Where do the 1990s Chicago Bulls rank among the greatest dynasties in NBA history?
As we prepare to look back on the Bulls' six championships with ESPN's 10-part documentary "The Last Dance" (debuting Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN and the ESPN App), it's worth considering Chicago's place alongside the league's other great multiyear runs.
Using a formula that combines regular-season and playoff success, with an additional bonus for repeat championships like the Bulls' pair of three-peats, I ranked the top 10 dynasties in NBA history. Let's take a look.
How it works
The biggest challenge of rating dynasties is how to account for reigns of different lengths without using an arbitrary cutoff, like best five seasons.
To set the bar for great teams, I came up with a "replacement level" for each season, equivalent to a modern team winning 55 games and losing in the second round of the playoffs. Any performance above this added to a team's "dynasty points" (while a score below it subtracts from them until they reach zero). I then picked each team's highest overall cumulative score from across their run to represent the dynasty.
Each team's season rating is based on a combination of how well the team played in the regular season and how far it advanced in the playoffs relative to the size of the league. So, for instance, winning 65 games is better than winning 60, and winning the title in a 30-team NBA means a little more than winning when the league had fewer teams.
To calculate the score for each season, the first step is finding the average of a team's regular-season win percentage and the percentage of teams that did not advance as far in the playoffs. A current champion scores a .97 rating for playoff performance because it outperformed 29 of the other 30 teams, while a first-round loser scores a .47. In an eight-team league, however, winning a championship is worth just a .875 rating.
As an example, let's use the 1997-98 Bulls:
Step 1: Those Bulls averaged a .861 rating between their .765 winning percentage in the regular season and their .965 playoff score.
Step 2: Add a .075 bonus for repeating as champions, a sign of teams that have truly dominated the league over multiple seasons. This makes the Bulls' total rating .936, or .94.
Step 3: Subtract the replacement level (.7) from the team's rating for each season to get its season score, which is .24 for the 1997-98 Bulls -- third among their championship seasons.
Step 4: Add that to the team's dynasty rating entering the season. That gives us the Bulls' final dynasty score of 1.35.
Now, on to where that ranks all time ...
Honorable mention
2003-08 Detroit Pistons (0.52 dynasty points)
2008-11 L.A. Lakers (0.51)
1977-83 Philadelphia 76ers (0.5)
The 2000s Pistons aren't a classic dynasty, boasting only a single championship, but their six consecutive conference finals appearances rank second since the ABA-NBA merger behind the 1980s Lakers.
The Kobe Bryant-led Lakers did win back-to-back titles and reached three consecutive Finals but quickly flamed out thereafter, getting swept out of the 2011 playoffs in the conference semifinals by the eventual champion Dallas Mavericks.
Led by Julius Erving, the Sixers lost in the Finals three times before finally breaking through with newcomer Moses Malone in 1983, going 12-1 in the "Fo', Fo', Fo'" postseason.
10. 1987-91 Detroit Pistons (0.53 dynasty)
Championships: 2
Finals appearances: 3
Regular-season winning%: .678
The "Bad Boys" bridged the gap between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers dynasties of the 1980s and the Bulls in the 1990s, pushing aside Boston (in 1988) and the Lakers (in 1989) before being swept out of dynasty-dom by Chicago in the 1991 conference finals.
In between, the Pistons came within a win of three consecutive championships. Their dynasty score is held back by a relatively short peak and middling regular-season performance over that span compared to other back-to-back champs.
9. 2011-14 Miami Heat (0.61)
Championships: 2
Finals appearances: 4
Regular-season winning%: .718
Yes, the "Big Three" Heat fell short of LeBron James' anticipatory boasts of "Not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven ..." championships, settling for two of them.
Still, Miami's run before James returned to Cleveland was surpassed over a four-year span by only four teams on this list. (Among the top five, the '80s Celtics were the one that never had a four-year stretch that rated this well.) That merits the Heat a spot among the NBA's top dynasties.
8. 1949-54 Minneapolis Lakers (0.65)
Championships: 5
Finals appearances: 5
Regular-season winning%: .676
The Lakers boast the league's first dynasty in their ancestral home of Minneapolis. After moving from the NBL to the BAA in 1948-49, the year before the leagues merged to become the NBA, the Lakers won five championships in a six-year span that is recognized as part of NBA history.
With basketball's first superstar in George Mikan, Minneapolis also took the 1948 NBL title, which is not reflected in these rankings.
7. 1998-2004 Los Angeles Lakers (0.75)
Championships: 3
Finals appearances: 4
Regular-season winning%: .699
After an up-and-down 1990s, the Lakers' new dynasty began in earnest when Phil Jackson took over as head coach ahead of the 1999-2000 season and immediately led the team to three consecutive championships led by the superstar duo of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.
