Championship Points

Putting championships won by each NBA franchise in context.

Bill James recently posted a thread on X about awarding teams championship points for each season. The idea is simple: award the league champion one point for each team that is competing for the title. For example, the 2023-24 Boston Celtics would earn 30 points for winning the Finals since the NBA is currently a 30-team league.

The average franchise earns one point per season, so James turned this into a plus-minus score by subtracting the number of seasons competed from the franchise’s total championship points.

Going back to the Celtics, they have amassed 267 championship points in 78 seasons, a score of plus-189 (267 minus 78). That’s actually the second-highest value for a franchise, trailing the Los Angeles Lakers, who own a score of plus-290. How is that possible when the Celtics have claimed 18 titles while the Lakers have won “only” 17 championships?

Simple: it all goes back to the number of teams in the NBA. Half of Boston’s 18 championships came in seasons with fewer than 10 teams, the first four in an eight-team league and the next five in a nine-team league. Only five of the Celtics’ titles have come since the ABA-NBA merger, when the NBA expanded to 22 teams.

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On the other hand, the Lakers have won 11 post-merger championships. The average number of teams in the league in the Lakers’ title seasons is 21.5, easily surpassing the Celtics’ corresponding figure of 14.8.

With 366 points in 76 seasons, the Lakers could fail to win a title in each of the next 365 seasons* and still be above zero. Here are all of the current franchises with a positive score:

• Los Angeles Lakers, +290

• Boston Celtics, +189

• Chicago Bulls, +110

• San Antonio Spurs, +100

• Golden State Warriors, +79

• Miami Heat, +54

• Detroit Pistons, +5

• Toronto Raptors, +1

* To steal James’ joke about the Yankees, the Lakers are working on it.

No franchise has a score of zero, which means 23 of the 30 active franchises have a negative score. Ten of those franchises have never won a title:

• New Orleans Pelicans, –22

• Memphis Grizzlies, –29

• Charlotte Hornets, –34

• Minnesota Timberwolves, –35

• Orlando Magic, –35

• Indiana Pacers*, –48

• Brooklyn Nets*, –48

• Utah Jazz, –50

• LA Clippers, –54

• Phoenix Suns, –56

* I should note that the Pacers and Nets won three and two ABA championships, respectively.

However, two franchises actually have lower scores than those listed above: the Sacramento Kings (one title in 76 seasons for a score of minus-65) and the Atlanta Hawks (one title in 75 seasons for a score of minus-67).

Now, you may ask yourself why the Kings have a higher score than the Hawks even though:

1. the Kings have played more seasons, and

2. the Kings lone title came in 1951, versus 1958 for the Hawks.

It has to do with the number of teams in the league. The NBA had 11 teams in the 1950-51 season, so the Kings (then known as the Rochester Royals) earned 11 championship points. When the St. Louis Hawks won the NBA Finals in 1958, it was in an eight-team league, so they received eight championship points.

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If we restrict our attention to post-merger seasons (i.e., since 1976-77), the Lakers remain on top, but the Celtics drop to fourth:

• Los Angeles Lakers, +243

• Chicago Bulls, +120

• San Antonio Spurs, +100

• Boston Celtics, +81

• Golden State Warriors, +72

• Miami Heat, +54

• Detroit Pistons, +33

• Houston Rockets, +6

• Toronto Raptors, +1

Eight teams are tied at the bottom with minus-48 points, meaning they’ve played every season since the merger without winning a title:

• Atlanta Hawks

• Brooklyn Nets

• Indiana Pacers

• LA Clippers

• New York Knicks

• Phoenix Suns

• Sacramento Kings

• Utah Jazz

I’ll end this with some trivia. Only one NBA title has been won by a now-defunct franchise. Can you name that team?

The answer is the 1947-48 Baltimore Bullets. This is not the franchise that is currently named the Washington Wizards but was once known as the Baltimore Bullets. This Bullets franchise joined the NBA (then known as the Basketball Association of America) in 1947 and folded 14 games into the 1954-55 season. It’s an odd story. Baltimore disbanded on November 27, 1954 with a record of 3-11. However, the NBA’s official records for the 1954-55 season do not include Baltimore’s games and team statistics, nor do they include the statistics of opposing players and teams in games played against Baltimore.