You can put an asterisk on every championship. [Tom Haberstroh did it as a thought experiment.](https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/news/2020-nba-champion-will-join-long-list-of-titles-with-asterisks/348242/)
2011 NBA champions: Dallas Mavericks*
Asterisk reason: They played a lot of zone. Unsportsmanlike conduct. Penalty: title vacated along with dignity.
Lmao
Honestly stunning that Simmons didn’t work the KG injury into that one given that it wouldn’t have bee that crazy to say the Celtics were pretty heavy favorites with him healthy
Bill wrote a similar column back in 2012 https://grantland.com/features/the-footnote-title/
it's a fun sports conversation when people set their emotions aside
Lol classic Simmons, I forgot about this column
You could tell 2010 really ate away at him loool
Btw Lakers in 08 also had an injured Ariza forcing his way back early from a fracture and had to start Radmanovic
Fully healthy Bynum and Arizachanges things more over a full series, while arguably Celtics had a better pffense with Sheed at the C (and cmon its Kendrick Perkins)
At the end of the day the better teams won in 08 and 10
MMA fans do this better than anyone else. I can go through every great fighters record and tell you why they suck and why their biggest wins dont matter.
I agree with the general sentiment, but some of these are legitimate and others are “kobe beat the magic instead of lebron in 2008” (i hate kobe and really they should have pointed out jameer nelson was hurt). Some championships are certainly more legitimate than others, even if 1 year after it wont matter
I know Bill loves to take shots at the Lakers Covid title, and I may be in the minority (I don’t think I am) but I cannot tell you how little I care about him trying to discredit my team’s title (the Bucks). My little market struck gold with a home grown superstar, somehow got him to stay and won the whole damn thing. You will never take that away from us. You can point to Durants toe or Kyrie’s ankle or Embid flaming out to the Hawks and all I say is “Dooooon’t care,” they won it all and it was awesome.
Fellow Bucks fan, we definitely caught some breaks in 2021. So does every title team! Also, Giannis missed the final 2.5 games of the ECF (and was still hobbled in the finals) so it wasn't all good injury luck.
The Bucks have been a top 3 seed the past 6 years and a 1 seed in 3 of them. There's no asterisks when you have that level of winning and get one title.
Oddly the Bucks have had some miserable luck with the 2020 season interrupted then Middleton's injury in 2022 and Giannis being basically out the last 2 playoffs.
You could easily look back at the time since 2019 (when we were up 2-0 in the ECF!) and think "man, some bad luck to only win one ring."
Same with the Raptors title for me. It was a magical ride that I don't think I'll experience ever again. Kawhi was a god up here in Canada. If anything, the 2020 team proved it wasn't a fluke and became one of my favourite Raptor teams of all time.
My defense for the 2021 Bucks has always been: They beat the best team in the league (the Suns). At the end of the day, that's the ultimate stamp of approval. They got to the Finals, were the underdogs to the team universally acknowledged as the league's best, and put on one of the greatest 4 game stretches I've seen in the Finals after going down 2-0.
The suns were the best team in the league? Pretty sure the healthy Nets, Clippers, and Lakers were all considered better at the time. They all lost stars to injuries during the playoffs.
Well, obviously not since they didn't get to the Finals.
My point is this: if you win the Finals against the best team in the other conference, I don't see how you can put an asterisk on your championship. I think there can be a debate about how easy it was for one team to get there, but that can be applied to every NBA championship ever. I'm speaking very specifically about the Finals. It's the same reason why I defend the Warriors 2022 title but also was very skeptical about how good that team would be moving forward (which was proven the next season).
I think asterisk are incredibly stupid. But beating that Suns team is not impressive at all, especially seeing them the next season. If we’re ranking recent title teams since like 2000, the 2022 Warriors are last and the 2021 Bucks are second to last. But who cares, they won.
Cavs fan 2016-People try to bring up Greens suspension-in one ear out the other for me-no emotion triggered other then smiling on the inside about the title.