The Shaq-Kobe pairing proved short-lived, as tensions led to O'Neal's trade after a loss in the 2004 Finals to Detroit. At their best, specifically a 15-1 postseason run to the 2001 championship, these Lakers were as good as any team in league history.
6. 2001-17 San Antonio Spurs (0.85)
Championships: 4
Finals appearances: 5
Regular-season winning%: .716
San Antonio's run of nearly two decades is unlike any other in these rankings, with only coach Gregg Popovich linking the entire era. Technically, the Spurs don't get credit for their 1999 championship here because of a first-round exit the following season (with San Antonio keeping a young Tim Duncan on the bench after a meniscus tear rather than pushing him to play through it). Still, San Antonio's run encompasses four more seasons than Bill Russell's Celtics and 13 more than the shortest dynasty on this list.
Amazingly, the Spurs managed a .700-plus winning percentage over that entire period, which featured a couple of different peaks. After losing to the Lakers in the 2008 Western Conference finals, they would have ranked seventh on this list, while their second sustained run from 2010-11 through 2016-17 would narrowly miss it.
5. 2015-19 Golden State Warriors (0.92)
Championships: 3
Finals appearances: 5
Regular-season winning%: .785
The Warriors still have a chance to move up this leaderboard, though a lottery-bound 2019-20 season will severely hamper their score. For now, this is the briefest dynasty in the top eight of the rankings, a testament to how thoroughly Golden State dominated the league in the first five years after Steve Kerr's arrival as head coach of a team that had won two playoff series in the previous 23 seasons.
Given that the Warriors' two series losses both came in the Finals, one in an epic seven-game series and the other with stars Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson both succumbing to severe injuries, they narrowly missed jumping up to fourth place on this list.
4. 1980-88 Boston Celtics (0.96)
Championships: 3
Finals appearances: 5
Regular-season winning %: .745
Before heel surgeries limited Larry Bird's 1988-89 season to just six games, the Celtics were neck and neck with the Lakers for the dynasty of the 1980s thanks to a superior record in the regular season. Three factors ultimately differentiated the two teams: the Lakers' superior longevity and their more consistent trips to the Finals, as well as a 2-1 advantage in the head-to-head series.
In the loaded East, the Celtics had a tougher time getting past first the Philadelphia 76ers and later the Pistons to reach the Finals. But once there, they added three more banners to the crowded rafters of the old Boston Garden.
3. 1980-91 Los Angeles Lakers (1.25)
Championships: 5
Finals appearances: 9
Regular-season winning%: .724
In a modern context, it will be difficult for any team to top the Lakers' nine trips to the Finals in 12 years before Magic Johnson's first retirement. The Lakers made a series of transitions seamlessly, first from Jack McKinney to Paul Westhead to most famously Pat Riley on the sidelines and then from building around Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Magic as team leader.
Though the core was aging by that point, it's possible the Lakers could have added more Finals appearances if not for Johnson being diagnosed as HIV-positive after a five-game loss to the Bulls in 1991. Lakers fans can also lament a missed opportunity at a three-peat in 1989 when Johnson was limited to 75 minutes and backcourt mate Byron Scott did not play at all in a Finals sweep at the hands of the Detroit Pistons.
2. 1989-98 Chicago Bulls (1.35)
Championships: 6
Finals appearances: 6
Regular-season winning%: .738
What's remarkable about the Bulls' pair of three-peats is how much turnover there was between them. Stars Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, along with coach Phil Jackson, were the lone constants. Every other spot on the roster turned over between Chicago beating Phoenix in the 1993 NBA Finals and returning there to beat Seattle in 1996.
That's a testament to a pair of things: the strength of the Bulls' core, led by perhaps the greatest player and greatest coach in league history, and also GM Jerry Krause's ability to keep the roster from stagnating with shrewd additions headlined by sixth man Toni Kukoc and Dennis Rodman.
On their own, each three-peat would rank among the top 10 dynasties. Together, they're second overall.
1. 1957-69 Boston Celtics (1.66)
Championships: 11
Finals appearances: 12
Regular-season winning%: .705
Granted, conditions were favorable for a dynasty in the pre-expansion NBA. Eight of the Celtics' 11 championships came with fewer than 10 teams in the league, and legendary coach Red Auerbach never had to worry about a salary cap or Bill Russell taking his talents to South Beach.
Still, we've never seen a run in any pro sport like Boston's 11 titles in 13 seasons, led by Russell. Even without the bonus for repeat championships, the Celtics would still come out on top of this list.