For the past 40 years, nearly every single championship team has had at least one player that was a 1st team all-NBA selection in years prior to that title year.
I could only find 2 exceptions to this rule:
- Steph Curry’s first selection to 1st team All-NBA was the year he won his first title.
- The 04’ Pistons did not field a player ever selected that list.
For every other year, the champs had at least one such player. In nearly 50% of those years, the champ fielded 2 such players.
So, who meets the criteria this year?
- 76ers
- Warriors
- Clippers
- Lakers
- Suns
- Bucks
- Celtics
- Nuggets
- OKC
- Mavericks
We can further divide this list based on other data that’s likely not as accurate as the 1st team metric.
First, we can look at the average age of the roster weighted for minutes played. The average age of title-winning rosters, when weighted for minutes played, comes in at 28.234 years. Based on last season’s numbers (all I had available, but enough to usefully ballpark), the following teams fall into this optimal age range:
- Nuggets
- Warriors (shockingly, but this might go up dramatically depending on CP’s usage)
- 76ers
- Mavs
- Lakers (Again, lightly shocking but the bottom half of the roster is pretty young.)
- Suns
- 76ers
- Celtics
We can then divide this list again by teams with 2+ stars with 1st team selections. Teams with 2 stars of this caliber win in nearly 50% of the seasons for the past 40 years. This means these teams have a much higher chance of winning in any given year than teams with just one 1st team guy.
- Lakers
- Suns
Some caveats regarding 2 star rosters*
The Warriors technically fit, but CP3 is past his statistical prime and that likely reduces the impact.
The 76ers technically fit while Harden is there, but he’s likely to leave (and also past his statistical prime)
Conclusion: Anything can happen and the 04’ Pistons are proof, but the most probable outcome is that one of the above teams will win this upcoming year. The teams with talent in that top 5-7 range almost always win.
My personal prediction:
The Suns: Their offense is going to be really hard to stop. Making shots at a really high percentage makes playing defense easier because you’re able to set your defense more frequently.
The Nuggets: Best player in the league, in his prime, with great support.
The Celtics: Eventually they’ll get over the hump. Could be this year
The Lakers: If healthy*, I think theres enough there around Bron/AD
Dark horse: The Mavs - Sometimes a guy is just so good, he pulls a weak roster all the way.
I mean, there are 30 teams in the league, and half of them is not even trying to win now and if they had a First-team All-NBA level of star somehow, that star’d likely leave for a contending team. It doesn’t really narrow anything much to make a list of 10. I guess Heat, Grizzlies and Cavs may be sad.
I think it helps to give realistic expectations to teams that are competitive but lacking those guys. You constantly see posts about “can X team contend this year?”, and the answer is usually no if they don’t have “that dude”. I honestly don’t think a lot of people realize that they don’t actually have a shot
Who isn’t trying to win now? The only teams that are legit gonna be bad are the Wizards and Pistons really. Everyone else will be trying to some degree. Obviously alot of teams aren’t gonna be great or real contenders but overall this is the most stacked the NBA has ever been.
The players will probably always try to win, also in Wizards and Pistons. But many teams have a general approach that the focus is more the future, they base on young players and won’t sacrifice the future just for this season, which means they are conceding that the success in this season is not the priority.
Like Spurs, whom you not listed, just had one of the worse seasons in history and now they will focus on developing their star rookie, I feel very safe saying that they will not be contending and they will not have an All-NBA First Team player lol.
You’re right. But I still think the Spurs are gonna be a decent team. League is so deep I feel like they almost solved their load management issue by just not having terrible teams.