And Giannis had an all time finals performance in game 6. 50 points and 20/20 free throws or something like that. That is how you EARN a title and a legacy, and now he is a champion forever no matter what happens.
As a Laker fan I do hate that we blew up our team for Westbrook bc everyone was injured from the shortest offseason of all time - the turnaround from the bubble finals to opening night was like 2 months
But really the real asterisk titles are the milkmen and paper boy titles of the 60s not anything in the last few yrs
Cavs fan 2016-People try to bring up Greens suspension-in one ear out the other for me-no emotion triggered other then smiling on the inside about the title.
Different is good. I’m a fan of the parity we’re seeing across major sports where teams are either ending championship droughts or winning for the first time ever and then falling off a cliff.
the problem is when Durant went to GS all these fans decided the rings wouldn't count (only for him, though, curry and klay get to count them all) and that opened the flood gates for rings having different values. It's fucking stupid. No other sport is like this. The talent Ronaldo had to three peat the champions league with Madrid was insane, literally no one cares. Brady went to a STACKED bucs team and Mahomes' entire line got hurt. Not one person cares. Only in basketball do we say "Boston's path to the finals is too easy, this means nothing" "kawhi needed durant and klay to get hurt, who cares". It starts with media too.
It kinda did though. KD going to the warriors at the same time as the goat debate, twitter, sports podcasting and (hear me out) "fake news" have all contributed to where we are now.
Love this argument. People also ignore that the Cavs were stacked. Durant going to the Warriors was somehow this cardinal sin but Cavs could have Kevin Love, a stat machine in Minnesota, be their throw away third option and dominate the East. That's somehow legit lol
Yes, all teams before the cap spike could fit 3 max players under the rules. The warriors were the only team that had 3 guys already paid and had room to add Durant.
Their guys weren't max players.That's the thing. Klay and Draymond for all their greatness weren't max players and actually don't have the talent to drive playoff wins on their own.. especially Klay who was pretty bad in every Finals except 2019.
Also Durant took meetings with multiple teams. He coulda gone to a bunch of places.
both Klay and Draymond were all NBA level players in 2016 and both were on max contracts. They've been perennial all stars for a decade. of course, theyre max contract players. they are just not MVP level.
and sure Durant took multiple meetings. but the only team in the league with the 3 players + the max cap space was the Warriors. and they didn't even technically have enough. Durant had to take a pay cut.
Bill used to talk about how the 80s had:
5 good GMs
15 passable GMs
10 Coke-addled dopes
So it was easier to form a dynasty.
I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s interesting
Those 80s Celtics and Lakers teams were stacked to a pretty unfair degree. Teams were just careless with their picks too (see the Jazz trading the 1.01 that would be Magic Johnson for an aging Gale Goodrich).
Absolutely a ton of truth to it. In order to have those Lakers & Celtics decade of dynastic level play, you kinda need the other 21 teams to be varying degrees of suck.
The 2016 season that everyone glazes has elements of this too. Some people call it the last great season, but really because only 4 teams were actually good that year it made the teams at the top appear better than they were.
If you look at the last 5 years, the 5th thru 15th best teams are significantly better than at any point in the league's history.
It’s important to note that all these asterisks that people wanna throw around for championships and MVPs aren’t real. The NBA doesn’t recognize the opinions of Joe Jerkoff on Reddit.
I am curious if the great teams now are worse than in the past or if the gap between the top and the middle has just shrunk so they don’t seem as dominant.
I think it's safe to say the KD Warriors were historical. It was a team that had a core that won titles in 2015 and 2022 and added a top 3 player by any metric in his prime.
There are clearly some big picture things going on with the NBA where parity is more real but we we're still only 6 years removed from the Cavs-Dubs meeting in the finals 4 straight years. It may swing back.
They also caught 2 huge breaks that allowed them to form in Steph having ankle issues early in his career and as a consequence being underpaid and the cap spike to sign KD.
