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 think it comes from how well the Lakers played after the trade deadline. They had like a top 3 record or something in the league, and then made a deep run with a team that had only been together for a couple months. Not a reach to say that with a full off-season together, they could be contenders.
I think it actually is a reach instead. The deep run was made by a series of lucky strikes, like I said Minnie owned that playin game for 3 quarters and half, god know what have happened in game 2 of playin then and even with a win I think Denver would have swept the Lakers anyway... then Memphis in round one presented a whole series of good lucks, Memphis had issues with Ja, Ja got injured at the beginning of the series, still Memphis somehow had the opportunity to go 2-2 and chocked... and also GSW had some bad luck coming from a drenching 7 games vs Sacramento and having Poole loosing single handly a game already won in game 4 (plus game 1 absurde numbers of FTs and fouls called on GSW...)
Don't want to discredit too much the Lakers, they were totally good and a team with Lebron and AD shouldn't arrive nothing close to 7th seed to begin with, but track history didn't says too well for them. Yes they won a title full 3 years ago, but since they never arrived more than 7th seed and the West is probably even better now than some years in the past...
I just don't see them as a contender right now, they will be a 4 or 5 seed by the end of the season, considering that both Lebron and AD couldn't play 65+ games...
How does any of that discount their post-trade deadline record? I guess I can see the argument that their postseason run could have been flukey, but they were consistently good before the playoffs even started.
I think they got really hyped by the change of mood and the team improved greatly from getting away from Russ... AD stayed healthy too in that stretch and really I don't think it was a great thing to have a great record post trade deadline where the top of the class teams usually starting to rest players, as well as tanking teams, so it isn't really that hard for teams that actually has to be good.
Remember also that at certain point Dallas decided to fuck up the season for draft right reasons, or less the Lakers wouldn't even been a top 8th seed for sure....
All of this couldn't be discounted as well imho. But I guess we will see how it goes this season now that they have a full season plus a full off-season to prepare. Imho in the West they are for sure worst than Nuggets, Warriors, Suns and maybe even Kings. I'm not sure about Memphis, Clippers (which really I think they will be bad) and OKC too. Lakers will be in the mix for sure but I hardly see them go over the 4th seed and over the second round again, realistically.