in the old-time context, three with the Bulls and four with the Pistons.

I have written about this same issue when discussing baseball. There is a good reason why nobody will ever equal the Yankees' feat of appearing in 14 World Series in 16 years. Playoffs. The Yankees never had to survive them. To make the Series with such consistency in today's world, with multiple layers of playoffs, would require a statistical fluke approximately as unlikely as raising Lazarus from the dead.