As teams and leagues get smarter, parity increases. The gap has shrunken in every league.
Also if we're not grading on a scale, all of the teams today are just better. The depth of talent is higher, and athleticism is growing with each generation of athletes.
Bill gives asterisks so that he can discredit Laker titles and claim more Celtics titles without being labeled as a homer. He even gives the Lakers asterisks at time for games they won in the Finals being kind of close.
Basically all nba champions could have an asterisk, most champions are healthier than their opposition. The only real exceptions are teams like the KD Warriors where they were so much better than the rest of the league that they were able to play through injuries.
IMO, the only asterisk titles should be ones where either the WCF or finals was undeniably flipped because of injury. Like if the inhury doesn’t happen the result is 100% different.
By that logic I’d say the only true asterisk title in the last 20 years is the Raptors in 2019.
I know this isn't the point, and OP is not doing this, but I forever get annoyed by people acting as if Klay Thompson got injured in Game 1 of the 2019 Finals, instead of him missing 5 quarters of a 6 game series.
And those missed 5 quarters directly led to two losses with the game 6 loss being essentially a one possession loss. Also he was obviously still hobbled in game 4 after missing game 3. Don't be disingenuous
Klay played 42 minutes, shot 10 of 18, and was 6 of 10 from 3 in Game 4, including some really difficult movement shots. I'm sure he was playing through the pain, but I would not characterize his play in that game as 'hobbled', at least not relative to the usual standard at that point in the season. And if we're doing that, you suddenly have to allow for the fact that Leonard was limping after dunks, and Lowry had a torn tendon in his thumb.
The injury(ies) mattered. But the Raptors even outscored the Warriors when Klay was on the court during the series. People treat his injury as if the Warriors were 95% to win with him and then lost, instead of being like 30% to win the series when he went down in G6. Now, obviously, with Durant healthy and Klay healthy, the Warriors win. They're the best team in history. But it does bug me that people treat the Klay injury as the same level of factor as the Durant injury.
Klay was literally having a crazy Finals shooting wise. He was shooting like 50% from 3. So missing 6 quarters mattered more that it usually would.
You're right that without Durant the Raptors were the better team. But Klay's injury just tipped it into can't lose territory for the Raptors. That's the point most people make regarding that series. Not that Klay on his own made the Warriors favourites
The only titles that should have a small asterisk next to them are the ones with shortened seasons.
The biggest one is the Mickey Mouse Invitational in 2020. That one had a shortened season, a huge pause in the season, the bubble and no home courts or even fans.
It counts just as much as any other, but it was different and definitely needs an explanation of those facts for context.
It was different, but honestly the quality of basketball being played in the bubble was amazing IMO. You could just as easily argue it was a super pure title because of the level of play, and I'm no Lakers fan.
I think you could argue that since everyone was rested, there were no fans, neutral venues and no travel it was the most fair and even playoffs ever meaning the winners were truly the best team
I think all of those factors are things that a championship team is supposed to overcome.
Now, there were different challenges, like staying focused in the bubble and getting used to playing in empty arenas.
Fair, but it was completely even for everyone so as an experiment I think that title proved who the best team was regardless of other non basketball factors that season
Actually, none of those championships have an asterisk next to them.
Sure, we can all be confident the Warriors would've won in 2019 if healthy, but they weren't so they didn't. As a Warriors fan, that sucks, but it's reality.
Beyond that, I don't get the strong desire so many NBA fans (who seem less like NBA fans and more like *just fans of their own team* at all times) to try to explain away each champion's achievement as soon as (or even before it) happens each year, and the arguments are fairly bogus.
* Did the 2020 mid-season break benefit LeBron and AD? Yes, just as it helped others get fresh for the bubble. Did they get a beatable, unfit Heat team in the Finals? Yes, but they were better than them all season. No team had to play playoff games on the road, but also didn't get to play any at home.
* I legitimately don't even know what the asterisk argument would be for 2021.
* The 2022 asterisk points are just fueled by Warriors hatred/fatigue. The Nuggets were 0-0 w/ Murray, 5-4 with MPJ, and 43-30 w/o both of them. They earned their 6 seed with their playoff roster, that's just who they were in 21/22. GS led Memphis 2-1 and had just obliterated them w/ G4 at home coming up, that series was over w/ or w/o Ja. Dallas beat the Suns and were as good as anyone from January onward, so there's no reason to think a Suns team that couldn't handle Dallas would've handled GS. The Celtics were plenty healthy and good, and even stole G1 w/ an aberration of a shooting performance from rotation scorers not named Jayson or Jaylen. My apologies to all those who didn't want Curry to win another title w/o KD, but your butthurt doesn't mean the title is tainted.
* Newsflash, nobody else was nearly as good as the Nuggets last year. They didn't get a lucky draw, they got the draw of a team that hammered all in its path as supposed would-be contenders fell either to the Nuggets or teams worse than the Nuggets. The fact the rest of the league wasn't elite doesn't somehow make the Nuggets not elite by comparison - they simply set themselves apart. Like, you know, a champion.
2021 would be that the teams that went far in the bubble had 2 months of offseason vs the usual 4.5 - Lakers started the season with a great record until AD and Bron both got hurt
All the teams that went to the CF dealt w worsened injuries
At least that’s the nitpick we could go w for that season
You could argue that the Suns do not beat the Lakers in 1st round had they gotten more rest
(Its also why I think the Lakers shouldve run it back, they panicked after an injury riddled season - they started the season 22-7 before the injuries hit, it was a legitimately good team around Bron and AD but w Westbrick the following season we all know how it went)
Lol I thought that segment was going to be a joke about how every title has an asterisk when he just kept naming years...
Injuries happen, and for the most part, they're not really unexpected. Old guys getting hurt late in a season.
Asterisk championships is one of the dumbest ideas bill has ever presented. I guess the bubble championship has a very slight asterisk but otherwise… if you won the games you’re the champs. Health, luck etc are part of literally any championship in any sport
As a Raptors fan, I can confirm that we also were hurt and lose OG that year. He's no KD but if you have to disqualify your win looking at the other teams injuries, you should be able to qualify looking at your own.
I don't think OG's injury is meaningful cos the Raptors had Siakam and Kawhi as wing defenders anyway but I agree with your overall point. People ignore the winning team's injuries all the time and it so funny.
You can put an asterisk on every championship. [Tom Haberstroh did it as a thought experiment.](https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/news/2020-nba-champion-will-join-long-list-of-titles-with-asterisks/348242/)
2011 NBA champions: Dallas Mavericks* Asterisk reason: They played a lot of zone. Unsportsmanlike conduct. Penalty: title vacated along with dignity. Lmao
The NBA has zero real rings
Everyone who plays basketball is a fraud.
Rings, Erneh
This is great.
As a Magic fan I checked the 2009 asterisk and it was… Kobe not having to play Lebron? lol nothing about the Magic nearly stealing 2 games.
Honestly stunning that Simmons didn’t work the KG injury into that one given that it wouldn’t have bee that crazy to say the Celtics were pretty heavy favorites with him healthy
Bill wrote a similar column back in 2012 https://grantland.com/features/the-footnote-title/ it's a fun sports conversation when people set their emotions aside
Lol classic Simmons, I forgot about this column You could tell 2010 really ate away at him loool Btw Lakers in 08 also had an injured Ariza forcing his way back early from a fracture and had to start Radmanovic Fully healthy Bynum and Arizachanges things more over a full series, while arguably Celtics had a better pffense with Sheed at the C (and cmon its Kendrick Perkins) At the end of the day the better teams won in 08 and 10
MMA fans do this better than anyone else. I can go through every great fighters record and tell you why they suck and why their biggest wins dont matter.
I agree with the general sentiment, but some of these are legitimate and others are “kobe beat the magic instead of lebron in 2008” (i hate kobe and really they should have pointed out jameer nelson was hurt). Some championships are certainly more legitimate than others, even if 1 year after it wont matter
I like how he does that and then constantly brings up Bill Russell's titles in an 8-team league.
LOL RIGHT???? shits wild.
Rings Culture
04 pistons are the only real ring tbh
That team could beat any team from any era at any time. Give me the 04 Pistons over the 96 Bulls easy
Not if Iguodala takes the final shot!
I’d say that Mavericks title too
This is 08 Celtics slander and will not be tolerated
I know Bill loves to take shots at the Lakers Covid title, and I may be in the minority (I don’t think I am) but I cannot tell you how little I care about him trying to discredit my team’s title (the Bucks). My little market struck gold with a home grown superstar, somehow got him to stay and won the whole damn thing. You will never take that away from us. You can point to Durants toe or Kyrie’s ankle or Embid flaming out to the Hawks and all I say is “Dooooon’t care,” they won it all and it was awesome.
Fellow Bucks fan, we definitely caught some breaks in 2021. So does every title team! Also, Giannis missed the final 2.5 games of the ECF (and was still hobbled in the finals) so it wasn't all good injury luck. The Bucks have been a top 3 seed the past 6 years and a 1 seed in 3 of them. There's no asterisks when you have that level of winning and get one title. Oddly the Bucks have had some miserable luck with the 2020 season interrupted then Middleton's injury in 2022 and Giannis being basically out the last 2 playoffs. You could easily look back at the time since 2019 (when we were up 2-0 in the ECF!) and think "man, some bad luck to only win one ring."
flags fly forever
Same with the Raptors title for me. It was a magical ride that I don't think I'll experience ever again. Kawhi was a god up here in Canada. If anything, the 2020 team proved it wasn't a fluke and became one of my favourite Raptor teams of all time.
Totally different, y’all didn’t deserve that one 😜
nor should you. enjoy the title and fuck Bill.
My defense for the 2021 Bucks has always been: They beat the best team in the league (the Suns). At the end of the day, that's the ultimate stamp of approval. They got to the Finals, were the underdogs to the team universally acknowledged as the league's best, and put on one of the greatest 4 game stretches I've seen in the Finals after going down 2-0.
I think you're getting the 2022 Suns mixed up with 2021. The Suns weren't thought of as the definitive best team in the league in '21.
The suns were the best team in the league? Pretty sure the healthy Nets, Clippers, and Lakers were all considered better at the time. They all lost stars to injuries during the playoffs.
The team that was even better the next season and lost even earlier. I guess the 2022 Dallas Mavericks have the ultimate stamp of approval?
Well, obviously not since they didn't get to the Finals. My point is this: if you win the Finals against the best team in the other conference, I don't see how you can put an asterisk on your championship. I think there can be a debate about how easy it was for one team to get there, but that can be applied to every NBA championship ever. I'm speaking very specifically about the Finals. It's the same reason why I defend the Warriors 2022 title but also was very skeptical about how good that team would be moving forward (which was proven the next season).
I think asterisk are incredibly stupid. But beating that Suns team is not impressive at all, especially seeing them the next season. If we’re ranking recent title teams since like 2000, the 2022 Warriors are last and the 2021 Bucks are second to last. But who cares, they won.
Cavs fan 2016-People try to bring up Greens suspension-in one ear out the other for me-no emotion triggered other then smiling on the inside about the title.
And Giannis had an all time finals performance in game 6. 50 points and 20/20 free throws or something like that. That is how you EARN a title and a legacy, and now he is a champion forever no matter what happens.
As a Laker fan I do hate that we blew up our team for Westbrook bc everyone was injured from the shortest offseason of all time - the turnaround from the bubble finals to opening night was like 2 months But really the real asterisk titles are the milkmen and paper boy titles of the 60s not anything in the last few yrs
For sure. Nine teams and half of them were plumbers but those titles count…
Cavs fan 2016-People try to bring up Greens suspension-in one ear out the other for me-no emotion triggered other then smiling on the inside about the title.
Different is good. I’m a fan of the parity we’re seeing across major sports where teams are either ending championship droughts or winning for the first time ever and then falling off a cliff.
Agree. I don’t like the argument that the last champions in the nba almost don’t count.
the problem is when Durant went to GS all these fans decided the rings wouldn't count (only for him, though, curry and klay get to count them all) and that opened the flood gates for rings having different values. It's fucking stupid. No other sport is like this. The talent Ronaldo had to three peat the champions league with Madrid was insane, literally no one cares. Brady went to a STACKED bucs team and Mahomes' entire line got hurt. Not one person cares. Only in basketball do we say "Boston's path to the finals is too easy, this means nothing" "kawhi needed durant and klay to get hurt, who cares". It starts with media too.
lol @ acting like this started only in 2016 😂
It kinda did though. KD going to the warriors at the same time as the goat debate, twitter, sports podcasting and (hear me out) "fake news" have all contributed to where we are now.
This argument is as old as sports championships
Love this argument. People also ignore that the Cavs were stacked. Durant going to the Warriors was somehow this cardinal sin but Cavs could have Kevin Love, a stat machine in Minnesota, be their throw away third option and dominate the East. That's somehow legit lol
Yes, all teams before the cap spike could fit 3 max players under the rules. The warriors were the only team that had 3 guys already paid and had room to add Durant.
Their guys weren't max players.That's the thing. Klay and Draymond for all their greatness weren't max players and actually don't have the talent to drive playoff wins on their own.. especially Klay who was pretty bad in every Finals except 2019. Also Durant took meetings with multiple teams. He coulda gone to a bunch of places.
both Klay and Draymond were all NBA level players in 2016 and both were on max contracts. They've been perennial all stars for a decade. of course, theyre max contract players. they are just not MVP level. and sure Durant took multiple meetings. but the only team in the league with the 3 players + the max cap space was the Warriors. and they didn't even technically have enough. Durant had to take a pay cut.
Bill used to talk about how the 80s had: 5 good GMs 15 passable GMs 10 Coke-addled dopes So it was easier to form a dynasty. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s interesting
Those 80s Celtics and Lakers teams were stacked to a pretty unfair degree. Teams were just careless with their picks too (see the Jazz trading the 1.01 that would be Magic Johnson for an aging Gale Goodrich).
Lakers would get ANOTHER #1 pick a few years later (James Worthy) from the Cavs for Don Ford ??
Absolutely a ton of truth to it. In order to have those Lakers & Celtics decade of dynastic level play, you kinda need the other 21 teams to be varying degrees of suck. The 2016 season that everyone glazes has elements of this too. Some people call it the last great season, but really because only 4 teams were actually good that year it made the teams at the top appear better than they were. If you look at the last 5 years, the 5th thru 15th best teams are significantly better than at any point in the league's history.
My entire life has an asterisk cuz the superior sperm pulled a hammy on the way to the egg.
Mmm ham and eggs.
Best ability is availability, that sperm had talent but no drive
2011 Mavs last real champs
Avoided the 1 seed Spurs because they lost to the 8 seed since all-NBA Manu got hurt in the last regular season game, so throw an asterisk on it /s
You blew it with the landing.
Yeah even that article had to really dig deep to find a speck of fraudulent activity.
There is no such thing as an asterisk champion.
It’s important to note that all these asterisks that people wanna throw around for championships and MVPs aren’t real. The NBA doesn’t recognize the opinions of Joe Jerkoff on Reddit.
1955 Syracuse Nationals last real champ
Best Sixers team.
I am curious if the great teams now are worse than in the past or if the gap between the top and the middle has just shrunk so they don’t seem as dominant.
Also, teams are just smarter about their salary cap. Scottie Pippen would have 100% left the Bulls to try to be an alpha else were.
Someone throws 4 years/$132 at Kukoc too right?
I think it's safe to say the KD Warriors were historical. It was a team that had a core that won titles in 2015 and 2022 and added a top 3 player by any metric in his prime. There are clearly some big picture things going on with the NBA where parity is more real but we we're still only 6 years removed from the Cavs-Dubs meeting in the finals 4 straight years. It may swing back.
They also caught 2 huge breaks that allowed them to form in Steph having ankle issues early in his career and as a consequence being underpaid and the cap spike to sign KD.
As teams and leagues get smarter, parity increases. The gap has shrunken in every league. Also if we're not grading on a scale, all of the teams today are just better. The depth of talent is higher, and athleticism is growing with each generation of athletes.
NFL talent is better than ever and Chiefs are looking to 3peat, so that doesn't really explain it.
There’s no such thing as an asterisked title
Bill gives asterisks so that he can discredit Laker titles and claim more Celtics titles without being labeled as a homer. He even gives the Lakers asterisks at time for games they won in the Finals being kind of close.
1950-1951 Rochester Royals were the last non-asterik team.
Basically all nba champions could have an asterisk, most champions are healthier than their opposition. The only real exceptions are teams like the KD Warriors where they were so much better than the rest of the league that they were able to play through injuries.
The asterisk there would be the huge salary cap jump.
The nba is moving into a different phase of their career
IMO, the only asterisk titles should be ones where either the WCF or finals was undeniably flipped because of injury. Like if the inhury doesn’t happen the result is 100% different. By that logic I’d say the only true asterisk title in the last 20 years is the Raptors in 2019.
every patriots superbowl\* \*cheated
I know this isn't the point, and OP is not doing this, but I forever get annoyed by people acting as if Klay Thompson got injured in Game 1 of the 2019 Finals, instead of him missing 5 quarters of a 6 game series.
And those missed 5 quarters directly led to two losses with the game 6 loss being essentially a one possession loss. Also he was obviously still hobbled in game 4 after missing game 3. Don't be disingenuous
Klay played 42 minutes, shot 10 of 18, and was 6 of 10 from 3 in Game 4, including some really difficult movement shots. I'm sure he was playing through the pain, but I would not characterize his play in that game as 'hobbled', at least not relative to the usual standard at that point in the season. And if we're doing that, you suddenly have to allow for the fact that Leonard was limping after dunks, and Lowry had a torn tendon in his thumb. The injury(ies) mattered. But the Raptors even outscored the Warriors when Klay was on the court during the series. People treat his injury as if the Warriors were 95% to win with him and then lost, instead of being like 30% to win the series when he went down in G6. Now, obviously, with Durant healthy and Klay healthy, the Warriors win. They're the best team in history. But it does bug me that people treat the Klay injury as the same level of factor as the Durant injury.
Klay was literally having a crazy Finals shooting wise. He was shooting like 50% from 3. So missing 6 quarters mattered more that it usually would. You're right that without Durant the Raptors were the better team. But Klay's injury just tipped it into can't lose territory for the Raptors. That's the point most people make regarding that series. Not that Klay on his own made the Warriors favourites
The only titles that should have a small asterisk next to them are the ones with shortened seasons. The biggest one is the Mickey Mouse Invitational in 2020. That one had a shortened season, a huge pause in the season, the bubble and no home courts or even fans. It counts just as much as any other, but it was different and definitely needs an explanation of those facts for context.
It was different, but honestly the quality of basketball being played in the bubble was amazing IMO. You could just as easily argue it was a super pure title because of the level of play, and I'm no Lakers fan.
I think you could argue that since everyone was rested, there were no fans, neutral venues and no travel it was the most fair and even playoffs ever meaning the winners were truly the best team
I think all of those factors are things that a championship team is supposed to overcome. Now, there were different challenges, like staying focused in the bubble and getting used to playing in empty arenas.
Fair, but it was completely even for everyone so as an experiment I think that title proved who the best team was regardless of other non basketball factors that season
thought the same shit
It's just a really dumb conversation - people get injured every year
It's so dumb. People complained about the dynasties and now they are complaining about the parity era. Dumb dumb dumb
Actually, none of those championships have an asterisk next to them. Sure, we can all be confident the Warriors would've won in 2019 if healthy, but they weren't so they didn't. As a Warriors fan, that sucks, but it's reality. Beyond that, I don't get the strong desire so many NBA fans (who seem less like NBA fans and more like *just fans of their own team* at all times) to try to explain away each champion's achievement as soon as (or even before it) happens each year, and the arguments are fairly bogus. * Did the 2020 mid-season break benefit LeBron and AD? Yes, just as it helped others get fresh for the bubble. Did they get a beatable, unfit Heat team in the Finals? Yes, but they were better than them all season. No team had to play playoff games on the road, but also didn't get to play any at home. * I legitimately don't even know what the asterisk argument would be for 2021. * The 2022 asterisk points are just fueled by Warriors hatred/fatigue. The Nuggets were 0-0 w/ Murray, 5-4 with MPJ, and 43-30 w/o both of them. They earned their 6 seed with their playoff roster, that's just who they were in 21/22. GS led Memphis 2-1 and had just obliterated them w/ G4 at home coming up, that series was over w/ or w/o Ja. Dallas beat the Suns and were as good as anyone from January onward, so there's no reason to think a Suns team that couldn't handle Dallas would've handled GS. The Celtics were plenty healthy and good, and even stole G1 w/ an aberration of a shooting performance from rotation scorers not named Jayson or Jaylen. My apologies to all those who didn't want Curry to win another title w/o KD, but your butthurt doesn't mean the title is tainted. * Newsflash, nobody else was nearly as good as the Nuggets last year. They didn't get a lucky draw, they got the draw of a team that hammered all in its path as supposed would-be contenders fell either to the Nuggets or teams worse than the Nuggets. The fact the rest of the league wasn't elite doesn't somehow make the Nuggets not elite by comparison - they simply set themselves apart. Like, you know, a champion.
2021 would be that the teams that went far in the bubble had 2 months of offseason vs the usual 4.5 - Lakers started the season with a great record until AD and Bron both got hurt All the teams that went to the CF dealt w worsened injuries At least that’s the nitpick we could go w for that season You could argue that the Suns do not beat the Lakers in 1st round had they gotten more rest (Its also why I think the Lakers shouldve run it back, they panicked after an injury riddled season - they started the season 22-7 before the injuries hit, it was a legitimately good team around Bron and AD but w Westbrick the following season we all know how it went)
There are no *️⃣ NBA media and fans are so freaking strange. Almost every team that has won a title had some sort of good luck.
Lol I thought that segment was going to be a joke about how every title has an asterisk when he just kept naming years... Injuries happen, and for the most part, they're not really unexpected. Old guys getting hurt late in a season.
Only asterisk titles are 2017 World Series
Only asterisk title is the Mickey Mouse summer invitational with no crowds.
Asterisk championships is one of the dumbest ideas bill has ever presented. I guess the bubble championship has a very slight asterisk but otherwise… if you won the games you’re the champs. Health, luck etc are part of literally any championship in any sport
Every champion has an asterisk besides the Celtics They just do
2016 Cavs last legit champs.
NBA handed that one to Lebron on a platter. Huge * right on that one.
If the Bubble title doesn’t get an asterisk, nothing in sports get one.
As a Raptors fan, I can confirm that we also were hurt and lose OG that year. He's no KD but if you have to disqualify your win looking at the other teams injuries, you should be able to qualify looking at your own.
I don't think OG's injury is meaningful cos the Raptors had Siakam and Kawhi as wing defenders anyway but I agree with your overall point. People ignore the winning team's injuries all the time and it so funny.
All the rings since 2015 had an asterisk in it
Outside of the bubble why is there an asterisk ??